You have just confirmed what I said. Clearfield is treated as GM, regulated as GM, charged like GM and "there is one variety without HT"
You said "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." This confirms that non-GM varieties have been deregistered and hence not available from seed companies.

What is concerning is that Canadian farmers need to grade and treat their seed prior to planting it if they are saving their own. The seed grading factories that have been authorised to distribute a particular chemical used on canola for controlling a particular disease, submit a register of all farmers using this chemical to the chemical company concerned. Then farmers receive letters from Monsanto claiming that their seed samples show RR genes and therefore the farmer owes Monsanto the user fee. They either pay up and promise confidentiality or get taken to court. Either way they lose. The limit of contamination that triggers this letter is at the discretion of the GM company.

Unlike US and Canada, Australia has an end point royalty system which will allow the GM company to deduct whatever user fee they like from our grain payments and the trigger level to do so is up to the discretion of the GM company. This is outrageous but does occur in Brazil which is under the same system. We want fair risk management to prevent this happening but it has been denied!

Non-GM Farmer "Then farmers receive letters from Monsanto claiming that their seed samples show RR genes and therefore the farmer owes Monsanto the user fee. They either pay up and promise confidentiality or get taken to court. Either way they lose. The limit of contamination that triggers this letter is at the discretion of the GM company."

I cannot believe this is correct. Patent law does not work this way. In particular, the burden of proof is on Monsanto - they must prove a farmer has infringed RR patents (like "innocent until proven guilty"), and standard of proof is high (actually difficult for a patentee to win infringement cases!).

If a farmer receives a nasty letter, denies having RR and Monsanto sues, he/she can apply to have the action struck out as unsubstantiated (no case to answer), a cheap application to make. Monsanto would have to prove a primafacie case, or be struck out and pay his/her costs (very embarrassing).

If he/she has a small amount of RR due to adventitious presence, again, he/she can say "no case to answer" and ask Monsanto to remove it. I'd imagine adventitious presence could readily be distinguished from the Percy Schmeiser-style sowing of the GM crop, by looking at extent and position of the RR plants. Again, the burden of proof would be on Monsanto to show the farmer actually sowed the crop. For a small amount of plants, adjacent a fence adjacent a neighbour's GM crop - do you really believe our (or US) courts would find infringement?

Analagously, if your designer shirt blows off your clothes line into my yard, would a court hold me guilty of theft? You would need an eyewitness or film of me taking it from your line to prove guilt! (If after it blew into my yard, I then sold it - ie appropriated it as mine - I could then be found guilty; this is where Percy Schmeiser rightfully went down.)

In a nutshell, if you were accused of something you hadn't done - would you simply pay up? I wouldn't!! (cont. below)

This week, on the 7.30 Report, an American (Canadian??) expert claimed that you must now eat 3 apples to obtain the nutrition of just one, grown in the '50s.

How does the nutritional value of GM compare with the current produce grown in Australia?

Julie, not exactly. Clearfield is regulated as a novel food in Canada, but it still goes through less regulatory approvals than a GM crop. Atrazine-resistant canola, were it to be introduced now would also be regulated as a novel food. Clearfield is not GM. You don’t regard it as GM and neither do markets. In any case, the Liberty and RR hybrids still outyield the Clearfield hybrids in the PCVT, so you are still not right.

The non-HT varieties have not been deregistered, they remain on the register. Just because they are registered, doesn’t mean seed companies have to sell them. There is a thing called demand. I think you will find 52 non-HT spring types and 8 non-HT spring hybrids on the list of registered varieties. http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/plaveg/variet/rapecole.shtml

Julie, when Canadian farmers get their seed treated prior to sowing it is with a fungicide, not with Roundup. How on earth would Monsanto be able to work out who is saving RR canola seed from a list of farmers getting fungicide treatment on their seeds? It is not like the seed is colored any differently and the works is not going to run hundreds of strip tests for the benefit of Monsanto. This is fantasyland stuff. Most farmer pursued by Monsanto for breach of patent were dobbed in by their neighbors who were doing the right thing.

dickie, nutritional status of GM vs non-GM canola can be found here. http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/A388_Final_Assessment_Report.pdf#search=%22canola%22 http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/A372%20Final%20AR.pdf#search=%22canola%22
http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/A363%20FA.pdf

Other GM crop assessments are available from the FSANZ website. You can find the Canadian assessments here http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/plaveg/bio/dde.shtml , but I guess you would be more interested in the Australian ones. There is also more information in the Australian assessments.

Who said canola seed was treated with glyphosate? It is treated with fungicide and the QA process involves taking down the name and amount of canola seed graded and retaining samples. This is direct from Terry Boehm from Canadian Farmers Union who is very involved in the politics of seed royalties and he has evidence of farmers receiving such letters.

He also explained that hundreds of non-GM varieties have been deregistered and it is not possible to buy the non-GM variety without the RR gene added to it to make it GM. I did not say Clearfield was GM.

A GM living organism and its progeny are covered by a patent owned by a multinational company. There is no doubting that Percy deliberately selected for the RR trait as he sprayed his contaminated canola with glyphosate then saved the seed.

I am more concerned with cases like the Nelsons where he publicly stated GM soy yielded less than non-GM and he was sued when he went back to non-GM. He thought it was a matter of just proving his innocence but it took years, a huge amount of money and he and his family suffered terribly from stress. Farmers want to avoid this so yes, they do pay when threatened.

There is as yet, no amount established by law that triggers "guilty" and action is at the discretion of the GM patent owner.

In Australia we have an endpoint royalty system. What amount of GM will trigger a deduction of royalties?

In Brazil it is a positive test. Testing for GM canola is accurate to test positive for 1 seed in 1,000 or 0.1% contamination. Yes, if charged, we could take expensive action against Monsanto to prove the contamination was accidental but wouldn't it be more sense to set a limit to protect this from happening? We were told to "trust Monsanto" when we requested risk management. Sorry, but that is not good enough.

Non-GM Farmer: "Nelsons publicly stated GM soy yielded less than non-GM and he was sued when he went back to non-GM. He thought it a matter of just proving his innocence but it took years, huge amount of money and he and his family suffered terribly from stress. Farmers want to avoid this so yes, they do pay when threatened."

I've not looked into this case, but again I'm surprised if this is the case. If he harvested GM soy, stated publicly he was reverting to non-GM, took standard steps to minimise volunteers, yet was sued over GM volunteer plants, he still should simply have applied to have the case struck out.

There is a concept in common law, the "non-voluntary bailee" - if you have something belonging to someone else you do not want, you are not responsible for it (eg if I park my car in your drive and say I don't want it anymore, if you don't want it you're not obliged to pay registration/insurance, and are entitled to have it towed away if I don't collect it).

Why not invite the company to collect their plants, if they allege you have any; charging them of course for any damage they do to the rest of your crop, and for your loss of non-GM crop pushed out by the GM crop?

You don't have to prove innocence; as I said before, Monsanto have to prove their case. Judges don't like insubstantial actions clogging the court system. A couple of struck-out cases, and the courts would view them as vexatious litigants and not allow further ones without proof upfront.

"In Australia we have an endpoint royalty system. What amount of GM will trigger a deduction of royalties?"

A company would need to prove infringement (difficult for adventitious presence/volunteers). Royalties, if the Court awarded them, generallywould be "fair market rate" - not at the company's discretion. In my view unlikely to be awarded unless sizable amount of GM, with evidence the farmer took active steps to exploit the patented seeds, with knowledge - even so, Percy escaped them!