South Australia has lifted the moratorium on growing GM crops in all parts of mainland South Australia, except Kangaroo Island which has an established non-GM canola market in Japan, allowing growers to cultivate GM food crops in time for the 2021 grain season. The moratorium, Genetically Modified Crops Management Act 2004, and its associated regulations were enacted in 2004 to prohibit the cultivation of GM food crops in the whole of South Australia. Following the lifting of the moratorium in May 2020, South Australian councils had a once-off opportunity to apply to be recognised as an area where no GM food crops can be grown, which 11 of the 68 Local Government Areas chose to do. The independent GM Crop Advisory Committee then assessed all 11 applications and concluded that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to designate any of the 11 areas as no GM food crop areas. Individual business can, however, maintain non-GM markets as occurs in other mainland states.

The removal of this moratorium was initially proposed in August (AgbioNews Aug 20, 2019), following an independent review undertaken in 2018 where it was estimated that the moratorium has cost South Australian grain farmers at least AUS$33 million since the 2004 enactment. Since its proposal in 2019, the decision to lift the moratorium has been disallowed three times, with the most recent disallowance by the South Australian Upper House occurring in March 2020 (AgbioNews March 4, 2020). This followed the first disallowance of the government decision in November 2019 (AgbioNews Nov 28, 2019) and the voting down of a repeal Bill in December 2019.