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Product stewardship
Monsanto’s Roundup Ready® GM canola was grown for the first time in Australia in 2008. The 2008 results are here. Bayer CropScience has indicated that they do not have commercial quantities of seed of the InVigor Hybrid GM canola variety available.
Monsanto, which owns the Roundup Ready trait, has licensed three seed companies to incorporate the Roundup Ready trait in their local canola varieties. These companies are:
- Nuseed
- Pioneer Hi-Bred Australia
- Pacific Seeds
Roundup herbicide (including Roundup Ready herbicide, the product registered for use on Roundup Ready canola) is distributed in Australia by Nufarm.
Monsanto has developed plans to ensure product stewardship as per below:
- The Roundup Ready® Canola Crop Management Plan outlines the on-farm management practices required to prevent the evolution of herbicide resistant weeds, manage volunteers, minimise risks to the grain supply chain, ensure good crop agronomy and meet regulatory requirements. This includes training and accreditation, communication initiatives, implementing a resistance management plan, keeping paddock records, paddock inspections and coexistence practices to ensure product integrity.
- The Roundup Ready® Canola Resistance Management Plan outlines strategies aimed at ensuring the long-term sustainability of the GM product, such as implementing different weed control options, utilising herbicides with different modes of action and different herbicide tolerant crops in the rotation.
Industry stewardship
The grain supply chain encompasses all users of grain, from plant breeders and the seed industry through to the marketers, processors, product manufacturers, animal industries and consumers.
In order to prepare for and manage the introduction of GM canola, the grains industry examined industry processes and developed a number of documents relating to the industry’s ability to deliver Market Choice. The result was two key documents which underpinned the commercial introduction of GM canola in Australia:
Delivering Market Choice with GM Canola, was launched by the Australian grains industry in 2007. This document outlines the grains industry’s ability and commitment to incorporate GM canola into the supply chain with a certainty and confidence that it can be managed to meet market and customer requirements. This report is supported by the document below which details all the principles and protocols available to the industry to deliver products which meet market requirements.
Principles for Process Management of Grain within the Australian Supply Chain, covers all phases of the crop process from research, breeding, on-farm, storage, transport, marketing and exporting to manufacturing and the consumer, and the management practices required to meet market specifications for both GM and non-GM crops.
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