Jennifer why is it better to buy your seeds from a multinational for every crop you sow just because your neighbour planted GM crop that jumped the fence and rendered your seed infertile.

Personally I favour biodiversity over a few narrow strains that can be very vulnerable to being wiped out by a virus like the potato blight that attacked the Irish potato crop in the 1850s leaving the population dying from starvation. And Monsanto cares as deeply for Australians as the English landowners cared about their Irish tenants,

Katherine, did you even read that article? In it is some very interesting stuff. To quote (from the same article):

""What the study really tells us is that conventional insecticides kill nontarget insects," says entomologist Bruce Tabashnik of the University of Arizona, who was not involved in the study."

"If broad-spectrum insecticides are commonly used and Bt crops reduce such use, then Bt crops could have positive impacts, If insecticides are rarely used, then Bt crops do not bring advantages, and it is still unclear whether they may bring significant disadvantages." says U.A. entomologist Yves Carrière, who was also not involved in the study. In other words, no disadvantages have yet been found and the biodiversity in GM crops is higher than in chemically treated ones.

And I guess you are also quoting the Dr Dr Michael Antoniou who an advisor for the Society for the Promotion of Nutritional
Therapy? Again, while some of the examples he has used refer to bacteria and pharmaceutical products, not crops, he is not necessarily a disinterested voice in this.

I do not see Canada's canola market collapsing from loss of markets, in fact the worldwide demand for oil crops seems to be increasing largely driven by the biofuel industries according to Canadian Canola Industry website: http://www.canola-council.org/industry_stats.html

The advantages of GM crops are mainly:
-Potential for increased yields, depending on where, when and how they are grown.
-Potential for decreased pesticide and herbicide use.
-Potential for increased biodiversity in farming areas (especially when compared to chemically treated areas), which increases the potential for Integrated Pest Management systems (eg integrated biological control, cultural controls and polyculture methods) to be more effective.
-Crop specific advantages, such as synchronised flowering (eg pineapples) to allow mechanical harvesting or tighter windows of harvesting (reducing farmer risk) for certain crops.
-other traits can be utilised that are more environment specific: Drought resistance, or reduced heavy metal uptake, salt tolerance or increased nitrogen fixation in the roots.

These all possible and there are many more biotech companies than Monsanto, but nobody complains about them. I guess Monsanto is an easy target.

That the Bracks government is even thinking about lifting its bans on GM food is undemocratic. In polls taken by AC Neilson, Roy Morgan, Millward Brown, The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Swinburne University and Choice magazine, a very large majority of Australians do not want to eat GM foods. No public poll taken to date has shown a mainstream market acceptance of biotech food in Australia or overseas.

In the 2001 Eurobarometer study 70% of Europeans do not want GM foods. The UK’s Journal of Agrobiotechnology Management and Economics [1] reported that of 2,568 consumers surveyed, only 2% said they would eat GM breakfast cereals.

According to a report [2] by the UK's soil association, "GM soya, maize and oilseed rape could have cost the US economy $12 billion since 1999 in farm subsidies, lower crop prices, loss of major export orders and product recalls. Farmers are not achieving the higher profits promised by the biotechnology companies as markets for GM food collapse."

The European Union is also currently discussing the official withdrawal by the biotech industry of five GM foods and crops that have been market failures.[3]

Why, then, does the Bracks government think the customer is wrong? Why won't these freemarket lobbyists listen to the market, instead of risking all Australia's health, environment and economic welfare?

______________
[1] (Vol 6 No 3 article 6)

[2] see http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/librarytitles/GMO12092002.html

[3] maize Bt176 (Syngenta); oilseed rape Ms1xRf1 (Bayer); oilseed rape(canola) Ms1xRf2 (Bayer); oilseed rape (canola) Topas 19/2 (Bayer); and maize GA21xMON810 (Monsanto). See: http://www.foeeurope.org/press/2007/March20_HH_withdrawal_GM_crops.htm

Katherine,
Farmers have to manage daily a large number of specialised decisions. These include marketing, weed control, contract and legal obligations and ecology and future viability of their farms.

Modern farmers are thus a well informed group on these many issues and the majority have voted at all representive farmer organisations for the gm moratoriums to be lifted.

This is because most farmers know that the issues you raise will not impact on marketing and technical solutions are available and used by farmers to negate the other issues.

The false claims and imputations of health risks for approved gm food are the most serious problem farmers face.

I was dissapointed that the author did not post Percy Schmeiser's url.
Here it is.

http://www.percyschmeiser.com/

I think the whole idea of GM crops should be put on hold until the
legallities are sorted out. Then a discussion could take place on
whether it is technically a good thing or not.

Before anyone makes further comment they should read a farmers
experience with the patent owners first.

Just before I comment I'll point out that I'm a supporter (in general) of GM crops.

The frustrating thing about this article is that the author claims GM crop contamination of traditional crops is unstoppable. This isn't necessarily true (as has been pointed out in the comments sections of another GM article: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5922 ). Terminator technology which prevents plants from being viable in the second generation and stopping their spread to other crops.

I'd also like to acknowledge that like several posters mentioned above some GM crops may inhibit our export potential. That said, just because it might not be a good idea to grow GM canola doesn't mean it's not a good idea to grow GM wheat or cotton etc. Each modification needs to be tested and debated on its merits.