Have to agree with most of this and add, we need to also focus on the human condition and genetically caused diseases, that can and do condemn some of our best and brightest to an untimely end; or an end that is racked with pain and pleading to prematurely end it.

And no I'm not asking that anyone be given more than the allotted time or destiny, just superior outcomes and quality of life.
And which can be done and indeed, transferred to all future generations, thanks to the elimination of many of these extremely costly conditions, that always end badly!

Look, if a lizard (another carbon life form) can grow a new limb, why can't we?
And why should some gasp for every pain racked breathe of air, due to a genetically transferred condition excetera etc.

And why should drug cheats be the only ones winning; when with a little undetectable GM, we can put them and their supply lines out of business. And why do just some of us never get fat or suffer age related degenerative conditions?

And why block products like golden rice, which can ease starvation in many places.
Must we wait until the Luddite like detractors, have to walk a mile in those starvation shoes, before common sense/humanity finally prevails!

In any event, the genie (genome) is out of the bottle; and the, it's all in the jeans, pun was intended!
Rhrosty.

Another evidence free article from a pro-GM writer.

The two main GM traits to date are Herbicide Tolerance and Insect Resistance. The first means the GM crops are sprayed with weedkiller and the weeds die but the crop survives.

Unsurprisingly this system no longer works very well as the weeds have developed resistance to the most widely used chemical, Roundup (glyphosate). Now the new GM crops can also be sprayed with 2,4-D (an ingredient in Agent Orange) and glufosinate ammonium and dicamba and Mesotrione. This GM trait is turning fields into chemical disaster areas. In Latin America there is huge cancer and birth defect rates in rural areas due to the spraying of these chemicals on GM soy.

The second main GM trait is insect resistance. The GM plant creates a toxin to kill certain insects. This toxin cannot be washed off and so we eat it too. Once again this is no longer working as the insects have developed resistance. To overcome this the seeds are coated in neonicotinoid systemic pesticides that are linked to bee colony collapse disorder.

To say that Australia is missing out on this technology is like missing out on a hole in your head. Farmers in N America are suffering as China has not authorised the import of one of Syngenta's GM corn types. Farmers have grown it and are now unable to export. Until recently Syngenta said on its website that China had approved import of the corn. Also GM alfalfa contamination has meant the rejection of exports. Monsanto had to pay compensation for rejection of US wheat exports that had been contaminated by GM wheat trials.

It is clear that industrial agriculture, of which GM is the latest flowering, has gone down a dangerous path. Increased chemical dependence, poor quality food, destruction of soil and water and farmer indebtedness. What we need it a total change of agriculture. Have a look at the Australia Food Sovereignty Alliance's Food Plan for a place to start the transformation.

Asher Judah, is a member of the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) is a right-wing, corporate funded think tank based in Melbourne. It has close links to the Liberal Party of Australia.
As such he is a party to the takeover of agriculture by agribusiness and of course also backs the mega corporations who want to control all agricultural supplies and seeds.
These people take no account of the disastrous health effects of the chemicals used and the modified seed.
It has been shown for instance that GM crops fed to animals has caused sickness and death.
Not a good way to go for agriculture.

Hi Rhosty
The most recent scientific research is showing that our genes can be turned on and off by all sorts of things including environmental factors, food, chemicals, exercise and even our thoughts. These changes can be inherited. Therefore the mechanical idea that we can do something to 'fix' genes once and for all is a little unscientific.

Golden rice is floundering as it does not yield well. Go to the website of the developers of the product, IRRI, and read their updates there. Vitamin A deficiency is being fixed by encouraging people to eat a varied diet and by supplements. There is no need for expensive, unwanted, failed GM technology.

All the science and evidence shows that we need biodiversity, agroecology and fairness to fix our failing world, not GM.

It is interesting that the authors book is published by a conservative Catholic publisher.
Conservatives, especially those that presume to be religious, usually promote the cautionary principle re any kind of presumed progress in human affairs.

Columbian "exchange" - oh puleez!
Columbian plunder and even holocaust would be a more apt phrase.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/History/American_Holocaust.html

And of course the plunder still continues.
It is interesting that the essay begins with the infamous mis-adventures of Christopher Columbus, the man who sparked off the imperial invasion and systematic plunder of the "new world", with "catholic" Spain and Portugal leading the plunder-seeking pack.
Why not Google the title Christopher Columbus from a Native American Perspective to find out the real truth about Columbus, or Google the truth-telling book Columbus and Other Cannibals by Jack Forbes.
This one stark image also tells the truth about what Columbus sparked off, and was involved in too.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel13.html
And this too:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~spanmod/mural/panel21.html
Of course the IPA and right-wing christians celebrate the happenings thus pictured as the "triumph" and/or "victory" of the christian West.
They also promote the hubristic idea that humankind should "subdue" or "conquer" the natural world.

