Jim Peacock, Australia's chief scientist, claims opponents of GM crops are "an unprincipled minority that were spreading false facts and hype."

However, on May 27 of this year, Dr Maarten Stapp, a principal research scientist who worked for CSIRO for 23 years, as an expert on soil health, spoke to the Sunday Age.

He said that soil health is the key to better crops and senior CSIRO management had bullied him and tried to gag his criticisms of GM crops.

"GM won't solve our problems", he said.

He left in March of this year, after his Industry Division was made redundant and though he could have remained with CSIRO, he felt he had a duty to the farming industry to speak the truth on GM crops.

I am concerned that there is little information available on glysophate's potential to cause human cancers or human reproductive problems. In the New York state, Monsanto agreed to discontinue the use of its terms for this chemical as "biodegradable" or "environmentally friendly." Why?

That the use of glysophate, on GM crops is prolific, is another concern, a concern bred from previous stuff-ups where the public and farmers have had assurances that chemicals were safe for use. Many farmers have paid for those assurances with their health or even their lives.

There are now many who are questioning the gung-ho approach to the use of glysophate-based products.

Past eminent scientists endorsed the "cure all" organochlorine pesticides, now either proven or probable carcinogens, mutagens or teratogens.

These bio-accumulative chemicals have compromised every eco system on the planet and the entire food chain.

The scientific community has greatly benefited humans in many areas, however, they have also caused irreparable damage to our eco-systems and human health with their previous "silver bullets."

Their past haste in releasing new but flawed technologies is a very good reason to proceed with caution on the implementation of GM crops!

I'm putting my money on Mr Stapp's advice for the time-being!

Maarten Stapper is to be applauded in regard to publicly challenging the 'CSIRO line' on genetic engineering and, basically, it has cost him his job.

Dickie, you make some very sound points regarding historical records of the use of agri-chemicals and, as a social researcher, I am interested in understanding the very different mind-sets and beleifs of each contributor to this on-line forum.

Simplistically, there are (at least) a couple of camps.... one which believes in technology and see humans as remote from Nature and therefore manipulating and tweaking it is perfectly acceptable. Logic, reason and 'science' are the deemed currencies and anything outside these parameters (e.g. emotions, ethics and morality) are extraneous to the issue. There tends to be a narrower view of a situation and reductionism is used to 'simplify' a component. A mechanistic view of the world predominates in this belief-system.

Conversely, those with a belief system which incorporates humans as an integral component of the Natural world and ecosystem services, prefer to incorporate a more wholistic view and has a greater tendency to guage effects and outcomes over a longer time-frame.

Returning to Maarten's research which indicates soil health is the most important factor to encourage plant yields doesn't attract 'funding' upon which now the CSIRO is dependent as public research funding has been slashed over the past decade. Commercial returns are paramount for the CSIROs (and universities research units) so there has been a shift in the types of research conducted underpinned by the belief that 'the market will deliver the cheapest and most effective outcomes'..... Independent research for its own sake is a thing of the past.......

It is no wonder proponents for technology are feeling threatened.... if this investment doesn't yield the results promised by the developers, it's a bit like some of these property developments.... in spite of trusting the prospectus and the hype, all that's left are angry shareholders wondering what went wrong.

I'm letting you know that I have not "run away" from this debate, but I am going through the supposed "perfect" report from the EU. This may take some time.

I will not follow 'the press release at the end should be what we look at'. This study needs to be looked at with detail and I would also like to know why Monsanto was even at the research department at EFSA when they were doing their studies. They should have been banned.
So far I have found problems with their research as well. (Have yet to go through the whole lot as I am running 3 companies during tax time).
1. The seed was supplied by Monsanto but was not tested to see if it was 100% GM.
2. Only 26% GM was introduced to the rats for the testing. Why?

"in (up to) 4 of the 14 study weeks. Females fed the GMO diet showed a slightly greater body weight compared to their Controls at those weeks. The opposite was the case for Males. However, for both Genders differences were small i.e. below 3% and 4%,respectively. Given that the data were affected by some heteroskedasticity problems, results of the ANOVA may show an increased type 1 error rate. With the non-parametric approach, none of the Gender by Genotype interactions were significant".

I believe that 3% or 4% is significant. Any change is significant as there should be no change and yet 479 tests that were reported to EFSA by both Monsanto (2002) and Séralini et al. (2007). For these 479 tests, Monsanto (2002) reported 35 significant results while Séralini et al. (2007) reported 38 significant results.

"Using this empirical distribution of 184 ratios to characterise acceptable variability between-groups, at least 40 significant cases were observed out of 494 comparisons in 54% of the simulated datasets".

This is not truly debunking Seralini's report, just saying there were differences. Both reports from Monsanto and Seralini said that there are changes in the GM fed rats and the control rats. If GM was so "perfect" why are there changes?

More later.

It looks like we have a toxicologist! Please tell me wise one, why you think a 3% and 4% difference in body weights is biologically significant. I really want to know. What does that mean?

We aren't saying the report is "perfect", we are saying that it has been done, and Seralini was deemed incorrect. As I said before, under what conditions will you ever accept that GM is safe? I suspect probably none, and you are just looking for excuses to hold on to your prejudices.

And bush goddess, I really do resent the false dichotomy and the implication that scientists tend to operate outside of an emotional and ethical/moral framework. That is just wrong, scientists are people too and many of their studies are driven by ethical motivations.

For example, do you realise that many plant biotech scientists recognised that hard chemical dosing in agriculture was unsustainable and that is what led them to GM? Plants that can repel and kill their own pests, without any harmful effects to animals and humans....so much for that eh? So now here we have people who would sooner eat conventional crops grown with pesticides (i.e. neurotoxins) and herbicides (Atrazine) that remain in the environment and kill beneficial insects and wildlife. So much for conservationists!

One thing seems to be true no matter where in the world the debate about GM crops and food takes place. Those in favour of the technologies are quite happy with proper science based regulations. While those against the technology invariably call for a ban on it. If one does not want to benefit from these food technologies that is fine (they can easily avoid the products by buying organic only) but that does not give those people the right to deny these proven technologies to everyone else.

http://www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment/genetic_engineering/genetically-engineered-crops-pesticide-use.html

"From 1996 to 1999, pest management in GE corn, soybeans, and cotton was relatively simple and effective, and engineered crops needed less pesticide than conventional varieties. By 2000, however, a contrary trend appeared—an increase in herbicide use on HT varieties over conventional varieties. That trend has continued and even accelerated in the last four years. Now, nine years of data on GE crops and pesticide use indicate that a total of 122 million more pounds of pesticides have been used on engineered crops than on conventional ones over that period."

If GM does get in, there will be no way that I, as a consumer, will be able to "Just eat organic" as everything will be contaminated when pollen moves.

The reason why I am concerned with the increase in body weight is because if the body weight increases with the 26% GM that they tested, what happens when it becomes 100%? Would you be concerned if you multiplied the test results x 4? I have not always been a non-GM person, but this debate when I challenged (as my name suggests) "Is it really safe" then the test results that you pro GM lobby gave me, showed that they were not totally conclusive, I became concerned.

When I challenged this, you attacked me saying that I did not know what I was talking about. Well I am just a consumer but you have not shown me unequivocal proof yet. If you do not know what you are looking for in science then you will be looking in a haystack with a fork and hoping you don't find anything as I have said before. This is not "Proper science".