To All:
I hate to come across as the "bogeyman" but I can understand why the opposition to GM is so ongoing!

It is alright for the advocates of GM to say that it is okay and there are no problems with GM cropping, but please, let us NOT forget that simple admission that the US Defence Department authorised the use of Agent Orange to commit genocide on a nation that was involved in their own Civil War,....and that is exactly what it was, regardless of what the warmongers may say!

Look around you and take particular note of the incidence of obesity in the community ( not just here in Australia but in all of the westernised countries!)...some of the critics say that the obese are just a bunch of pigs who simply over-eat and do no work, but let us consider that the real cause could be in something that we are taking in to our bodies ( could be foodstuffs, chemicals, or anything that passes the lips and lungs!).....how do we know or can be guaranteed that we are not all being slowly poisoned by these companies who "fiddle" with genetics and produce Genetically Modified seedstocks and foodstuffs, all to enhance their own particular profit margins?

This is "food" for thought and obesity could be the first signs of what the concerned are advising caution!

Aggressive agronomist appears to be working more on attacking people with opinions than providing a balance in the debate.
Firstly, in Canada all herbicide tolerant varieties are registered under the same regulatory process as GM as they are considered novel traits. No triazine tolerant varieties have been registered which is understandable as triazine is more suited to the weeds in Australia not Canada. Australia's worst weeds in canola are radish and ryegrass where Canada does not have these listed as problem weeds.
We need a herbicide that controls radish and turnip because there is no post emergent control so Bayer Cropsciences GM variety would not be suitable as glufosinate ammonium does not control radish or turnip.
We also need a residual control for ryegrass as multiple germinations are common and yield penalties are considerable. Neither chemical for GM varieties have a residual control but triazine has.
Contrary to Agronomists rant, triazine has not been banned in Europe. See the APVMA website. It is considered safe but the GM industry is pushing an anti-atrazine campaign to remove the popular opposition variety.
We were told at the WA GM committee that independent trials would not be fair on the GM companies as they have nothing better to offer than what we already have. So why are we being told they have and why are the costs so exhorbitantly high?
The percentages given of traits were from ISAAA reports showing the traits mentioned did not account for any significant acreage of commercial adoption.

'Agent Orange'? 'the obesity epidemic'? 'dioxins & PCBs'? The Vietnam War?

My goodness, you guys are scraping the bottom of the barrel here. Sure, it's not an ideological debate, I believe you.

While this 'debate' is getting a bit weird but is showing the mindsets behind the rhetoric.

Meanwhile non-GM farmer seems to out on her own with complaining about not enough traits from GM are being used or researched! Also, wanting to use MORE residual triazine herbicides that affect frogs and waterways quite badly.
eg. http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/99/8/5476

This 'debate' makes for some strange bedfellows alright. Pseudo-greenies and heavy conventional chemical users on the same side, awesome!

Just as an anecdote, I was chatting to a GM-cotton farmer a few weeks ago, and it appears that the Bt cotton has been so successful there has arisen a new OH&S issue that they never had before: SPIDERS!
The insect load in their crops has become so large (with no associated moth damage) that the spiders are thriving and the farmhands are worried about being bitten (a couple already have). Oh yeah, sounds like an environmental disaster- NOT. Biodiversity is much greater than with heavy pesticide use, but maybe the spiders will just take over and kill us all.