Meanwhile this site provides all the evidence and references which describe why GM "foods" will inevitably turn out to a disaster for humankind - perhaps even terminal too.
http://gmo.mercola.com

Once it is disclosed that the author of an article is connected to a right wing (un) think tank then On Line Opinion's reputation declines further.
I follow one of those groups just to keep myself aware of the rubbish they are publishing. Nearly everything they write ignores masses of contrary evidence. The CIS's name (Centre for Independent Studies) reminds me of 1984 or a saying of Humpty Dumpty.

I am not sure that I really agree with some of the premises put forward in this article. GM technology is not something that is being specifically imported from the Americas.

In the first place a couple of the major crops (maize and soybeans) are not ones that are grown widely in Australia. The fact that the area of GM crops in Australia is a small fraction of that in the world reflects this. Until useful traits are developed in other crops, farmers in Australia will not be interested in adopting the technology.

GM cotton was rapidly and completely adopted in Australia, because it provided traits that were useful to the growers. GM canola has been more slowly adopted because the trait is not as useful to growers. The major issue being the lack of residual effect of the herbicide and the need to apply it so early in the growing season.

The author is correct that State Government moritoria and the cost of regulation are sniffling innovation and the availability of traits. Certainly after the best part of 20 years of successful commercial production of GM crops it would be prudent to take a look at how regulation of low risk events is managed.

It appears Asher has gone ahead and poked the hornets nest the moment GM is mentioned. Sadly few of the antis really understand the science, are scared of the unknown and don’t really see the opportunity.

I agree strongly with Asher. Australia has enormous potential agriculturally which we are missing being stuck in yesteryear. Transformational change is always challenging. IF you can’t use the latest science in plant breeding why would you hang around?
There is always going to be risk in plant breeding. The advantage of GM is the plant remains the same with a genome added to it.
Conventional breeding can have an array of unknowns come into play. There was a sub-clover in WA in the 60s which resulted in ewe’s giving birth to their uteruses due to spikes in oestrogen from the plant. Trials didn’t pick this because a tipping had to be reached in the body – do we stop conventional plant breeding as well because of this? That would be stupid.

Cotton farmers in Qld have taken to BT Cotton because of the economic and environmental benefits. Pesticide rates reduced from 42kg of active ingredient to 0.4. That is why they advocate for BT Cotton, it reduces their environmental footprint on the land.

Imagine being able to stop the impact of frost – a Victorian genome could do that.

Those who blame the big companies for dominating – that is because the pipeline to market has been made so large start-ups can’t survive.

The regulatory system is robust with vigorous longitudinal testing to help reduce the risk. We want more food – perhaps the question instead of being anti-GM or tech options is how to we stabilise population growth than we can enjoy the luxuries of lower agricultural production. Until then, what are the best option to produce food whilst reducing the impact on the land

Dear J P C,

<<Sadly few of the antis really understand the science>>

What's there to know? They take a gene out of one species and place it in another - isn't that what they do?

Which for me, as a vegetarian, could mean nearly a death-sentence:

If they take an animal-gene and place it in a carrot, and those carrots can contaminate other carrots, then it means that I could no longer eat carrots. And I could no longer buy anything that goes in the mouth - food, drink, toothpaste or medicine, which could have carrot ingredients in it, or eat at another home, or function, or restaurant, or institution where they cook carrots because I wouldn't know where they sourced them from.

Thus you starve me to death!

Oh, you want me to understand, big scientist...

Would you even have the courtesy to synthesise the very first gene which you place in the first carrot, so at least it comes from minerals rather than from animals? Well, you haven't even thought about it, right? because all you think is about how you can make money, never about the suffering you create.

Just proves Vegetarians are odd, if its not from an animal, it is not animal. Life shares between fauna and flora there are chemical cross-overs, it is not an Iron Curtain.

Yuyutsu wrote:

"If they take an animal-gene and place it in a carrot, and those carrots can contaminate other carrots, then it means that I could no longer eat carrots. And I could no longer buy anything that goes in the mouth - food, drink, toothpaste or medicine, which could have carrot ingredients in it, or eat at another home, or function, or restaurant, or institution where they cook carrots because I wouldn't know where they sourced them from."

