Dear Julie NonGM:
There you go again misquoting people. I didn’t say half the world’s farmers.

It’s fine for Greenpeace to have an opinion. My concern is why you and Greenpeace concealed the relationship. You even threatened to sue Paula Fitzgerald because she suggested that you and Greenpeace were working together (and bragged about it on your website). Then it turned out you were meeting with Greenpeace all along. I would not have mentioned this until you gave us your holier-than-thou bulldust that you always hated farmers being lied to. Isn’t it true that you told the farmer newspaper The Weekly Times that Greenpeace had nothing to do with your network, only to admit a week later, after you were outed by Nic Kentish, that Greenpeace had built your network’s website? Isn’t it true that Nic told us all on radio and in the Times that Greenpeace chaired teleconferences with you for months earlier? Would we know today if Nic hadn’t told us? Are you saying that Jeremy Tager lied to the Times that Greenpeace had provided an administrative service in funding the website? The issue raised is honesty in the claims you make. I’ve saved the documentation in case you threaten to sue me like you have threatened Bill Crabtree and Paula.

The issue is not whether glufosinate is worse than atrazine since no one is going to use glufosinate; the key comparison is with glyphosate (e.g., Roundup). The 350 word space limit for this list doesn’t allow me to debunk here today the spurious health claims reprinted on your website. I’ll see if they let me on later to do so.

Glyphosate is at least three times less toxic (according to active ingredient chronic risk indicators based on US Environmental Protection Agency data) and half as persistent as the herbicides used before the advent of transgenic soy (www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aer810/).

You wrote: “Farmers need factual data, not promises.” If you really believe this, why don’t you come out right here and encourage trials of Roundup Ready canola to get the data? What are you afraid of

As explained numerous times: Nic Kentish joined a Greenpeace conference which is why they chaired it. Paula publicly stated I was Greenpeace funded when I am not (my husband would love it if I was). Cheque (comparatively trivial amount) went from George/Greenpeace/Webdesigner for obvious accounting reasons. I do all the website.

I do want independent comparative trials, not commercial release in the guise of "coexistence trials", but the GM companies refuse.

Stan,
Prior to OGTR approval, it is possible to guarantee there is no GM present in our GM-free crops at no cost. Now farmers sign contractual agreements guaranteeing we have no GM and indemnify the supply chain. Markets prefer no liability and confidence to label products as "GM-free"/"non-GM". ACCC confirms the legal definition of these labels = zeroGM. FSANZ successfully prosecuted a company for misleading labels with a "non-GM" label on a 0.0088% contaminated product.

If GM crops were introduced, those wishing to market as GM-free must adopt a rigorous identity preservation system (GM buffer zones, cleanouts, segregation, rigorous testing etc). This IP cost = $35/tonne or 10-15% of the gross value of the product to maintain a 1% contamination level. These costs, plus manufacturing segregation costs, will ultimately be passed to the consumer which will make non-GM products price prohibitive and effectively deny choice. In EU, a tolerance of 0.1% is considered "adventitious" but if tests show levels higher, the product will need to be labelled as GM. http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=2477 Some contamination will be accepted under Japanese legislation providing the IP documention is available.

With no IP and a chance of contamination, EU requires a GM label and Japanese legislation requires the product to be labelled as "unsegregated from GM crops" or similar and markets avoid that.

If GM is introduced, due to the huge costs and liabilities involved, all farmers are expected to mix our produce with GM and sell as GM.

Why should non-GM farmers be expected to accept GM contamination and the associated market risk or higher costs? The GM industry should keep GM contained, it shouldn't be up the non-GM industry to keep GM out.

http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2005/11/bad-diets-worry-guts-even-with-rats.html
http://gmopundit2.blogspot.com/2005/11/rasts-fed-bad-diets-have-lots-of.html

Julie has made claims about potato experiments. I've put two versions of the data Julie is using. All at http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/

Julie can now explain to us how she reaches her conclusions and the Lancet doesn't.

Harry A Kuiper, Hub P J M Noteborn, and A C M Peijnenburg, Wageningen University and Research Centre,Netherlands:

Stanley Ewen and Arpad Pusztai report that, when fed to rats, GM potatoes containing the GNA lectin haveproliferative and antiproliferative effects on the gut.They suggest that several of these effects are due to alterationsin the composition of the transgenic potatoes, rather than to the newly expressed gene product. However data on the composition of the different diets are not reported in the letter. Pusztai has released some of these details on the internet. These details indicate that the content of starch, glucose polymers, lectin[GNA], and trypsin and chymotrypsin
inhibitors in GM potatoes differed from that of the parental line. Unfortunately, these differences have not been examined further by analysis of an extended range of lines, for evidence on whether these differences are attributable to the genetic modification or to natural variations. Another shortcoming of the study is that the diets were protein deficient; they contained only 6% protein by weight. There is convincing evidence thatshort-term protein stress and starvation impair the growth rate, development, hepatic metabolism, and immune function of rats.

