Australia's CSIRO to probe GMO environment impact
Reuters 29aug00
SYDNEY - Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has launched a A$3 million project to examine environmental effects of genetically modified plants, animals and other organisms.The three-year project by the government organisation is aimed at improving understanding of the wider ecological impacts of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to allow more informed and factual national debate on their use, it said yesterday.
"Gene technology can expand our options to improve our health, create a safer, more secure food supply, generate prosperity and attain a more sustainable agriculture," Paul Wellings, CSIRO's deputy chief executive environment and natural resources said in a statement.
The application of GMOs had reached the point where larger scale, longer term environmental assessments were necessary, he said.
The project will look as carefully at risks as at benefits of research, he said.
It will run trials of genetically modified cotton, clover and canola that would help determine what impact these might have on the natural environment, Mark Lonsdale, leader of the project, said.
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