Julie:
Where is the clear market rejection of GM? Spain, Portugal and Germany grow GM corn. Over half the soy imported to the EU is GM. The difference is that the EU is a net exporter of GM and has little reason to allow in any other canola. If you wanted to get rid of GM, you could. Seed stocks turn over. The US has gotten rid of Starlink corn.

We have already gone over the APVMA report; they only rule on acceptable risk, not that atrazine is safer than glyphosate. Atrazine’s close relative, simazine, has already gotten into Adelaide’s water. Would you have atrazine in your water?

What is this “evidence of losses when Canada's GM introduction changed their …. premium to a ….. penalty but farmers and now taxpayers through increased subsidies are paying for those losses.” I hope you are not relying on organic lobbyist Chuck Benbrook for this. The facts are that the US is willing to reduce subsidies as soon as Europe reduces its even larger subsidies, despite being nearly GM free. I guess that means EU taxpayers are subsidising being GM free. Subsidies don’t exist in Argentina, Brazil, India, China or South Africa, but they have adopted GM anyway.

Who required any testing from Geoffrey Carracher? The fact that he tested his canola to make a political point is not a cost he had to bear, but did so by choice. Who are these customers wanting guarantees that there is no GM canola present? Does Carracher have some,. and who are they? What are they paying? You have to be able to show damages before you can sue successfully.

Why doesn’t the NCF put up or shut up and sue Bayer for Carracher’s test results? Set a precedent! You won’t because your lawyers know there were no damages.

Even if the cafeteria at Monsanto in the UK wanted to use GE ingredients, how would they get them?

Answer questions, Julie, or provide new evidence. Your endless repetition of claims doesn’t make them factual.

I’ve answered your questions. When are you going to answer mine

You pro-GMers are a nasty little lot. I don't know much about the farming angle but I can see that you are bullying the farmers that don't want to grow GM. I can see why GM crops are banned in Australia, it doesn't seem to make sense.
Is that Bill Crabtree the same guy who was on the ABC saying that the Network of Concerned Farmers should be wiped off the face of the earth? When I heard that, I realised that something funny was going on. A farmer being threatened like that, just because they don't want to grow GM. Maybe they are uncovering things that you pro-GMers don't want to be uncovered or understood.
I asked a question at work and didn't find anyone that wanted to eat GM. All of them, like me are concerned that the health issues have not been fully looked at and the tests that have shown problems are overlooked or hidden. I don't think it is a good idea to rush into GM without being able to guarantee you can provide non-GM for those consumers. Australia relies on exports while Canada sells most of theirs to the United States. I think that is an important issue.

http://www.ncfap.org/whatwedo/pdf/2004ExecSummary.pdf
http://www.ncfap.org/index.php

Environmental and Production Benefits Drive Greater Demand for Biotech (GM) Crops

Farmers experience year-on-year improvements from biotech crops
In 2004, U.S. farmers planted biotech crops on 118 million acres, an increase of 11 percent overthe previous year. Compared to conventional crops, biotech varieties increased food production by 6.6 billion pounds, a 24 percent improvement from 2003, and provided $2.3 billion in additional net returns for U.S. growers, a 21 percent increase from the previous year. Biotech crops alsoreduced pesticide use by an additional 34 percent, or 15.6 million pounds. Pesticide use dropped by 15.6 million from 2003 to 2004.

Pesticide use impacts
The 11 applications of biotechnology-derived crops planted in 2004 reduced the use of pesticides in crop production by 62.0 million pounds. This represents a further 34% decrease in pesticide usage compared with 2003. Herbicide-resistant crops accounted for
the largest reduction of pesticide use compared to other applications. Increased acreage ofLiberty Link crops (canola, corn, and cotton) has contributed to further reductions in pesticide use in 2004. While herbicide-resistant soybean accounted for 36% of the reduction, herbicide-resistant corn and cotton contributed 30 and 23%, respectively.About 11% reduction in pesticide use was due to insect-resistant crops.

Crop impacts
The planting of biotechnology-derived varieties resulted in significant impacts in all the six crops evaluated in this study. While yield improvement and pesticide use reduction was greatest in biotechnology-derived field corn, planting of soybean led to largest
reduction in production costs and greatest net economic impact. Both crops were leaders in the same categories in 2003. Biotechnology-derived varieties improved corn production by 5.9 billion pounds in 2004.
Cotton ranked second in yield improvement, with an additional 587 million pounds produced due to biotechnology-derived varieties. Biotechnology-derived soybean reduced production costs by $1.37 billion, and therefore increased growers’ net returns by
the same amount. Overall reduction in pesticide use due to biotechnology-derived varieties was greatest in corn (23.3 million pounds), followed by soybean (22.4 million pounds), and cotton (15.9 million pounds).

