Thanks for the promotion Dave but like you I am but a mere male...Ha!

1. I have not been arguing for the curtailment of scientific endeavour on GM foods but that the science is still out and therefore the precautionary principle should be used as in other cases I posted. PLUS companies should not be allowed to own our food supply. They didn't invent food, the didn't invent genes... and so if we really are about feeding the starving then we (the rich nations) should feed the world.

In a free market we all should benefit from advances in technology where the companies that serviced their customers and have the best most reliable products would get the sales. Patenting GM advances in my view undermines this. Whilst I understand the need to protect intellectual property - food isn't intellectual property and processes that effect food shouldn't be either.

2. It may be fair to say it but I am not in a position to say that it is absolutely correct. With my limited knowledge on the subject and without evidence to the contrary I have no reason to object to that statement but I reserve the right to change my mind.

3. Yes it would be fair to say that nutrient enhanced crops could play an important role in improving production in third world countries as long as the Chemical Companies are not testing their product on the
underpriviledged based on this argument. All testing should be done by independent people.

Everyone here wants the best for the peoples of the world we just disagree with the way we achieve it. I disagree with companies owning the food supply and I don't believe that corporations are the best entities to feed the world. I look at companies past records have concerns as to the realiabilty of the information released.

Opinionated2: I have posted two comments about how Zambia was influenced by European hype over GM good risks.
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/12/is-european-attitude-to-gm-products.html
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/12/european-attitude-to-gm-products.html

The [Zambian] delegation charged with obtaining advice about GM food aid from experts in the field visited various organisations throughout Europe and the United States, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and several other groups that are fundamentally opposed to agricultural biotechnology (Wilson 2002). Amongst the organisations consulted was Farming and Livestock UK, which is reported to have told the delegation that the virus used in the creation of most GM crop varieties could form a retrovirus which in turn could cause symptoms similar to HIV (Wilson 2002). Given unsubstantiated and clearly misleading information such as this about health effects, it is unsurprising that the delegation’s report took a negative view of agricultural biotechnology.

Do you agree that this indicates that careless untrue speculation on on GM food raises serious moral questions?

Julie Newman

I have found more evidence that glyphosate tolerant canola (GM) performs better in Canada.
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/12/scientific-evidence-that-gm-canola-can.html
Harker, K. N. Blackshaw, R. E. Kirkland, K. J. Derksen, D. A.Wall, D.
Canadian Journal of Plant Science. 80(3). July, 2000. 647-654.

Both Glufosinate (GM) and Glyphosate GM) resististant canola have steadily expanded their area.
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/12/relative-area-of-herbicicide-tolerant.html

Do you still hold there is no evidence GM crops are better performers? And since the data on popularity of hybrid Glufosinate (Liberty) are so clearcut, do you still claim there is no evidence that GM hybrids have advantages?

http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/

This is an interesting post but I am a consumer and I don't want to eat GM foods. Having a regulator saying it is safe will not convince me to eat it any more than a vegetarian will be forced to eat meat if it was proven safe. I don't want scientists tampering with my food breeding plants with bacteria or plants with animals.

In a hypothetical situation, what would happen if Australia did bring in GM foods and then noticed that the medical admissions into hospitals increased dramatically? Would anyone notice or link this phenomena to GM foods or would we just say "She'll be right mate. It can't be GM as the Americans would not hurt us."

Could this be a cane toad disaster except this time we would be playing with OUR health. We are ignorant of the full test results of "non subsidized chemical Company" results of GM. From what I have heard, they are not heard because the chemical companies don't want us to know the truth.

Once we have it in Australia, we would not be able to get it out due to contamination. We would not have a choice at all. Isn't this making us the lab rats of something that has not been tested with humans over decades?

I heard that China has now developed a rice with human genes to give it multiple chemical resistance. Yuk. Keep GM out of my food please.

NonGMfarmer. “ABARE1990-2000 pre-GM: Canada maintained a consistent premium of US$32.68/tonne over Australian canola”.

