Claiming Atrazine is toxic is merely a lame excuse to slander the popular non-GM chemical resistant alternative. Atrazine has just undertaken a stringent 8 year APVMA regulatory review and it is not toxic. While Atrazine is not suitable for some countries or areas due to waterlogging or snow, it does not cause problems in Australian broadacre cropping areas and is a critical chemical for canola and for legumes. Legumes introduce natural nitrogen to the soil and if Atrazine was banned, farmers would need to increase the use of ozone destructive nitrogenous fertilisers.
It is extremely rare for farmers with viable acreage to buy all our seed every year as it would be price prohibitive (~$300,000 for us) and could result in unwanted weeds (eg. radish), grain mixing and diseases due to rushed commercial bulk up facilities.
It is proposed (GTGC coexistence plans) that if GM crops are approved, even non-GM farmers lose our right to plant our own seed every year.
I fail to understand how a farmer can make an informed decision to support Roundup Ready GM canola when Monsanto has not yet revealed the cost of the user fee, the cost of the seed, the contract farmers are to sign, the crop management plans or provided independent yield comparisons.
What benefit? Statistics (not select surveys) prove that yields have not risen, Canadians have lost their consistent premium (US$32.68/tonne), have the highest carryover stock ever and the Canadian Farmers Union revealed that technology providers (not users) take 144% of the gains derived from new technology. The Canadian government has just approved $1.2 billion to prop up ailing Canadian farmers to "take advantage of innovations arising from our agricultural science investments".
Do you really think Australian taxpayers are going to be keen to pay farmers to use the high cost GM option to prop up government and corporate investments?
We don't mind any farmer having the choice but we do mind when we have to pay for the losses caused by your choice.

“No mention... the world has easily enough food already, but lacks the poliltical will to distribute it”, “Where starvation exists it is not simply due to poor agriculture, but masks a much wider problem.”

#GMO Pundit: There are several issues these comments gloss over. Even though many people have plentiful food, many parts of the world have food insecurity and extreme poverty caused by inefficient agriculture. It not always possible to move the food from where its plentiful to where its needed, sometimes there are even no roads for trucks as in Zambia. Better if the locals grow more of their own food. Better food production also helps these poor farmers by giving them more income.
See http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/improved-farmer-income-is-much-more.html

Also the worlds demand for food in continually growing, and threatened by drought, urbanization, erosion and salinity. For that reason for the future we need to grow more food on less land.

Re nonGMfarmer legal worries - The following link shows that with goodwill a lot of the liability issues mentioned by GM farmer can be solved:
http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/05/1458&type=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

As far as being sued by GM companies for having accidental GM drift - that’s a furphy, in my view. That is unless you do deliberately do something wrong like Percy Schmiesser did, and spray the crop to get pure GM seed for commercial advantage. But that’s not relevant to sensible regular farming.

“farmers lose the right to replant our own seed, we must buy seed every year rather than plant our own and farmers are to pay a "user fee" when delivering the harvested crop.”
GMO Pundit: The solution is simple, buy your seed from other companies who don’t impose these limitations

“I spoke to the scientist who developed Golden Rice last year... nowhere near trial stage"
#GMO Pundit: before writing the article I went earlier this year to Europe and talked directly with the main Golden Rice players in Germany, and with those from Switzerland. I’ve checked all my facts with them, and I suspect nonGMfarmer may be a little out of date on this.

GMO Pundit http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/

What a load of rubbish to claim that "goodwill" will solve all. Read Reports are merely stating that the non-GM farmer accept contamination which prevents us selling as GM-free, that we pay for any adverse consequences and that we adopt the extremely expensive practises necessary to prove that our contamination has been segregated and does not require a GM label in the products we sell or we sell as GM. While liability rests with the non-GM farmer, it is not resolved because we are not prepared to exhibit such extraordinarily demanding and expensive "goodwill" gestures toward our neighbours. Goodwill means the GM farmer contains their product and does not impose costs on their neighbours, not that the non-GM farmer has to accept vandalism of our consumer preferred product.
There is no evidence that GM crops increase yields, it is a single gene technology. In the case of GM canola, the GM trait is chemical resistance, similar to our non-GM chemical resistant varieties, that is all. There is more chance that non-GM biotechnology will increase yields, provide drought resistance, frost tolerance etc.
Australian farmers do not need to be sued by Monsanto, Monsanto has an end point royalty where a positive test (? as low as 0.5%)can trigger a 100% deduction of "user fees" from a farmers income and we are forced to accept 0.5% contamination in our seed we plant. Farmers will need to sue Monsanto to get our money back and we are told we must "trust Monsanto" when we want risk management to prevent this.
We may not have a choice to buy non-GM seed as Monsanto negotiates lucrative deals with seed companies to prevent the better varieties being released without the Monsanto GM trait.
Provide a link to an approved Golden Rice trial and I am happy to be proven wrong.
Those wanting GM crops can't expect us to share their enthusiasm. If the GM industry will not accept liability why should we be forced to?

I feel honoured that DR GM Dave spent time redefining the precautionary principle as a result of my posting.

People won't swallow Genetically Modified foods...

Like in most things it seems the precautionary principle goes out the window when the bucks are involved. Sad but true science seems to have sold it's soul.

You're right Dave it's morally wrong to have kids in this world with vitamin A deficiency. It's morally wrong to have kids starving and poor in the world. It's morally wrong to allow science to misrepresent safety when it isn't proved. GM is not the only way to get the vitamin A to the kids - anyone would think there were no other options.

BUT It's also morally wrong to test GM foods on these people just because they aren't in a position to say no ...

It's morally wrong for Corporations to own our seeds, our foods, our produce... but hey morals went out the window years ago Dave. It's morally wrong to force farmers to use GM seeds. And it's also morally wrong to introduce their use by stealth.

Search Google for Agent Orange and see which Corporations names come up .... Find out how many people have been effected and how much compensation the corps had to pay. Zip all ($180 mill)compared to the effect they have had on people's lives. They probably made more than the $180 mill in profits selling the stuff.

The precautionary principle wouldn't have allowed the use of Agent Orange & Silicon Breast Implants & it shouldn't allow the use of GM foods on the populations of the world until the real science comes in.
We now use depleted Uranium in shells with no regard to the aftermath. The precautionary principle should have stopped that too.

What's that old saying "Just because you can doesn't mean you should!"

NonGMFarmer and Opinionated 2 make some good points although I find it difficult to believe those companies who want to sell GM seeds here are not falling over backwards to accommodate those who don't. However if this is the case then obviously we should stay out of it for now.

Eventually realisation will dawn and the world won't be quite so reluctant to embrace new technologies. There is nothing wrong with the science but when governments and large companies start doing deals then things start to go wrong (like the cross-city tunnel in Sydney). This will only happen through education and transparency by companies and governments. In the meantime research will have to focus on something else. This seems a shame and will enforce unnecessary suffering on many but hey we live in a democracy so must abide by majority opinion. Glad I decided to change career though.

The increase in oil prices is defeating the argument that we produce enough food already and it’s only a matter of distributing it evenly.

The only way forward is to give farmers in the developing world the means i.e. the biofortified GM seed that he or she can grow themselves. The shortage of food has to be solved locally.

GM is the solution since it provides all the nutrients and can be sown year after year..

Queensland University of Technology researchers together with Ugandan researchers are receiving US $ 1.1 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to biofortify the banana boosting its content of vitamin A, iron and iodine.

We need more projects like these to help feed the world.