STATE Liberal Party Agriculture spokesman Jim Chown has called for the resignation of Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan.
It would be the first time a member of State parliament has made the call, though sections of the agricultural industry have previously been in the media calling for her to resign from office.
Twitter has also been buzzing this week with two WA ag industry initiated polls that have asked if she should resign - one had more than 200 voters with 91 per cent backing the call.
Mr Chown and others have listed a number of reasons behind his decision to make the call, including the minister's lack of response to the drought in WA's pastoral areas, her lack of support for and call for a plan B on the live sheep trade, her opposition to genetically modified technology for crops, the decision to include broadacre agriculture in the proposed amendments to the Agricultural Produce Commission Act and her latest comments calling for a plan B regarding the use of glyphosate.
"WA agriculture is in an unfortunate situation of having a Minister for Agriculture who is ideologically opposed to the world renowned practice of using glyphosate," Mr Chown said.
"It is a practice that has proven to be safe and clean, allowing WA agricultural products to be exported on the international market.
"The minister is sending an incorrect message to our markets, that glyphosate is unsafe and that there needs to be an alternative.
"This comes at a time when not one shipment of grain from WA has been found to be contaminated by glyphosate.
"I doubt that such an occasion of glyphosate contamination would arise at any stage in the future.
"The minister needs to resign - she is undermining agriculture in WA for all the reasons I have stated.
"It's not helpful for this industry that produces food for millions of people around the world.
"It's causing angst in the sector and concern in the marketplace."
Mr Chown said he had received "a great deal of feedback from the agricultural industry, that the minister has an inability to understand how important glyphosate it is for the production of crops, in our State's dry-land farming environment".
He said she "always fails to provide details about what her plan B alternative might involve".
"If you are going to say something, as the minister has, then she needs to express details of what that plan is and what the outcomes will be," Mr Chown said.
"This is an enormous impost on a mature and highly professional agricultural industry.
"It's most irresponsible of the minister to make these comments, without backing them up."
Her comments undermine the agricultural sector and question our world-class and environmentally sustainable practices in broadacre agriculture of using minimum tillage processes."
Mr Chown said glyphosate had been used for 40 years.
He said according to the European Food Safety Authority in 2017, statistics show that since 2005, 6.1 billion litres of glyphosate had been used globally to improve food production systems.
"Sri Lanka banned glyphosate imports in 2015," he said.
"It lifted the ban in 2018, due to the fact that its iconic tea industry was becoming plagued by weeds and suffering from a dramatic drop in production.
"The minister's comments are emotive and based on ideology, not fact."
He said if glyphosate was found to be wanting in its carcinogenic effect, every other herbicide used in agriculture would conceivably be considered to be unsafe and therefore unavailable for use.
"Billions of people would starve in that situation," Mr Chown said.
"As the global population increases, we will need to lift food production 70pc to maintain food delivery at the current level we do today.
"There's no viable alternative to replace glyphosate in our agricultural production system at this stage.
"Its usage is critical to take up the challenge regarding food production, to meet the demands of an increasing population."
Mr Chown said it seems to him that, by the minister's own actions, she is "inherently anti agriculture" and has been undermining the responsible practice undertaken by agriculture producers in this State.
"She put forward amendments to the Animal Welfare Act for a new class of designated general inspectors, who would have had unfettered access to enter properties or stop vehicles without notice.
"These proposed amendments were only prevented from passing the Legislative Council, when the Liberals and the cross-benchers refused to entertain her proposed amendments.
"The Legislative Council allowed for the National Standards and Guidelines on Animal Welfare to be adopted into the State's Animal Welfare Act.
"We have a minister who would have closed down the live sheep trade, if she'd had the legislative power," Mr Chown said.
"Fortunately, we have a Federal government that supports live exports and has maintained the standards of animal welfare to world's best practice, to allow this important trade for WA to continue."
The minister opposed GM technology, but also went the next step to demonise it by attempting to have GM compensation legislation implemented."
Earlier this year, on ABC's Country Hour, the minister described broadacre farming as industrial - it's not - it is world's best practice.
"When the word industrial is used in that context, it promotes images of black smoke and slave labour.
"It's very emotive and unhelpful to compare modern agriculture with an industrial system."
He said the minister put up an Amendment Bill to the APC Act, which is on the Legislative Council's notice paper that intends to extend the Act into broadacre agriculture for the first time in 31 years.
"Such an amendment would impose, on a highly efficient part of our agricultural industry, a range of compulsory levies," he said.
"That would be unnecessary, especially when the industry is already burdened with a plethora of levies from our State and Commonwealth governments for industry good purposes.
"The time has come for the Minister to step down from this role."It is my belief that under her patronage, agriculture in this State is being stymied, to the point of becoming seriously detrimental to our world's best practice agricultural industry."
Ms MacTiernan responded by saying that "not a single claim Jim has used to justify his call has any substance to it" and he had not raised the issue of drought in WA during parliament."I suspect that this is a result partly of bad faith, and partly because of his inability to understand my obligation to look to the future of the industry,"
Ms MacTiernan said, "I have never called for a live export ban.
"I called for a summer pause and more enforcement: a position now embraced by industry and the Federal Government - and I have encouraged looking at developing our sheep meat markets to give us more options.
"Jim's claims about GM are based on me agreeing to a request from a bi-partisan Parliamentary committee to investigate calls for a compensation scheme for non-GM farmers.
"The committee found a scheme was not necessary, and I agreed with that position.
"Jim claims I oppose the use of glyphosate - again, I did not do that.
"I wanted to start considering what might be alternatives if the number of countries banning glyphosate use continues to grow.
"We need to look at how we might manage risk if consumer sentiment against glyphosate threatens our markets."
Ms MacTiernan said the Federal and State Agriculture Ministers agreed last week that while recognising Australian Pesticide and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) advice that glyphosate was safe, the industry should seek advice from research and development corporations on pathways that may lead to future constraints on the use of glyphosate in Australia, relating to community expectations, market access and consumer preference.
"On drought, we have been putting intensive effort in providing ongoing dry season support right across the State," she said.
"We've made sure we have boots on the ground - DPIRD officers have visited more than 100 stations in the last four months - to help pastoralists with drought assistance applications and management.
"We're also investing in cell fencing in the rangelands and State Barrier Fence upgrades to inject income into cash-strapped regions, and have provided extra funding for pest control.
"We are also putting a big effort into progressing carbon farming approvals to provide income to pastoralists and restore the land.
"I note that Jim Chown has never raised this issue in Parliament."
Ms MacTiernan said she also introduced the broadacre amendment to the APC Act at the request of WAFarmers - "the peak representative body for farmers in WA".
"The law provides that an APC levy could only ever be introduced if the majority of farmers voted for it - if farmers don't want a levy, they won't get one," she said.
"Jim is simply following the Pastoralists and Graziers Association line without understanding how the legislation works."