One of the contributors to this thread says that the purpose of GMOs is to make farming easier. Monsanto, if they are honest, would admit that the main purpose is to make profits for Monsanto. Therein lies the main objection. With previous environmental/health disasters, we had no way of telling how much of the propaganda is spin and how much reality.I am not moved by being told that a GM protagonist eats GMOs for breakfast, lunch and dinner without ill effects. What we are concerned about is the methodology of genetic modifcation.
With traditional plant breeding, each step in development is allowed ample time to demonstrate whether the strain is viable and beneficial. With chemicals and GMOs, we have no such assurance. The most telling environmental disaster was the use of Thalidomide; who could have predicted that it would have horrific effects on the unborn, after all the testing that was done before the release to the public which used pregnant woment as experimental subjects? We also now have chapter and verse to prove our suspicions that if there are negative findings in company-run tests these are routinely suppressed.
Some if the deleterious effects of GMOs are totally predictable, if not obvious. Pro GM correspondents, in discussing third-world impacts, generally coyly side-step the unfortunate detail that third-world agriculturalists cannot afford GM crops which cost money - which they haven't got - before they are even sown, as well as during the time when they have to pour on glyphosate herbicide which they cannot afford, and that they have to do this every time even when these crops fail for reasons other than pest infestations. This tilting of the playing field in favour of first-world mechanical farming may well be coincidental but given past experience I doubt it.
Finally, phoney projections of GM miracles have already impacted government funding of conventional research in quite unrelated fields, particularly in countries where government agencies are open to corruption which is made a lot easier when there is a real or pretended alternative which is claimed to be more 'efficient".

Aggression aside, why are so many ordinary people becoming activists? Mainly it is because of the lies we are being told and the lack of choice and fair risk management. Who takes the risk? Those that are not prepared to.
Consumers don't want to take the risk and are realising choice will be denied.
GM canola oil escapes legislated labelling and consumers want a non-GM option but farmers will not be able to provide that non-GM option because of the additional costs and liabilities involved.
Consumers must rely on the regulatory process which has not done ANY testing on GM oil. It is up to the GM industry to provide their own testing data and they decided to submit stock feeding trials which escapes regulation because FSANZ has no authority over stock feed.
Farmers do not want to market on a consumer rejected market but will be forced to take the risk because the GM industry wrote the rules forcing unfair costs and liabilities on the non-GM farmer. We are told that there is no economic risk but we will be forced to pay if our concerns are right because selling as GM-free will be impossible.
It disgusts me that money has driven governments and the research sector to force GM on a reluctant population without fair risk management.
The regulatory process is nothing more than a public relations exercise because the Federal policy was structured around "How can governments capitalize on our investments in biotechnology" rather than how can we manage the problems. The public sector alliances with multinationals has led to public R&D redirected from common good to corporate profits.
Who pays for the additional costs that make these profits? Farmers who can't afford to!
Globally the experience has shown that farmers are being forced to pay additional costs because of lack of choice, not because of willingness or ability to pay these costs. Farmers are also faced with consumers wanting to pay less for GM so exactly how can farming be sustainable in such a funding vacuum?

Dickie, I am not defending Monsanto or Dow, merely pointing out where the blame where it truly belongs: the US Military. The lawsuits you mention had an out of court settlement. In fact, it is often economically more efficient for companies to settle lawsuits through out of court payouts than to continue to have resources tied up in courts. An out of court settlement provides for no admission of guilt. The fact that you seem to think otherwise confirms my earlier statement about ideology.

Julie, you continue to make unsupportable statements. Canada invented triazine-tolerant canola. They grew it on a small area until the introduction of new, better herbicide-tolerant canola. We have been over this ground before, so you know this.

Triazine-tolerant canola does not appear on the lists of novel traits in Canada because its invention pre-dated that system.

I am afraid atrazine and simazine have been banned in Europe. Here is the documentation. http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/protection/evaluation/existactive/oj_atrazine.pdf
http://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/protection/evaluation/existactive/oj_simazine.pdf

Once again you have been found out providing false assertions.

Julie, I got involved in the discussions here, not because I am particularly gung ho about GM crops (they are after all just a tool for farmers), but because of the fibs you tell about Canadian farming on this forum. If being non-GM was so good, there would be no need for you to make up fairy tales about Canadian agriculture. The fact that you seem obsessed with making up stuff about GM crops leads me to the conclusion that you suspect GM is better and need to muddy the water so no-one else will notice. Sorry, more than 10 million farmers around the world seem to have noticed.