Agronomist, you and Sciencelaw appear as nothing more than apologists for the GM multinationals.

Do you actually believe everything that these corporations have to say about their product. A product, that, apart from anything other problems, takes from farmers the right to reseed their crops from previous harvests. Just that alone is placing our entire food supply in the hands of global monopolies.

Also, do you really believe that you know the long-term environmental and biological effects of genetically altered plants and animals? If you claim that you do then please tell me the numbers for the next lottery draw, you must be omniscient indeed.

I agree that there is much potential for GM. No argument there. But two things continue to bother me:

1. That the 'ownership' of this technology is by companies, who have demonstrated repeatedly their lack of concern for the public good.

2. The pressure these same organisations are placing on farmers and governments to agree to the mass introduction and the extreme haste to grow these foods.

Do you trust Monsanto? If so, WHY?

See:

http://www.diggers.com.au/SeedsDesignedToDieFromMonsanto.htm

"There are 1.4 billion indigenous people and peasant farmers whose whole livelihood revolves around selecting and saving seed for next year’s crop planting. They select and adapt local varieties to their unique needs. If Terminator were commercialised their livelihoods would be threatened for no other purpose than to transfer ownership and control of our publicly owned food crops to GE crop companies."

Please stick to better references Agronomist. Your pro-GM blog does not outrank the US Department of Ag statistics as Pratley has used selective and deceptive 5 year averaging.

USDA statistics show Canadian (GM) and US (GM) yields are similar to Australian (Non-GM) yields while canola yields in EU (Non-GM) are double ours.
Yields dropped in US at the same time Canada's yield peaked which proves that seasonal conditions are the key reason, not GM.
Australia has had several years of significant yield affecting droughts while Canada has recently had a couple of good seasons so nothing to do with GM/Non-GM. Please don't support deceptive data.

Monsanto's aim to control the worlds food supply by patenting 100% of the seeds sown was revealed by Arthur Anderson Consulting at an earlier biotech conference. One of the key elements to the strategy was the alliance with governments in order to gain support and control over public plant breeding. Basically it appears our goverment and public research sector were extremely willing to sell us out.

I have written to APVMA for better clarification on Atrazine restrictions in Europe as their Q&A states "Atrazine has not been banned in Europe". Their review findings for Australian conditions are at http://www.apvma.gov.au/media/mr0802.shtml where they show quite clearly that Atrazine is not a problem in Australian broadacre conditions. It seems to me that the pro-GM sector is just trying anything they can to remove the opposition.

Fractelle, I work with farmers who use technology from these companies. I don’t have to believe anything the companies say, because I can see it with my own eyes in the hands of farmers. It is just a tool. It has uses and it has problems. It just turns out that the uses by far and away outweigh the problems I see.

I don’t trust Monsanto. I have looked at the issues, walked in the crops, talked with farmers who grow them, held the seed in my hands, eaten the products. I trust myself.

As for damage to the environment, GM crops have been grown for 12 years and now grown over 125 million hectares. They have had only positive impacts on the environment. Less pesticide use in cotton, less tillage in soybeans, both in canola. This is largely predictable, because annual crops are bred in such a way to reduce weedy traits. Weedy traits are bad for crops (although good for pastures). If they are not going to become serious weeds, what sort of environmental harm are they going to do?

The so-called “Terminator” was a patent owned by the USDA and DeltaPine. It was an idea. The 1.4 billion farmers who save seeds will continue to be able to save their own seeds. Terminator, even if it were commercialised, would not affect them, because they would not buy it.

Julie, I don’t have a blog, I am an agronomist remember. Regardless of what will or won’t happen in Australia, the yield benefit is real in Canada. You can see it every year in the Prairie Canola Variety Trials. http://www.canola-council.org/uploads/pcvt/prairie_canola_variety_trials_2003.pdf http://www.canola-council.org/uploads/pcvt/prairie_canola_variety_trials_2004.pdf http://www.canola-council.org/uploads/pcvt/prairie_canola_variety_trials_2005.pdf http://www.canola-council.org/uploads/pcvt/prairie_canola_variety_trials_2006.pdf http://www.canola-council.org/uploads/dec6_cd_pvct.pdf

I don’t know why you want to keep denying this is the case. If non-GM yielded so well, surely the evidence would be there in Canada? Why doesn’t it? All the evidence is that yields are going backwards in Australia. How else do you explain the highest yielding years in Australia were 1993 and 1990 whereas in Canada they were 2005 and 2006? 15 years of drought?