Because you won’t say where this very precise figure comes from, I am going to assume you calculated it from one of several reports by Max Foster of ABARE (an example is at http://abareonlineshop.com/product.asp?prodid=12526)? I can’t find this specific value anywhere else at ABARE. Max Foster produces a graph showing relative prices for Canadian and Australian canola – you have reproduced the same on your website I notice. Is this the source of your “premium” quote? Here is what Max has to say about it: “There is some evidence that the gap between Canadian and Australian canola prices, expressed in US dollars, has narrowed in recent years. However, this narrowing could simply reflect the greater security of supply that has occurred with Australian canola over the same time, the continuing problems that Canada has had in disposing of the record increase in canola production that occurred in 1998 and 1999, and relative movements between the Australian and Canadian currencies over the time period.” Not a word about loss of premiums. Did you notice a period in 1995 when Australian non-Gm canola was more valuable than Canadian non-GM canola? By the way, Canada introduced GM canola in 1996 and by 1999 more than 50% of the crop was GM.

Opionated2. Apart from having a poor view of science, you seem to have a poor understanding of patents. Patents are designed to give the inventor a period of exclusivity in exploiting their invention in return for letting everybody else in on the secret. As soon as the patent period is over, anybody else can use the invention. Even better, during the patent period others can improve on your invention and if they do so in a novel enough way, get their own patent. The alternative is to follow the Coca-Cola approach and just keep it all secret. Did you know that many crop varieties grown in Australia have intellectual property protection as well as some garden plants?

Refusing to answer questions Rebel and d? Why should the non-GM farmer be liable for costs/losses? Who do you think should be liable?
The GM area that is increasing is GM soy, cotton and corn. Australia already grows cotton and is not very suitable for soy or corn. As we are not being offered these crops, we need to focus on the canola issue.
Yes, Max Foster (ABARE) sent the hard data, I can forward it if you like.
Why should GM yield more, the OGTR states quite clearly that GM is nothing to do with yields, it only give chemical resistance... just like non-GM.
The Australian Productivity Commission investigated GM canola in Canada and came to the conclusion that GM canola only improved productivity by 1% with "little evidence of cost reduction" and costs have gone up since.
However, performance will be quite different in Australia which is why we need independent performance trials? Are you against these?
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, as far as the website is concerned, I saw nothing wrong with Georges explanation as website skeletons are even done by schoolkids. We are talking the basic skeleton here, not the whole site. All wording on www.non-gm-farmers.com has been done by me. I gave George a summary of a few issues and they were locked on the website under the top columns "about us" etc.
The Weekly Times did me a favour when they asked for more detail as I rang George (the story followed within days). Before I knew this I did not want to sound ungrateful asking for change. Once I found out who did the website I was able to pay to do the improvement changes I wanted (search engine etc).
Nic Kentish is not an active member of the network but was an original founder helping organise part of Percy’s tour. Why grind on about this, frightened about debating the real issues are you Rebel?
Re the green vegies, poverty stricken farmers add weeds to their diet which would give the necessary nutrients.

NonGMFarmer. Back on the discussion of canola sales from Canada. You didn’t seem to like my last two pieces of official Government statistics from Canada. Well here are another couple. Official statistics from the Canadian Grain Commission (http://www.grainscanada.gc.ca/pubs/grainstats/gsw_2-e.asp). Visible canola stocks at November 27, 2005 are currently 988 thousand tonnes. About half as high again as they were a year ago, but carrover stocks in 2003/2004 were less than 8% of supply. This is with the second largest canola harvest ever of 8.3 million tons rolling in. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (a Canadian Government body http://www.agr.gc.ca/mad-dam/e/sd1e/hsd1ez.htm) forecasts exports for 2005/2006 will be 3.9 million, the third highest ever.

Of course, I still don’t expect you to accept these statistics either, preferring to live in your own fantasy world where: because GM is bad and Canadians grow GM canola, they must not be able to sell it (regardless of any evidence to the contrary).

In fairness, I should point out that because of the very large harvest from 2005 and continuing price pressure from soybeans (ironically all of them GM), the Canadians expect to have a carryover of 2.5 million tons for 2005/2006. This will be about 25% of supply (10.2 MT). How is Australian canola going to do?

Is it safe. Good questions. You must remember that everybody at Monsanto (over 5000 in St Louis alone) and all the people at the regulatory bodies are also consumers. As I tucked into my burrito last night, I mused on the fact that it was likely to contain GM corn in the tortilla, and was possibly cooked with oil from GM soybeans, GM cotton or GM canola. I still ate it though. Why, because I trust that those at Monsanto and in the FDA are also likely eating the same food. Why would they knowingly put something dangerous into the food supply when they will eat it too? When I got up this morning, I had my cup of organically-grown coffee from Costa Rica and mused on the fact that it contained a moderately toxic poison called caffeine. Strange world isn’t it?