Sadly you have already been a cannibal. Humans share 57% of their genes with the cabbage and 75% with pumpkins. http://www.thehumangenome.co.uk/THE_HUMAN_GENOME/Primer.html

Lillian says the article is evidence-free. There is plenty of evidence to show that GMOs are not harmful - have a look at the following, and make sure you download the PDF:
http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2013/10/08/with-2000-global-studies-confirming-safety-gm-foods-among-most-analyzed-subject-in-science/

I'm trained as a physical (non-biological) scientist but don't need to understand the science of genetic meddling with food. All I have to be is a customer with rights. The right to know what is in the food I buy. For it to be labelled clearly if it does or doesn't pass muster as GM-free. The peddlers of GM food have spent many millions of dollars to defeat attempts to ensure honest labelling. They have also spent a heap of money to block farmers' claims for damages for GM contamination of their crops. They even had the effrontery to send a bill to a Canadian farmer whose formerly clean crop was poisoned by wind-blown contaminated product from a neighbouring field - charging him for the GM contamination of his product [1]. The peddlers - Monsanto - spent a fortune nobbling a couple of judges until they were finally done over in the Supreme Court [2] . Monsanto also pulled out all the stoppers to get a peer-reviewed scientific paper censored and publishers warned off [3] when it showed Monsanto to have misled the regulators. The team, led by Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini of Caen University, eventuality got in under the radar [4,5].

Monsanto, persistently thwarted in Britain and Europe, is looking elsewhere to expand its captive market, and an IPA-compliant government temporarily in office in Australia leaves us wide open to be the next target. Hence Asher Judah’s article.

[My own objection to GM food is the yuk factor, whatever the science (to which I’ll refer if challenged). Like most people I wouldn’t want to eat pies made from ground road kill either.]

[1] http://thegranddisillusion.wordpress.com/monsanto-vs-farmer/]
[2] http://www.i-sis.org.uk/whoOwnsLifeNotMonsanto.php
[3] http://www.gmoseralini.org/seralini-retraction-is-black-mark-on-scientific-publishing-georgetown-professors/
[4] http://retractionwatch.com/2014/06/24/retracted-seralini-gmo-rat-study-republished/
[5] http://www.enveurope.com/content/26/1/14

It seems to me Emperor Julian that you are demanding the right to remain ignorant.

I will start with Percy Schmeiser. His canola crop was not 'poisoned' by wind-blown pollen from his neighbour. He had 1100 acres (almost all of his farm) planted to canola that tested 95% positive to the Roundp Ready trait http://decisions.fct-cf.gc.ca/fc-cf/decisions/en/item/38991/index.do

Schmeiser gave 3 different versions of how the material got onto his farm, none of which were convincing to the judge in the court case who described him as an unreliable witness. His farm worker testified that Schmeiser got him to spray a good 3 acres of canola with Roundup and when it survived to harvest it separately and store it on a truck on the farm. Why would you spray canola with a herbicide that kills it, unless you knew it was going to survive?

The Supreme Court case was entirely based on whether Schmeiser should pay a licence fee. Schmeiser's lawyers claimed that as Schmeiser had not used Roundup on his crop, he hadn't used the patent.

Seralini's rat study was one of the most appalling bits of science I have ever come across, on a par with most homeopathy research. The faults in his study are massive: used a rat breed that is prone to tumours where more than 70% of the rats get tumours by 2 years, used incorrect statistical analyses. Had 9 treatment groups with only 1 control group, failed to follow report data and failed to euthenise the rats appropriately. Of course it should never have been published.

Agronomist

Judge MacKay focused solely on whether Schmeiser harvested Monsanto’s GM canola and whether the NAFTA laws entitled the company to claim a licence fee for this. He did not address the question of how the stuff came to be growing on Schmeiser’s farm beyond the fact that after it appeared by magic he sold it and its progeny. The question of whether Monsanto’s patent, conferring Roundup readiness, was a factor in Schmeiser’s income was also ignored. The Supreme Court later kerzonked Monsanto Judge MacKay’s assumption that these were irrelevant to whether the company had a right to extract a fee. This was a severe blow to Monsanto’s strategy of increasing its captive market by selling its GM seeds to farms from which it would spread by natural processes such as birds, insects and wind to clean farms.

Professor Seralini’s research is precisely matched to Monsanto’s, including the breed of rat, with the difference that Monsano’s team ended its research and made its report when apparently insignificant changes were starting in the test rats whereas Seralini continued from that point for a couple of years of exposure, showing that over that time a statistically significant proportion of test rats compared with control rats developed tumours. As time progresses and both test and control rats develop tumours the analysis becomes less sensitive and the results less reliable. Monsanto will not like the implication that further research is needed to confirm (or not) the late onset of tumours from Frankencorn. After all, asbestosis takes decades to show.

Meanwhile Australia, with a precarious IPA government, will be in the firing line as we can see from the chorus of demands from Monsanto’s shills to turn us into a captive market for GM agriculture. Australia’s labelling laws, like Europe’s but unlike North America’s, are sensible and informative[1]. Watch for administrative action, by-passing the Senate, to rewrite them.

[1] http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/consumer/gmfood/labelling/Pages/default.asp