Perth agbiotech company Grain Biotech Australia harvested its first trial crop of genetically modified, salt-tolerant wheat this month, grown in salt-affected farmland near Corrigin, in Western Australia.

Could 'farmer power' force Australian state governments to back down on their moratoria on GM crops? Graeme O'Neill reports.

State government policy has been vital in helping to shape the Australian biotechnology industry. Here, Cristy Burne takes us for a tour of Western Australia, the state that later this year will host the national biotech conference.

The Office of the Gene Technology Regulator (OGTR) has approved an application by Western Australian wheat breeding company Grain Biotech Australia to field-trial two genetically modified salt-tolerant wheat lines.

GroPep (ASX: GRO) has exceeded its half-year profit forecast by AUD$0.5 million and is on track to post a $3 million profit at the end of the 2004-2005 financial year.

Two years ago, GroPep (ASX:GRO) was in trouble, badly burned and without a CEO after an ill-advised acquisition of Biotech Australia. Now, it looks like a different company -- profitable, and turning its attention towards its biopharmaceutical development projects after a successful turn-around in its fortunes.

GroPep (ASX:GRO) has posted a AUD$1 million profit for the 2003-2004 financial year, achieving its aim of returning to profitability after its disastrous 2002 acquisition of Sydney company Biotech Australia.

Adelaide company GroPep (ASX:GRO) has posted a AUD$227,000 profit for the half year ending 31 December, 2003, representing a $3.1 million turnaround on the company's $2.9 million loss during the period.

First there was golden rice, a genetically modified variant of the world's number two cereal, designed to prevent blindness and ill health in an estimated 400 million malnourished people in Asia and Africa, whose monotonous diet of rice leaves them vulnerable to blindness and ill health. Now Western Australian company Grain Biotech Australia has engineered an experimental wheat, the world's number one cereal crop, that could help by keeping over-nourished Westerners in the pink of health.

Adelaide-based biotech GroPep is to receive AUD$3.8 million from the Gates Foundation-funded Malaria Vaccine Initiative (MVI) and the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), after meeting the first milestone in a project inherited from Biotech Australia.

GroPep (ASX:GRO) has closed the book on its acquisition of Biotech Australia with the receipt of AUD$3.6 million final payment for the Roseville site.