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Australasian Biotechnology, Vol. 11 No. 2, 2001, pp. 23-24 BIOTECH LAW THE IMPACT OF THE GENE TECHNOLOGY ACT ON THE BIOTECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY Peter Neilson, Australian Manager, Crop & Food Research Australia Pty Ltd Code Number: au01023 IntroductionCrop & Food Research uses biotechnology for plant breeding, and the fee structure and regulation imposed by the OGTR will determine whether the company carries out trials in Australia that involve material classified as GM by the OTGR. 1. Who is Crop & Food Research ?Crop & Food Research Australia Pty Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the New Zealand Institute for Crop & Food Research Ltd. The Institute provides research, technology and services to support the development of high quality products from cereals, pulses, vegetables, flowers, seafood, forestry and new crops such as phytomedicinal herbs, plant extracts and nut crops. In Australia, the operation involves a range of activities including:
This is not a large company. The Australian operation is supported and serviced by a considerable number of the 320 C&FR staff in NZ, around 280 of whom are science level staff, with the balance being in communications, publicity, finance and associated support services. Our revenue is around 30 million NZ dollars and growing. The move into Australia is part of Crop & Food Research’s program to expand its international presence. At this stage, Crop & Food Research has staff in Sydney, Melbourne and Albury with additional staff planned for future developments in key areas for company activities. Crop & Food Research Australia is a member of the Seed Industry Association of Australia and of the Plant Breeders and Proprietary Marketers Group. 2. BiotechnologyBecause we are plant breeders and developers of technologies associated with plant breeding, we use modern molecular technologies to speed up the process and make it more efficient. I am talking about molecular technologies as opposed to GM which is just one component. Things like molecular markers, gene maps, DNA fingerprinting, tissue culture, wide hybridisation, doubled haploids and so on, all form part of our toolbox. Gene transformation is the newest and perhaps potentially the most useful addition to our molecular technology toolbox. The Current PositionMost of our agricultural work is currently based in NZ at our Institute Headquarters in Christchurch, with genetic modification of ornamentals at Palmerston North and use of molecular technology for understanding and manipulating quality factors especially post-harvest. A Royal Commission is currently reviewing all GM research and its applications in NZ and a moratorium on commercial field trials is in force. (though we still have some trials on GM potatoes this year approved before the moratorium was put in place). Recent changes to the new organisms and hazardous substances legislation have introduced bureaucratic complications for the development of the GM industry in NZ, and ever-rising fees and charges are making it very expensive and borderline for small to medium-sized companies like ourselves. In NZ, fees (based on actual time of ERMA staff to process applications at $120 per hour, plus cost of hearings at about $7k per day) for field trials are in the area of $30,000+, but can be spread over the life of the trials e.g. 4 - 5 years. Fees for a general release (estimate only) are likely to be around $250,000. Clearly, in a small country like NZ, the current fee structure is untenable. Even Monsanto pulled out with its proposed wheat and canola applications for field trials and for general release respectively. The price of compliance was exacerbated by widespread public opposition and the impending moratorium. AustraliaAustralia is larger, of course, but in terms of companies investing in GM here, the size of the market is a major constraint if the fees and charges are going to be unreasonable. It is important to point out that cost recovery by regulatory agencies usually doesn’t consider the impact on the cost structure on the ability of companies to survive. We have a range of innovative material that we want to develop in Australia. Over time, the technology will return significant benefits:
The regime of testing that our material must endure means that the food products derived from this material are likely to be amongst the safest that consumers can eat, much more so than conventional, lesser tested materials. C&FR’s PositionI can only speak for our company, but if the annual trial fees per variety exceed $5,000 and if the release fees exceed 8 - 10% of the net return, C&FR will not be able to afford to bring its technology into Australia. Instead, the technology is more likely to go to the USA or Canada, where the industry is encouraged, through moderate fees and charges and the market is of a size that maximises the return on dollars spent. Multinationals/Large Companies The big companies are prepared to pay a high price for testing and environmental compliance because they have more invested, but it is questionable if they will do this in some of the food sectors once they carry out a financial analysis and realise the Australian market is just not worth it. If the fee structure unreasonably discriminates against small and medium companies and by default favours the large, the level of choice available to all sectors is diminished and the one big bogey of which everyone is afraid, “domination by the multinationals” is successfully facilitated by the bureaucracy. Potential LossOn the other hand, we need to remember that by comparison, our domestic market is small and may not even be attractive to the large companies, as I have already mentioned. If this is the case, we need to ask ourselves what the real physical & financial losses will be to our growers, our primary industries and what opportunities for improved and novel health and nutrition and an improved environment will be denied to our consumers. An obvious potential loss will be our brightest molecular biologists moving overseas and to large overseas companies. Of more concern is that the modified material may come to Australia in foods, as it does now, in forms of which we are relatively unaware and from a testing regime over which we have no control and about which we know very little. The recent ANZFA ruling means all food with detectable GM content will be labelled - will this apply to all imports? We also need to consider the WTO issues that may impact on importation of GM foods. It is interesting to note that if the common potato was a new introduction today, it would fail to be released to the public on food safety grounds. One of the most emotive platforms, the right of the consumer to choose, is largely lost. This is a high price for regulation; it is akin to an economic moratorium on GM crops and denies consumers the right of choice. Our farmers and our primary industry will become less competitive, agricultural exports will decline and imports increase, along with those GM containing foods from the USA and elsewhere. ConclusionAn unrealistic fees and charges regime (this may equate to full cost recovery) will be the one bureaucratic piece of regulation that can, on its own, significantly diminish the chance for our primary industry sector to compete on the world stage and to provide well-tested and safe food for Australian consumers in competition to potentially cheaper and lesser tested imports. This same piece of regulation has the power to discriminate in favour of large companies, which will inevitably reduce the ability of users at all levels, to make a choice. Another feature of a high cost and excessively bureaucratic process is that it encourages non-compliance. In our submission to the development of the OGTR, the central point was “please don’t charge us out of Australia”.
Copyright 2001 - AusBiotech |
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