A study conducted by The National Centre for Food and Agriculture Policy called Biotechnology-Derived Crops Planted in 2004 - Impacts on US Agriculture was released this month (http://www.ncfap.org/whatwedo/biotech-us.php).

Some selected quotes:

In 2004, U.S. farmers planted biotech crops on 118 million acres, an increase of 11 percent over the 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 also reduced pesticide use by an additional 34 percent, or 15.6 million pounds.

According to the study, insect-resistant crops again produced the greatest yield increase among the crops studied, improving food and fiber production by 6.5 billion pounds. While insect-resistant traits increased production, herbicide-resistant varieties generated the greatest reduction in production costs by reducing the amount of pesticide needed and lowering costs associated with hand weeding and mechanical cultivation. Herbicide-resistant varieties cut costs by $1.8 billion and reduced pesticide use by 55.5 million pounds.

Donna Winters, who grows biotech cotton, corn and soybean on her farm in Lake Providence, La., has personally experienced the benefits of growing biotech crops. Winters said adopting the technology not only helps her operation remain profitable, but also lessens agriculture’s environmental footprint.

Are Canola farmers in Australia meant to accept Herbicide tolerant GM canola just because the Monsanto funded studies and reports show that farmers like Bt insect resistant GM cotton? Whose going to pay them if they make a loss? The GM Cotton growers or Monsanto?

Perhaps you should more correctly ask whether Australian farmers should forgo the benefits enyoyed by others in having access to new technology, solely to satisfy the ideological position of a small minority? Who will pay the opportunity costs incurred by those farmers?

GM technology is not a solution for all problems, but it has proven useful for more than 8 million farmers in at least 18 countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Romania in Europe. So much for Europe not wanting to grow GM crops. Some farmers at least do.

If Australian farmers don't find GM canola useful they won't grow it. So what are you worried about? That they will find these crops useful, just like they have in Canada and te US?

You are saying that I am the minority and am fanatical about non-GM. This reason is because you are not honouring my point of view. You have subjected me to a stifling, stupefying, barrage of facts and figures hoping that I would accept them but I haven’t because I don’t believe the chemical companies that supplied or paid for these facts. The farmers won’t be able to get rid of GM (or cane toads) if it gets in. It appears that canola doesn’t make a profit anyway. The ones that want to grow and are willing to grow, are they just believing the lies you are telling them or do they know that Canadian farmers are not making any profit from it. The problem appears to be that the non-GM farmers have to pay for other misled farmers to give it a try. You don't supply information about the conditions that either myself or what non-GM farmer are saying e.g. tests on health or being sure that non-GM farmers are not paying for this stupidity? The consumers don’t want to take the risk that you are forcing onto us. You are making the consumers the lab rats of something that has not been tested correctly by intermingling all of your GM foods together because we eat more than one type of food, so where are these tests and done on something that are similar to humans like pigs? There are none and you cannot deny that.

Agronomist, your claim "If Australian farmers don't find GM canola useful they won't grow it." is obviously what the pro-GM sector support.
You forget that if a grower gives GM a try, they irreversibly contaminate our non-GM produce. Non-GM farmers are well aware that this is the intention but we want to ensure we have risk management to ensure we are not going to subsidise the GM industry.
Before Australian farmers give GM a whirl, why not gather the facts that are needed in order to make an informed decision? What is wrong with independent performance trials? What is wrong with farmers knowing the costs?
Every poll done has shown that the majority of farmers do not want GM so the minority is the farmers not wanting to grow GM. If the GM industry truly wanted to gain support for a product they truly had confidence in, they would give farmers the information they need to make an informed decision, they would not be withholding it.

Is-it-really-safe: How can you expect Agronomist, Sten, GMO Pundit, or myself to honour your point of view when you reject all facts that we bring to the debate because you believe that chemical companies “supplied or paid for these facts”? Facts are either facts or they aren’t, but more importantly, they are supported by sources that are not “owned” by chemical or biotech companies. Perhaps the most obvious: no one can make up the fact that GM crops are now grown by some 8 million farmers in 18 countries, most for several years. You must either count these farmers as stupid, including all Canadian canola farmers, or accept the fact that GM crops provide advantages to a lot of farmers in a lot of areas. I have to tell you; farmers are not stupid. You also have to ignore the fact that at least 25 Nobel Prize winners, including Australian Peter Doherty (Nobel Prize in Physiology-Medicine in 1996 "for discoveries concerning the specificity of the cell mediated immune defence"), as well as many other highly respected scientists such as Australian-born Lord Bob May, have declared support for the value and safety of GM, whereas the opponents have not one scientist who has earned any elite honours.

NonGMFarmerNewman: How is it that “if a grower gives GM a try, they irreversibly contaminate our non-GM produce”? Isn’t there turnover of seed varieties that can be tested? Perhaps the most important example, on a scale that dwarfs Australian ag, was the use of Starlink corn in the US, but it has clearly not been irreversible.

I have not written for more than a week now, but you still have not taken a try at answering most of my questions (let alone whether I accept your answers; eg., the link to “Chinese cotton subsidies www.v-farm.com/new/A12479/Cotton” doesn’t work; I have hunted around www.v-farm.com/ and couldn’t find anything relevant, and gave up on my dialup).

Here is a partial list.

Will you undertake here to never grow a GM crop?

Can you give an estimate of Carracher’s market losses from the 0.5% GM in his canola?