As Agronomist insists on going on and on misrepresenting my statement, I will explain a little further.

Ians introduction to this post included:
"When questioned by the press on GM matters Chance has often stated that he has an expert “Ministerial GMO Reference Group” whose function it is to advise the government. As a member of this group I can state that the animal feeding study by Judy Carman was never referred to the reference group, but the Agriculture Department has since been directed to fund the project in Adelaide, South Australia."

Note that this comment from Ian Edwards may be construed as implying that the committee has something to do with the health tests but it has not.

And again his comment: "Who are the real losers in all this? It is the farmers of Western Australia who are being denied a choice of technology to use on their farms while the minister seeks excuses to continue the moratorium on GM crops."

Note, that this can be construed as implying that the health tests are something to do with the WA moratorium when it is not. All moratoria is state based and therefore based on lack of industry preparedness and a serious concern regarding economics and this is their state based legislated responsibility.

My facts are wrong? Evidence that triazine tolerant canola has been commercially grown in Canada can be found in the following links detailing the history and registration of specific varieties.

http://www.canola-council.org/sysandvar.aspx

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/canola.html

http://olericulture.org/001/138/001138786.html

http://olericulture.org/000/615/000615572.html

The Ontario Ministry of Agriculture still recommends triazine-tolerant canola for use on wild mustard, although the recommendation is quite dated.

If wild mustard is a problem in spring canola, use either ethametsulfuron-methyl or varieties of canola that are triazine tolerant. Because these tolerant varieties are not injured by recommended doses of the triazine herbicides, wild mustard can be selectively controlled within the crop.

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/03-043.htm

You continue to ensure the debate is not about growing canola in Australia by continuing to make wildly incorrect statements about the Canadian canola industry in support of your crusade against GM crops. You shouldn’t be surprised if I keep pulling you up. I KNOW that GM canola has been good for the Canadian canola industry. I suspect it might also be good for the Australian industry, if only because the Australian industry seems to be falling so far behind Canada.

Actually, I don’t think that Clearfield is more popular in Canada than in Australia. According to the OGTR, about 11% of canola in Australia is Clearfield. Clearfield canola in Canada is about 12% of total plantings and less than 5% in Manitoba.

US oilseed subsidies (mostly soybean) were 12% of the total when they started in 1998. Now down to 3%. http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01606.pdf
Wheat has historically been at 20% and rice at 7-10 %.

So Ian Edward’s statements about the activities of the reference group are correct then? Given that health is regulated at a Federal level, what is Minister Chance doing using spending money on a feeding study?

I have looked into some supposedly "independent" tests and chased up who funds them.
http://www.co.stearns.mn.us/documents/ExtWC06062007.pdf

June 6, 2007
The new University of Minnesota publication conducted by regional and local Extension educators and staff from the Monsanto Corporation, working with cooperating farmers.

University of Missouri, Iowa and Wisconson in conjunction with Bayer (who supplied the money – see page 2) on this nice glossy pamphlet.
http://www.weeds.iastate.edu/weednews/2006/GWC-1.pdf

Why are you pro-GM'ers, agronomists and plant breeders so interested in health when you are obviously only interested in your own economic wellbeing.

Thanks to this forum, I am totally sympathetic to the non-GM campaign and have very serious concerns for the health implications. I am looking forward to reading the results of Judy Carmans health testing. I have read and heard her concerns. There is no way anyone can backtrack what they eat with GM. And yet you GM'ers are saying trust us and eat it anyway. I don't want to be the guinea pig and thousands of other consumers don't want it either. I want to keep my choice to avoid GM.

It does not matter what country is doing what or subsidizing to the farmers as far as I am concerned as in the long run, if it's a biohazard, the world population is in danger. Keep it out of my food.

Is it safe?
The overwhelming opinion from scientists around the world clearly put GM food safety at or ahead of no gm derived food. Please have a look at The International Council for Science (the largest scientific body in the world to my knowledge) studied this and came to the safe conclusion. http://www.icsu.org/1_icsuinscience/INIT_GMOrep_1.html

There are many links on my website to scientific bodies that have looked at many aspects of GM crops and food. There is also a link to the American Medical Association position paper on GM crops and food. You can even compare what the critics say there as well.
http://web.mala.bc.ca/wager
Cheers

How can these scientists say GM canola oil is safe when they have not tested it? How can scientists claim it is the same as normal breeding when they weed out so many visually mutated plants?

There are many reported articles explaining the peer pressure on scientists with concerns from scientists wanting to encourage corporate investment.

Agronomist (DT), the TT references you gave refer to over 20 years ago before the regulatory process was set up and only on the very original TT varieties - Triton(1984) and Tribute(1985). I could not find any triazine tolerant varieties registered on the Canadian regulatory data base historically or current (can you?). It seems highly unlikely current TT varieties have ever grown competitively against GM in Canada.

Yield penalties for TT? You seem to have compared varieties developed almost a quarter of a century ago and Yes, these very early TT varieties had yield problems, which is why we do not grow them now, but todays Australian TT varieties are far higher yielding.

You may not "think" that Cleafield is more popular in Canada than Australia but even your own reference disputes that. Clearfield may be OK but it is certainly not as popular as TT and I don't personally know anyone that has grown it for more than one season. Figures used to quote varieties grown are often based on seed sold (not seed planted) and because farmers often replant their own canola (particularly in WA), areas grown are very different to seed purchased.

Your subsidies reference is over 7 years old referring to around a decade ago. US subsidies have been increasing for years and around US$12billion/year now. As I said, the crops soy, cotton and corn (the US GM crops) currently account for 80% of the commodity based subsidies.

I find it very amusing that considering the massive amount of money spent on pushing the pro-GM line, that the R&D sector is so against such a small amount being allocated to health testing. I have not found any consumers/voters that do not support this, only the R&D sector. Incidentally, I do not know any more than anyone else regarding the feeding trials, I have just listened to Dr Carmans concerns