The Western Australia Supreme Court’s decision to award Kojonup GM canola farmer Michael Baxter victory over his organic farming neighbour Steve Marsh won’t end the ongoing anti-GM campaign by green and pro-organic groups. But having the case “definitively thrown out of Court is a big step forward,” says John Snooke, WA’s Western Graingrowers committee chairman of the Pastoralists and Graziers’ Association (PGA).
Mr Snooke said he wanted to reassure the general public that there was no issue with the safety of GM canola or other crops grown globally, which was a central theme to the long-running legal challenge. “There’s no problem here – that’s what we want to reiterate at the PGA,” he said. “Now it’s time to get on with coexistence as it stands and we’ll all prosper together.”
Mr Snooke also heaped praise on Mr Baxter for withstanding the ongoing public pressure and political campaigning against him, underpinned by anti-GM sentiment and public fundraising. “When this all first started over three and a half years ago, Michael Baxter was very, very stoic in a situation that was very foreign to him,” he said. “But over time he just became resolute.”
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