Agro-Biotech News

In 2010, a legal battle on the coexistence of genetically modified (GM) and non-GM crops redefined the debate on GM crops in Australia. Steve Marsh, an organic farmer from Kojonup, Western Australia, discovered GM canola on the farm of his neighbor, Michael Baxter. This incident led to the loss of Steve Marsh’s organic certification for the majority of his property. As a result, he decided to sue Michael Baxter to seek compensation for the damages he had suffered. Ten years after the Supreme Court of Western Australia’s 2015 decision, the case remains the country’s only reported decision on the coexistence of GM and non-GM crops. In an article published in Griffith Law Review, the author Michail Ivanov, a PhD candidate from the University of Adelaide, revisits the novel case of Marsh v Baxter and discusses the coexistence of GM and non-GM crops in Australia and the regulations governing them.