Three rogue organisations that represent so few but claim to represent the industry. GCA, GGA & PGA. If it was not so serious it would be laughable that these 3 so-called member Associations claim to represent the majority, in fact only those few on the board make decisions without any consultation with growers. It was these few that destroyed our orderly marketing system for export wheat. Power goes to people's heads helped by big pay cheques.

Any objective viewer of the global wheat industry understands that this is a very good development. The benefits of biotechnology have been denied to this important crop because of a minority of activists and their ability to threaten companies with consumer brands. As for whether most of the growers will be happy to have the option, look at sugar beets. The same sort of narrow, activist base had intimidated companies that use beet sugar to impose a de facto ban on GMO sugarbeets even though they had regulatory approval. Once the dam was broken a huge percentage of the growers planted the GMO varieties because of the advantages they offered. Wheat will probably go the same way and Europe with its "precautionary principle" won't be able to veto technologies that will help feed the world over the next decades when we are going to somehow produce about twice as much food without adding more farmed acres.

Over 50% of Australian consumers have said they'd be less likely to buy GM food. There are many valid health concerns raised by independent researchers, doctors, scientists. 70% of GM crops just allow you to spray more Roundup. Roundup destroys soil by disrupting soil microorganisms (killing algae - top of food chain), blocking progesterone (hormone) production, killing off pseudomonas - a microbe which protects plants - such as wheat from takeall, and fruit from phytophera. Why do we need it? It is purely yet another short term blinkered fix trumpted by blinded science as the answer to the many problems that the green revolution has created in the first place. Focusing on increasing biologically active carbon in soil is a much better path to throw our scarce research money to, rather than risky, controversial and problematic technologies such as GM crops. If only mainstream science (agriculture and pharmaceutical medicine) would stop treating the symptoms with pathetic but deadly serious band-aids, and instead focus on the underlying causes. Nutrition based approaches are far more preferable and certainly a lot more intelligent, and sustainable.

The alternative to not using Roundup is to plough. If you don't control weeds you don't grow a crop. Cultivation destroys soil structure and requires thousands of litres of diesel to do it.

This is why organic grain is flawed. I would prefer paddocks with thick groundcover and stubble, organic matter, holding moisture, no erosion, minimal fuel use and more consistent yields with proper use of Roundup, than bare paddocks losing topsoil, crop failures and spending all summer on a 500hp diesel guzzling tractor.

Dr Elaine Ingham, Dr Arden Anderson, and many other biological specialists have regularly shown that weeds are an indication of flogged out, out of whack, unmineralised and unbalanced soils.

Once the bacteria to fungal ratios have been corrected (of which conventional agriculture throws out of whack), and soils have been remineralised (which benefits all of us through more nutrient dense food), then there is a huge decline in weed pressure.

Excess nitrates help broadleaf weeds flourish, and lack of available calcium allow grass 'weeds' to flourish. Once these things have been managed well, weeds are greatly reduced.

Yes, they are not totally eliminated, but that is where innovative implements come in. Best practice biological methods do not destroy soil structure, cause erosion, wreck soil food web - but rather work to fix these problems. Undersowing cereals with a clover for example, also further reduces weed competition, provides nitrogen to the cereals, creates a symbiotic relationship between crops through root exudate/ microbial relationships, builds a healthier crop through proper amino acid chemistry - thus eliminating fungal and other problems that seem to plague many conventional systems.

And there is no competition for water - look at how nature works - never in monocultures. By lightly running over with an offset disc to get those emerging weeds that are present after the nutritional work has been done, these are controlled and organic matter has been incorporated for the microorganisms to feed on and build soil structure - combating all the problems conservation farmer has mentioned.

And it does not use any more diesel as the same passes are being done as if you were out there hammering your soils with chemicals. This is being done right now, extremely successfully, by many farmers around the world. And they are over the moon that their input costs are much lower than conventional farms (a shuttle of Roundup sure ain't cheap these days!), and they are being paid a top premium with escalating demand for their products.

Many consumers are happy to pay for quality. And lastly, there are anecdotal reports from biological farmers, and scientific reports (such as from UN backed studies) that show holistic farming, such as best practice organics, are getting yields comparable to the high-input conventional systems, with a lower cost of production.