Whenever the competition gets too tough, the "funded by Greenpeace" bulldust comes out along with some outrageous rubbish such as "half the worlds farmers". Yes, the first GM campaigner contacted me on his first day of work after hearing me on Radio National and farmers joined a few phone conferences answering questions like "what are our concerns", "what is the price of lupins/soybeans" etc. Big deal! Get over it, its not an issue, just something pro-GM activists love throwing about in some corny attempt to avoid real debate.
George Kailis originally funded the NCF website skeleton but I developed everything on the site and have paid the associated costs since.
Our key objection is that we will not accept liability for a risk we do not want to take. Bullying and slander tactics by the pro-GM industry that doesn't want to accept liability either will not make us accept that risk.
Nortons report presumes we use last generations practises, farmers already use minimum till and most farmers use non-GM chemical-resistant canola so it is innaccurate.
Glufosinate has more health concerns than Atrazine http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=1504 but we don't drink these chemicals.
The single gene technology involves transferring single genes to around 30,000 GM canola genes. ie. contrary to claims, you can't use this single gene technology to create a wheat with the nitrogen fixation properties of a legume as this involves transferring around a third of the genes that are all interacting.
The GM canola "benefit" is chemical resistance for post-emergent control. Canadian farmers do not have the pre-emergent weed burden we have because they plant directly after the snow thaws. Even Monsanto/Bayer do not recommend sowing GM canola dry for exactly the same reasons you don't sow non-GM chemical resistant canola dry. The most critical weed control phase in canola is knockdown/pre-emergent, not post-emergent, as the highest yield penalty associated with weeds is when the seedling emerges.
All farmers will be exposed to a market risk and higher costs for more problems and limited benefit. Why exactly should we be forced to accept risks we do not want to take?

GMO Pundit Dave, I haven't attacked you personally and to represent that I have is wrong. I just asked you a few questions on matters of great concern to me, many others in Australia and the world.

The title of this piece is "The case for GM food deserves a fair hearing". Now "for" is a very strong word in this title as are the words "fair hearing". You must have realised when posting the topic that it was going to get some robust debate.

So trying to be fair I questioned you using "the precautionary principle" ... you argued the economic downsides of the precautionary principle... and yes they exist to some degree. Did you argue the true value of caution when we genetically modify foods?

Have you addressed the "GM foods by stealth" questions? Did you address the morality of corporations in the GM debate or the ownership rights of our food supply?

You stated "These potential deaths show that the non-precautionary approach advocated by Opinionated is morally wrong". With this point you brought morality into the debate. Did you answer any of my morality questions? Would potential deaths or long term illness from GM foods be wrong also? I suffer heaps of allergies ... trust me I don't want any more.

When presented with the "Choice article" you commented on Corn and Cotton and failed to mention the Roundup residues in Soy until the posting I am replying to here. We are being asked to accept up to 200 times the residue that our Govt limits now. This is no small increase. The long term effects of this haven't been studied in humans.

Are the decision makers in our country and throughout the world ever swayed by money? Could this or does this happen in science?

They are all just questions that allow people to gain perspective. I accept and respect your stated independence but disagree with your arguments on genetically modified foods.

"It must be difficult for the pro-GM activists to try to counter the credibility of someone that has such credible history (eg. chief advisor to the White House.)"

Actually the gushing claims Benbrook' credibility, and "Advisor to the White House Line" make me a suspicious. Maybe someone's trying to sell Buckingham Palace.
What do you think of Bedbrook's advice to Zambia? http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/advice-to-zambia-from-charles-bedbrook.html

"GM performing worse in drought."
Already many of your statements on this are misleading or wrong; which reports?

"GM does not make a hybrid... but is a result of the breeding of the two genetically distinct parents."

Its hard to see where you are trying to go on this. GM provides the only workable hybrid system in canola now. Single traits can offer something - eg Bt, Herbicide tolerance, drought resistance, stress resistance, Aluminium tolerance.
"Nortons report presumes ... most farmers use non-GM chemical-resistant canola"
But Norton also makes the point that existing chemical resistant canola vaieties have several limitations. The most prominent is a 20% yield penalty with TT triazine-atrazine. Both the new GM varieties offer better performance there. http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/existing-herbicide-tolerant-canola.html
On top of that Australian farmers are giving the hybrid canola users in Canada a 20-30% cost advantage which you consistently never mention, despite saying that lies to farmers are what you hate.http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/where-hybrids-and-hybrid-vigour-came.html ; do you realise this lies statement puts an onus on you to report all the contradictions to your earlier clains emerging from this thread?

Opinionated2
First, thanks for the conversational tone of your remarks - inviting dialogue. Robust debate is fine.
"You argue the economic downsides of the precautionary principle"
You are missing my point, I argue that a precautionary approach requires consideration of human welfare implications of stopping new crops, and death, disease, cancer and birth defects with fungal toxins are well established welfare outcomes demanding moral evaluation.

