straight from the hip An Australian Nuffield Scholar believes it’s important for different practices to be able to continue in the same region
Jemma Sadler is an exceptional grain farmer. She operates in partnership with her brother, growing wheat and canola in the Wongan Hills of West Australia. She is bright, detailed, progressive and successful.
Jemma is also at the heart of one of agriculture’s greatest debates — the coexistence of conventional, organic and genetically engineered (GE) crops. She started looking at the challenge through the lens of weed control. With herbicide resistance at near-epidemic levels, what were the other solutions and could genetically selected herbicide-tolerant crops lead to solutions? More importantly, could these growers successfully advance in areas where there was conventional and organic production?
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The use of GE crops is not new. Today more than 17 million farmers in 36 countries use some type of GE crop. So the existence of and the merit of the crop is not Jemma’s focus. She does, however, challenge all producers to think about the coexistence of both conventional and GE crops in the same region. This is where emotion tends to cloud the discussion and folks start to debate the practice — whereas Jemma quietly resolves to clear a pathway for coexistence.
Jemma farms both conventional and GE crops over 4,500 hectares, so she has great experience in production. Her main weeds are wild radish and annual ryegrass. In Australia there is 15 per cent susceptibility to treatment on the wild radish and six per cent on the annual ryegrass. The use of herbicide then becomes almost redundant. The solution for some conventional farmers is in the introduction of GE crops and the debate remains in that decision-making process.
To complicate the discussion, when Jemma and I were in London and visiting with WTO leaders, it became apparent that the global definition of a GE plant had not yet been established. How then do we define good from bad, right from wrong and have a solution in communities where both camps have a difference of opinion in the meanings? Jemma offers these solutions after two years of her Nuffield study.
Jemma acknowledges that herbicide-tolerant crops play a role in managing weeds and that for all the management systems to continue to prosper, there must be some avenue of coexistence. She says all systems will need to be healthy and in place to ensure that the industry can continue to meet rising demand.
As I walked along with Jemma in her fields, I felt that her relationship with the land was intense as was her relationship with her community. This was evident in the shared-access roads and careful planning of traffic and shelterbelts. She did, however, confess to contacting a fellow farmer late in the season just before planting to inform him of her conventional and GE planting intentions. The late call was distressing to the farmer, who felt he had not enough time to evaluate the process. It was — she admits — an error on her part to not have phoned earlier in the year.
It is these types of incidents that Jemma says can be avoided and she goes as far as to recommend that thresholds should be supported to protect those farmers who wish to carry on with conventional and organic farming. She also recommends that industry support and technology equally distribute the information for the betterment of all cropping practices. She found examples worldwide of sensitive site mapping and regional plans that allowed for seed purity and the coexistence of crops.
Both non-chemical weed management and integrated weed management from machine to microwave, high-pressure spray to the development of glyphosate reversal are all options and will likely have a high rate of acceptance based on test results, whereas the widespread acceptance of GE crops such as glyphosate wheat will meet more challenge.
Finally, Jemma throws open the door and recommends that growers be solely responsible for their own choices and their own costs. To do so in harmony takes a little time and courage but it is very important for the survivability of all production systems. You can view Jemma’s report at http://www.nuffieldinternational.org/rep_pdf/1373427982SadlerJemmafinalreport.pdf and decide for yourself if and how the organic, conventional and GE crops can coexist amicably.