NonGMFarmer. Now you have made an accusation about me to the effect that “a paid PR consultant that visited Australia to help you”. When I ask for information from you to justify this allegation, you refuse to give it, now suggesting that I am the paid PR consultant. And Is it Really Safe? complains about the pro-GMers being a nasty lot.

I am being disingenuous about Max Foster am I? I took the quote from a document called “Australian Grains Industry 2003-GM Canola. What are its economics under Australian conditions?” available from ABARE at website. You can look it up, I quoted exactly and, I believe, in context.

As to the quotation that you used, you didn’t reference it so I had to search for it. It apparently comes from a report written for DAFF called “Trading Conditions for Genetically Modified Canola” and available at: http://www.affa.gov.au/content/output.cfm?ObjectID=FF9D6753-3C34-4E15-836D5E9CEF42FD5F.

I quote in full:

“Price advantages for non-GM canola?
There is some evidence that the gap between Canadian and Australian canola prices has narrowed in recent years which is consistent with improved demand for non–GM canola (figure B). However, this narrowing could simply reflect the greater security of supply that has occurred with Australian canola over the same time and the continuing problems that Canada has had in disposing of a record canola production surge that occurred in 1998 and 1999.”

I take another quote from the same report:

“the premium for non–GM canola over GM canola would have to be at least 10 per cent to offset the agronomic benefits of GM canola. At this stage, a premium of this level does not appear to be available on a wide scale in world markets.”

Nothing in either report about Canada losing a premium of $38.

As to the quote “The bulk of the Canadian canola is sold to the United States which is not GM sensitive”. This statement is so obviously untrue; I don’t know why you bothered to say it. More than 4 times as much Canadian canola is exported to Japan as the USA (see for details: http://www.canola-council.org/seedexports.html).

Agronomist, try adding the statistics (from the same site) for seed+oil+meal and you will find USA is Canada's largest market by an average 3,759,000 tonne/year. Perhaps you should be following your own recommendation "you really need to learn to use official statistics."
Japan is the worlds largest importer of canola seed and becoming increasingly sensitive to GM imports and are even demanding stock and products from stock (eg.cheese) sent to Japan are not fed GM products.
The quote disproving your “nothing but quality and availability” claim was from Max Fosters "ABARE GM Grain-Market implications for Australian grain growers" which is the main ABARE report on GM and the reference given for the graph you quoted from my website. Contact ABARE for the hard data.
The same ABARE report stated the agronomic benefits would be negated if identity preservation requirements are included (estimated at 10%) and also modelled an increase in cost of production at 4%. This would equate to a requirement of at least a 14% gain in productivity to offset additional costs for the GM grower and the non-GM grower would be at least 10% down or be expected to market as GM. That does not equate to a benefit.
Based on Canadian statistics, the Australian Productivity Commission calculated a 1% productivity gain while ABARE based their assumptions on a 10% increase in productivity. Neither has been verified.
We need independent trials to come up with accurate data for Australian conditions, are you against these? Avoiding the question?

You don’t have to be too smart to want to avoid these costs and market risks.

Rebel -
So you consider Bill Crabtree who "has seen Canada" a better source of information than Charles Benbrook, top agronomic adviser in the US for many years… you must be joking!!
If you contact expert lawyers in this field you will have them confirm that existing legislation is not adequate (or see DAFF liability report).
The Canadian Wheat Board policy, the Canadian Farmers Union policy and the numerous press articles surrounding GM wheat reveal strict liability is seen as a solution.

You have demanded for Non-GM’s name and yet you have not said who you are. That’s a bit rude isn’t it? And then you answer questions with questions which does not answer the original question. I don’t know what all these chemicals do or for what crops, but I do know that what I eat directly influences my health. I do want to know that this is safe and you continually fob me off as not important and attack rather than discuss what Non-GM farmer is saying. Obviously she is Julie and she has been out in the open all along including her sign off name and you have attacked her web-site as well. Do you have a web-site that she can attack?
Monsanto and Bayer I do not trust. And yet that’s what this forum is about. Their track record is very poor so why should I trust them now? They are playing with my health and they are totally irresponsible to do that. I don’t want to know years down the track “Oops, sorry. All your major organs are now reduced because you’ve been eating GM. And by the way, the rest of the world’s population has done the same because there has been no alternative, so the mortality rate is now reduced by 10 years”. But I suppose the world’s population has overgrown the world’s resources so this is one way of taking care of that. These type of companies don’t care about people’s health and they have proved that time and time again. They are only in it for the fast buck which has killed many people in murder before today. I don’t want to be murdered by a slow painful death. Do you