The growing of GM crops has provided benefits to farmers in Argentina, Brazil, India and China through yield improvements and/or reduced production costs. The proportion of cotton, soybean, maize and canola planted to GM varieties in these countries is already significant and continues to increase each year. These countries are expected to approve additional GM crops in the future.
Australia competes with emerging economies on global markets, particularly for oilseeds, wheat and cotton. Additionally, Australia is a major supplier of grain and oilseeds to China, and more recently India. Increases in agricultural productivity in emerging economies as a result of their adoption of GM crops can be expected to have potential adverse implications for Australia’s export competitiveness in these crops.
In a market environment where emerging economies continue to increase their uptake of GM crops, the illustrative modelling results presented in this report indicate that Australia would benefit from the introduction of GM crops. The modelling undertaken considers only the impacts on Australia of additional GM crop uptake for a limited number of countries and crops – oilseeds and wheat. However, the uptake of additional GM varieties in other major cropping countries is likely to intensify the implications for Australia of GM crop uptake. |
