Western Australia's agriculture minister, Kim Chance, is taking what many are now seeing as an overly cautious stance on biotechnology. Graeme O'Neill reports.

Shareholders in Regenera (ASX:RGA) have been asked to attend a meeting in Perth between Christmas and New Year, as the company seeks to revise terms of its planned merger with US firm Advanced Ocular Systems (AOS).

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

Routine tests by the Australian Barley Board have detected traces of genetically modified canola seed in a small consignment canola to Japan, triggering a strong reaction from anti-GM activist organisations.

Australian biotechnology's peak body, AusBiotech, has questioned the impartiality of Western Australia's agricultural minister Kim Chance in relation to GM crops, following the release of correspondence between the government and activitist GM groups.

Western Australia's moratorium on genetically modified crops has emerged as a potential electoral liability for state premier Geoff Gallop's ALP government, as the state approaches a cliffhanger election.

Claims by anti-GM activists that the Victorian government and Bayer CropScience are putting farmers' livelihoods at risk, by keeping secret the locations of genetically modified canola trials, have been scotched with the revelation that they have known the location of at least one participating farm for more than a year.

The future of the Victorian wheat industry has moved from a biosecure glasshouse into a small, netted field plot at the International Centre for Cereal Breeding (CIMMYT) in Mexico.

Almost two months ago, the Victorian Labor government stunned the state's biotechnology industry by imposing a four-year, legislated moratorium on genetically modified (GM) canola cropping.

Western Australian premier Geoff Gallop has announced that genetically modified food crops will not be grown in the state.