Economics of GM crops:
http://www.pgeconomics.co.uk/
How about $27 billion of increased income to farmers and $15 billion to farmers in the developing world in their first ten years?

“GM crops: the global socio-economic and environmental impact — the first nine years 1996–2004,” reported that biotech crops contributed to significantly reduced greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural practices. This reduction results from decreased fuel use, about 1.8 billion litres in the past nine years, and additional soil carbon sequestration because of reduced ploughing or improved conservation tillage associated with biotech crops. In 2004, this reduction was equivalent to eliminating more than 10 billion kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or removing 5 million cars — one-fifth of the cars registered in the United Kingdom — from the road for one year.

Biotech crops have reduced the volume of pesticide spraying globally by 6 percent since 1996, equivalent to a decrease of 172.5 million kg, according to the study. That’s equivalent to eliminating 1,514 rail cars of pesticide’s active ingredient. The largest environmental gains from changes in pesticide spraying have been from biotech soybeans and cotton, which have reduced the associated environmental footprint by 19 percent and 17 percent, respectively. The global pesticide usage savings in 2004 were equivalent to about one third of total pesticide active ingredient used on European arable crops.

Rural poverty in India was dramatically decreased by the Green Revolutions. and a new revolution is occurring with GM cotton, with Three Consecutive Records For India Cotton Output in the last few seasons.
http://www.fas.usda.gov/wap/circular/2006/06-06/Wap%2006-06.pdf
The dramatic jump in cotton yields (approaching 50%) is due to widespread use of cotton hybrid and GM varieties.
In each year since 2002, Monsanto GM seed sales have more than doubled, to reach levels for 3.2 million hectares for the coming 2006/07 season, and as a result the India is anticipating a boom in raw cotton exports.

I would suggest that Louise Sales and James Norman have a good look at the tripe they have served up here about the Canadian canola industry. I assume they either didn't bother to check what they were told or thought that Australians would have no idea and would believe anything served up. Lets be clear, the Canadians have never produced 97% of the world's canola since the 1970s when they invented it. A quick perusal of the canola/oilseed rape production statistics would show that China and Europe are both large producers of canola/rapeseed. Canada did not lose their European market in 1998. The European market was always sporadic and was artificially high because of (then) record production in 1994 and 1995. Prior to 1994, very little canola was sold to Europe (5,000 tonnes in each of 1990-1991 and 1991-1992. Australia likewise has found the European canola market to be sporadic. Canada has simply sold its canola to other markets like Japan, Mexico, China nad the US. In the 10 months from August 2005 to May 2006, Canada had sold 4.56 million tonnes of GM canola seed (http://www.canola-council.org/currseedexp.html). Of that 1.7 million tonnes has gone to Japan and 0.6 million to China.

By the way Steve Madden, the answer to your question is that you cannot tell whether the oil comes from GM or non-GM canola.

So tell me Louise, how did a tall corn plant manage to produce mature corn cobs at the same time as low soybean shrubs and then end up in the same harvester? My guess is that the only "contaminant" was of a purely cognitive nature.

Genes code for the production of specific proteins. All proteins consist of amino acids. Proteins differ from one another based on the sequence of the amino acids.

When humans consume a GM food that has had a gene spliced into its genetic structure, we are then consuming that protein. Once we have ingested the protein, the genetically modified organism digests in the same way every other protein we consume. When it reaches the stomach, the stomach acid straightens and unwinds the protein. Concurrently, the stomach acid activates pepsin, which is an enzyme that breaks the protein apart into smaller amino acid sequences. The partially broken down protein then enters the small intestines where it is broken down to smaller peptides by the enzymes, trypsin, chymotrypsin, and carboxypeptidases A & B.

Finally, the peptides are cleaved into individual amino acids by aminopeptidases when they come in contact with the cells that line the intestines. The body then takes up the amino acids. The body, in effect, breaks down all bonds and subsequently uses the amino acids. The human body cells cannot discern what is a gene from a “natural” or genetically modified organism because they are completely unbound from the original plant.

There was a trial in Newcastle England that attempted to show that people without a small intestine or with a colostomy may not break down the DNA and this may lead to gene flow to gut flora. This research is now universally discredited and its results were found to be not reproducible.

60 -70% of Australians eat GM food, I haven’t noticed anyone growing two heads 10 years later how’s that for a clinical trial.

Louise is doing the normal Greenpeace half-truth game. She knows that bio pharming has been banned in the USA in food producing areas since 2002. ProdiGene bought the crop that was “contaminated” by a “tiny” amount of corn. It was NOT producing a Pig Vaccine this is an outright lie, it was grown to produce trypsin which labs can now buy by the litre

Oh wow! Back to the growing of two heads. How immature. So basically the last 10 years has been an experiment with the population on GM. How idiotic. How do we know that the increase in allergic responses in the general community is not from GM? How do we know that the increase in abortive babies is not from GM? How do we know that the general population is not getting sicker because of GM? How do we know that the increase in psychological illnesses is not from GM? We don't because it is hidden and there are no reporting facilities available for this.

See, there is no backlash to the GM Companies because the consumers don't know that what they eat may be causing health issues. There is no backlash to GM because who do we report to if we feel sick? The local doctor does not ask us if we eat GM because GM is so hidden in the general food sections that we don't know that we are eating GM at all. I would prefer and I know a lot of others in the population would to, to have GM on the listing of ingredients the same as any possible allergen, i.e. this may contain traces of GM. Now that would be a big shock to the farmers when all of a sudden the general population does not buy that product because they have a choice. Who paid who to stop this happening?

A wonderful world for the GM companies as they have manipulated all of the rules to suit them even "testing" their product on the general population.

Future food allergy treatments might include selection of "less allergenic" fruit cultivars, and genetic silencing of major allergens.

How about that “is it really safe?” GM peanuts and cucumber that you can eat. Would you agree to a GM peanut that would solve your autoimmune problem and prevent it in others?

Antigens that cause food allergies are well known and all GM foods are tested for these, guess what, they found none. (I’m talking about regulatory bodies not Monsanto).

You may wish to dismiss that GM foods will help people with food allergies and dysfunctional immune complement systems but I don’t.

Get off your soapbox, stop calling people immature and read the facts – moron.