PAST GM-free forum Holland St Market

SAGFIN NO Genetic in AUSFTA ?

A government document storage area was accessed to obtain copies of the five main portions of the Australia United States Free Trade Agreement (AUSFTA).

These documents were obtained as PDF files (Adobe document format) and searches were made through the documents for the string terms

• genet
• biotech

There was NO detection of these strings in the documents.

We had been advised that there was a clause in the AUSFTA that specifically provided a clear pathway to market for Genetically Modified food but it was not found in the five main principal documents of the AUSFTA.

Further conversion of these five documents to text files was done, a reliable text search tool was used to examine them, and, once again :

There was NO detection of the string "genet" in the documents.

Also, searches for the words "gm" and "ge" and "gmo" were made and these strings, as words, were also NOT in the documents.

It is possible that there is NO mention of a "clear pathway to market for Genetically Modified food" in the AUSFTA.

The web site where the AUSFTA documents may be examined is:

www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/final-text

Click on these links for copies of the AUSFTA:

Final_text_ausfta
Annex_I_combined
Annex_II_combined
Annex_III_Aus
Annex_III_US