"We are being asked to accept up to 200 times the residue that our Govt limits now."
Wel no I dont accept that statement says enough about this issue; for a considered judgement there is much more to say about it.

There are many non-GM hybrid canola's and if GM canola was making an improvement in Canadian farmers incomes, they would not have marched for such a huge subsidy increase.

Farmers need factual data, not promises.

If the GM companies were confident of yield improvements, they would not be refusing to do independent trials. At $16/kg for Bayer's GM seed and $72/ha for glufosinate which doesn’t control radish (triazines $28/ha) , plus the additional costs for crop management plans, segregation and IP you would need more benefit than is being promised. More http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=1992

Health:
I commend the WA government for just announcing they would fund independent feeding studies on GM foods. CSIRO recently confirmed concerns when their voluntary feeding studies found GM peas produced new proteins and created immune/allergic responses.

A compelling study was done in UK to prove that GM food was safe, a prearranged test was approved by all sides and the UK government employed the best scientist in that field, Arpad Pusztai. 6 months into the 3 year project, Mr Pusztai went public about his serious concerns. Developing animals fed GM potatoes (with snowdrop lectin for insect resistance) had smaller brain, heart, kidneys, testes, enlarged livers, beginnings of tumerous growths, blood disorders and immunology problems. The test animals fed non-GM potatoes (some with the snowdrop lectin added externally) were not adversely affected. Mr Pusztai was sacked the same week Monsanto paid 140,000 pounds to Rowett University. His notes were taken and Pusztai and staff were not interviewed but within a few hours the "experts" who were not even professionals in that field, pronounced the test invalid. This stinks of corruption, fuels mistrust and added to the public relations nightmare.

Similar immune reactions have been found in independent testing even in some of Monsanto's own limited tests. Russia's preliminary tests with the offspring of pregnant rodents fed GM foods was even worse.
We can't ignore these problems and feeding studies should not be voluntary. Because we can't segregate or recall the product, governments are being very reckless in pushing GM food on a reluctant population

Julie,

you claim that EU consumers won't accept GM crops and that the EU legislation confirms that contamination will only be accepted if the contamination is not detected at stages throughout the system.

Would you like to comment on the coexistence laws in Denmark that clearly are there to provide Danish GM and Non-GM farmers guidance on how to keep the crops segregated? For three crops , maize ,sugarbeet and potato they found that the supply chain could manage 0.1 % thresholds without Government regulation. For these three crops simple on farm segregation is required to achieve levels of accidental presence of 0.9% or lower.

The Danes accept some spillover of GM in non-GM and the EU bases its whole GM policy on the fundamental principle that in agricultural porduction nothing is 100% pure from impurities. We can measure down to 0.01% levels of GM but because we can do it (and yes it is expensive) doesn't necessarily mean that we must do it. To resist unjustifiable cost on the supply chain for grain production thresholds must be set at levels that reflect seed , grain , and food industry standards.

Some people argue that hunger is a food distribution problem. However, any strategy that allows small-holder farmers to more consistently produce larger amounts of food in a more sustainable way will help decrease hunger, promote rural economic development and self-esteem, and decrease dependence on distribution systems.

GM crops like Bt corn do that now. They also directly benefit health. The high incidence of throat cancer, liver problems, and neural tube defects in fetuses among people in southern Africa and Latin America results from fungal toxins (fumonisins) produced on insect-damaged corn. Fumonisins also can be fatal to horses and pigs. Insect-resistant (Bt) corn has much lower amounts of fumonisins than conventional corn because there is less insect damage to corn kernels on which the fungi can grow. Therefore, a switch to Bt corn varieties would lower exposure to fumonisin and decrease the incidence of these birth defects (Wu, F. A., J. D. Miller, and E. A. Cassman. 2004.. J Toxicol, Toxin Rev 23: 397–424. )

Bt cotton continues to be a success in India , as reported by Reuters:
India seen heading for record cotton crop, August 11, 2005, Atul Prakash
BOMBAY - …… the share of transgenic cotton has been estimated at about 90 percent of total plantings in Gujarat, India's largest cotton producer, nearly 75 percent in the neighbouring western state of Maharashtra and some 60 percent in northern India. Overall coverage under the genetically modified cotton has more than doubled this year from the previous year…...”

With respect to the residual levels of Roundup in soy, the ANZFA allowed an increase of glyphosate residues from 0.1 mg/kg to 20 mg/kg in soybeans to match the international standards as set by the Codex Committee of the UN. Since long before GM, glyphosate had been used in the late season to defoliate beans before harvest and kill weeds, giving average residues of about 7-10 mg/kg, and GM beans are no higher. Until Monsanto started to apply for permission to import GM beans, no one had noticed that Australia technically had an old “detection limit” of 0.1