Ewen and Pusztai say that the significant differences between diet groups invariables such as mucosal thickness or crypt length are evidence of the biological effects of the GM foods.

Such a claim is easy to make but difficult to prove, because no consistent patterns of changes were observed in the study.

Ingestion of potatoes may be associated with several adaptive changes in the gut because of the low digestibility of raw or partly refined potato starch. In rats caecal hypertrophy is a common response to short-term feeding of various poorly digestible carbohydrates, such as raw potatostarch. A physiological response of this nature is probably of little toxicological significance. Dose-response studies would have helped in the assessment of consistency of response.

http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/

" if GM canola was making an improvement in Canadian farmers incomes, they would not have marched for such a huge subsidy increase."

That is one of the most stupid things I've ever read. They'd march for more subsidies no matter how much they were making. That's the nature of pork barrelling, it only ever keeps increasing.

"I believe NonGMFarmer.... the general public and therefore the market is also on his/her side. We are a market driven economy and the market has and is speaking loudly.

People don't want GM food ... It may be sad for the pro GM lobby but it is true - people have stated it loudly. Now in a democracy that should be that but of course it won't be."

So what are you worried about then? If nobody wants to buy it, then nobody will grow it. For the same reason that nobody farms dog faeces.

Of course, you are talking out of your arse. People will indeed buy GM food and already do. Where does all Canada's go, Do we export it to Mars? You're a moron and should disqualify yourself from any future debates.

"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""

Well yes, I can see how giving the "for" side a fair hearing would be considered very strong if you're a Gaea-worshipping luddite who lives in the woods eating berries dressed in loincloths, but really most people don't consider the possibility that GM might be a good thing all that astounding.

As usual, this debate is full of liars, inveterate morons and hidden Greenpeace activists who hate GM primarily because it involves capitalism, just like every other debate on GM that's ever been had in Australia. The sad thing is that our politicians still think they have the right to decide for all of us what we want.

The same sort of people argued against the electric light.

Non-GM Farmer. If you hate being lied to why do you publish incorrect rubbish on your website and support people like Charles Benbrook?

I offer a single example at the moment. In an article titled "A Deadly Epidemic and the Attempt to Hide its Link to Genetic Engineering" (left hand side bar) the claim is made that a GM diet supplement caused a deadly epidemic in the US. In fact this has been debunked by the US FDA, who note that " cases of EMS and a related disease, eosinophilic fascitis, have occurred prior to and after the 1989 epidemic" and "other brands of L-tryptophan, or L-tryptophan itself, regardless of the levels or presence of impurities, could not be eliminated as causal or contributing to the development of EMS" (http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-tryp1.html).

As to Charles Benbrook, I read somewhere that he has been shown to misquote data in order to demonstrate negative effects of GM foods. (see http://www.agbioworld.org/newsletter_wm/index.php?caseid=archive&newsid=2409).

So it appears the pro-GM reasons for introducing GM canola to Australia where we as non-GM farmers are to be forced to sell on the consumer rejected GM market and pay for the consequences are:
1. Everybody not chanting the GM mantra is really scary Greenpeace in disguise
2. There is nothing wrong with GM because people with a vested interest in GM said there is not
3. Everybody else is growing it and if we grow GM too, consumers will have to eat GM because it will be too expensive to buy GM-free
4. Australia is not offered a GM crop worth taking the risk for but false promises will have to do
5. GMers want non-GMers to pay

Pretty corny!

We don't have any problem with someone giving GM a whirl if there is a guarantee that the GM industry will pay for the consequences and recall the product if there is a problem. If the GM industry truly believed GM is problem-free, they would not be fighting strict liability legislation.

d- the non-GM potato-eating rats would have been just as sick - but they were not.

Rebel, your comment about "half-the-world" referred to farmers. ISAAA's map shaded all Australia GM despite only a small area of GM cotton being grown (around 20times the area of our farm). ISAAA statistics are derived from market share of seed sales when most non-GM farmers plant their own which may account for so many complaints of inaccuracy about data from this GM-industry-funded body.

Why won't Glufosinate ammonium be used?

Small scale independent performance trials are needed to establish just how much of a yield penalty is associated with GM canola but it is certainly not performing as well as promised. Roundup Ready canola http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=2007

Monsanto's product encourages the overuse of glyphosate in an already overused rotation system and will result in using more toxic chemicals such as 2-4D and Paraquat for resistance management and unwanted volunteer control.

GM crops will not feed the world better than non-GM crops unless they are better than non-GM and there is no evidence of that.