GM sites ready to grow

Agriculture Minister Terry Redman is expected to announce the locations of GM canola trial sites within the next two weeks.

The 18 farmers from Cunderdin, Kojonup and Boyup Brook planting the State's first broadacre crops of genetically modified canola will be hoping the dust has settled before they start seeding the controversial crop this month.

The locations of the GM plantings, to cover up to 1000 hectares in total, have been decided and are expected to be announced by Agriculture Minister Terry Redman within the next two weeks.

Meanwhile, CBH has backed away from an agreement with Monsanto along the lines of the one leaked to the media last month.

Rather, CBH supply chain senior manager David Fienberg said it would treat the GM canola and Monsanto as business as usual.

"It will not be a 30-page agreement of a new grain type ... that everyone has been talking about," he said.

"We will have protocols for testing and management of sampling more so than an agreement but it will cover the risk.

"We are making some changes within our storage and handling at the sites that will be receiving the GM grain as to how they will manage the sweep-ups and the disposal of any GM canola that has been spilt."

Mr Fienberg said the proposed agreement with Monsanto was not needed because CBH had looked at its current agreements with growers, such as the carters delivery form, and established there was enough detail in the existing agreements to hold them responsible for providing information and to manage exchange of data and receival information right the way through to container or export.

"There is enough data to hold each party responsible and what we will have as an aside is a protocol we will sign off on that sets out who will provide the testing strips, how any costs that flow do flow ... and how we will approach testing of neighbouring receival points," he said.

Monsanto spokeswoman Honi McNaughton said Monsanto would pay for the testing strips and the knowledge of the testing protocols to test for the GM protein.

Grain Pool canola marketing manager Rob Dickie said that in terms of any agreement between Grain Pool and Monsanto on the marketing side, there was only verbal - that Grain Pool would acquire all the GM canola in the first year.

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