Sorry for the delay in responding ScienceLaw. You are right we don't need to get bogged down in the semantics of analogies. :)

For those who are pro-GMO why do you find it so difficult to accept that there is a risk introducing new biotechnology after so short a period of study and scrutiny? "Gene escape" or mutation is an absolute scientific possibility. These effects have not been studied.

I am not saying all biotechs are big bad monsters but when the emphasis is more on the profit margin than allocating the essential time needed for further and more comprehensive study problems will arise.

I know that some GMO projects have been shelved because of various problems eg. the Brazilnut gene used in soybean that was found to pass on an allergen effect just for one and I will give credit where it is due.

Why is there not as much money being spent on researching organic agriculture or on soil health. Perhaps because that particular area of science is not being driven by the biotechs.

Last year the CSIRO got rid of two leading scientists in these fields because they spoke out about GM crops and whose emphasis was on sustainable organic methods and soil health and nutrient rich food. Hardly a bipartisan approach and a sad day for science.

Agronomist, please explain how GM canola will give less pesticide and less tillage? It can't!
Australian farmers already use minimum till techniques and we already use herbicide tolerant canola. RR growers are advised that in order to control resistance to glyphosate, they will need to reintroduce tillage or the far more toxic sprayseed as a knockdown alternative. Neither glyphosate or glufosinate ammonium have a residual effect on weeds so more chemicals will be required to keep weeds under control eg. trifluralin is recommended for emergence. With RR, glyphosate can only be applied up to 6 leaf stage so an alternative post emergent weed control will be needed for late emerging weeds. All farmers will need to add another chemical to glyphosate to knockdown glyphosate tolerant volunteer canolas.
That equates to more tillage and more chemical.

You referred me to GM pundits blogspot for yield data and that yield data was based on 5 year averages which was deceptive.

Yes Australia has had droughts that have seriously impacted on yields, everyone knows that. Yield benefit is from the non-GM variety the GM trait is added to, not the GM trait which only gives chemical resistance as farmers use other chemical options to control weeds. Canadian Non-GM canola has been withdrawn from sale except for a very uncompetitive variety so of course it will be outyielded in trials. Australia's yield potential is not going backwards, and if it is, farmers should be refusing to pay so much for our GRDC levies.

But the key issue for GM is the lack of choice and denial of fair risk management. Farmers and consumers do not want to take the economic and health risks involved. If we are forced to, we should be compensated for it.

Pelican, I suppose people on OLO would describe me as pro-GM so I will answer you. I am not sure what you mean by a “short period of study or scrutiny”. The risk assessments for GM canola were conducted in Canada in the early 1990s and for some other GM crops even earlier. GM crops have been studied intensively ever since. A search just of the Weed Technology and Weed Science journals turns up over 200 papers with studies of GM crops over the past 14 years.

I agree that “gene escape”, if you mean GM material outside cropped land, is inevitable. I have seen it for myself. However, I suggest that it is having no significant environmental impact. Crop plants rarely persist outside cropped fields. Just because something happens, doesn’t make it bad. Mutations happen all the time in non-GM plants. Why would mutations be worse in GM plants compared to non-GM plants?

Julie, the figure on Dr. Tribe’s blog illustrates that Canadian canola yields have been increasing. You could have found the same information at StatsCanada, but this visual representation makes it obvious. As you should know comparing Canadian yields with European (or Australian) yields is silly because the growing conditions are different. What is important is the trend. The trend in Canada is clearly up (something you continue to deny despite the evidence), the trend in Australia is at best static, depending on the timescale you want to use. I can’t see there is anything terribly wrong with using a 5-year moving average for this exercise. It is just one way of introducing a trend line.

Julie, once again you are wrong. There are many non-GM canola lines available in Canada. Most are Clearfield. In Manitoba alone, there is one variety without HT (less than 0.5% of canola grown in the province doesn’t have HT), 12 Clearfields, 8 Libertys and 23 RRs to choose from in the recommended list. You can still find some older non-HT varieties around; they are just not carried by the seed companies because no one wants to grow them. http://www.seedmb.ca/