A group supporting genetically-modified (GM) food says the loss of much of Queensland's banana crop in Cyclone Yasi points to an example of how GM foods could improve food security in Australia."Whether it's bananas, wheat, sorghum or canola - all those things are around the corner where we're able to actually modify the characteristics of the plants so we can grow them under different climates."
But a director of the group Gene Ethics, Bob Phelps, says the GM argument cannot be justified.
"All of the promises about more productive (sic), a longer shelf life, adapted to global climate change, really this is a technology that can't deliver on its promises but makes our food supply less safe," he said.
"Gene manipulation technology can't deliver on its empty promises despite 25 years of research and tens of billions of dollars in research and development."
Canola is Australia's only commercial GM food crop and South Australia is the last canola-growing mainland state which bans it.
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I don't think there's any amount of GM that can protect a crop from a cyclone flattening it.
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