ROGUE GM canola weeds were dumped on Monsanto's Melbourne headquarters today as part of a protest against genetic engineering.
Bags of the stray weeds were dumped along with processed foods containing unlabelled GM soy, corn, canola and cottonseed by advocacy groups MADGE and Gene Ethics, which are outraged at "GM contaminating Australian food and ecosystems".
MADGE co-founder Fran Murrell said shoppers had a right to choose GM-free foods but Australia's labelling laws allowed most GM foods to remain unlabelled.
"Unlike the EU, processed GM food ingredients such as canola oil, sugars and starches are unlabelled in Australia," she said.
"Our food authority (FSANZ) exempts up to 1 per cent 'accidental' GM food contamination from labelling. Some processors are misusing the 'accidental' threshold in the food standard to mask routine GM contamination of soy baby formula and other products that should have a GM label," she claimed.
