Merri Bee

Lets first discuss how canola came to be created. It was the result of using artificial means to combine two entire genomes. That is genetic engineering on a grand scale. The notion there is something called "organic canola" is false.

Do you know what hybrid seeds require. Purchase of new seed each year.

Second the attempts to gain class action status was denied. Therefore no lawsuit.

A type of agriculture that comprises roughly two percent of world production makes a set of rules that govern itself. Then this small group decide their rules must be protected and therefore they can dictate how the other 98 percent of the world grow food. Seems a bit rediculous doesn`t it.

Somehow you missed the rice, barley, wheat etc that were made by randon ionizing radiation mutagenesis. There are even more that were created with random chemical mutagenesis. Your denial is irrelevant.

And finally, the cries of BAN, BAN, BAN come from a small percentage of world agriculture. It would appear they are saying `its our way only, hmmm. India has granted approval to about 50 GM varieties and has many more in the pipeline. China has completed over 1000 successful field trials and will very soon open their agriculture to GM crops in a very big way. It is the future. Now the best thing to do is make sure proper regulations minimize the risks and maximize the benefits of this technology. There is no such thing as risk free anything.

Of course the reality is all forms of agriculture will be needed to help feed the world without ploughing under the remaining wilderness. We simply do not have the luxury of banning a type of agriculture for ideological reasons.

Have a nice life.

Bronwyn <<Even in the decade up until 2006 though, the figures nonetheless showed more than a doubling of the suicide rate in the main BT cotton growing regions, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.>>

Just a tad misleading. The vast majority of that increase occurred prior to 2002 when BT cotton was grown for the first time. In fact the rate of increase in suicides in Maharashtra has declined since the introduction of BT cotton. In Madhya Pradesh (which has a higher percentage of cotton grown as BT than Maharashta), suicides have gone down. In Andhra Pradesh, there was a major increase in suicides in the drought of 2004, when only a small percentage of framers grew BT cotton. The suicide rate has stayed constant since (and rainfall has been better) despite much larger adoption of BT cotton in this state.

Merri bee, the Canadian organic farmer lawsuit has been disallowed by the courts. I had a look through the link Rob posted. It is not a complete list because it relies on plant breeders providing the information voluntarily. I did notice for Australia, lupins, blue lupins, oats – all grain crops grown in Western Australia, I believe. You also need to consider whether the crops you are growing have been bred from varieties grown in the UK, Germany, Canada or US, so the list of crops may also include beans, lettuce, spinach, barley and wheat.

As to Pusztai and his rats, you can look at photos all you like, but it is the data that really matters. This is what the NZ Royal Commission had to say about the research http://www.botanischergarten.ch/Pusztai/Pusztai-Myth-Royal-Comm-NZ.pdf It is certainly far from the best study carried out. For detail it would not come close to this very extensive study http://www.monsanto.com/pdf/products/fullratstudy863.pdf (large file).

http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/GMO/gmo.html
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/GMO/Monsanto/monsanto.html

>>Terminator..the agribusiness dream of controlling world food production.No longer would they need to'hire'expensive detectives to spy on whether farmers were re-using Monsanto or other GMO patented seed.

Terminator corn or soybeans or cotton seeds could be genetically modified to‘commit suicide’after one harvest season.That would automatically prevent farmers from saving and re-using the seed for the next harvest.

The'technology'is a means of enforcing'Monsanto'or other GMO patent rights,and forcing payment of farmer ][through]'use-fees'

With'Terminator/patent-rights,once a country opened its doors to the spread of GMO patented seeds among its farmers,their food security would be potentially be...hostage to a'private'-multinational/foreign 'company'..INC..ltd

a company which,for whatever reasons,especially given its intimate ties to the US Government,might decide to use food as a weapon’to compel a US-friendly policy from that country or group of countries.



Sound far-fetched? Go back to what then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did in countries like Allende’s Chile to force a regime change to a‘US-friendly’Pinochet dictatorship by withholding USAID and private food exports to Chile.

Kissinger dubbed it‘food as a weapon.’Terminator is merely the logical next step in food weapon technology..As Kissinger said back in the 1970’s,

‘'Control the oil and you can control entire Continents.
Control food and you control people…’'

The USDA was open about their reasons:They wanted to get Terminator seeds into the[developing]world where the Rockefeller Foundation had made eventual proliferation of genetically engineered crops the heart of its GMO strategy from the beginnings of its rice genome project in 1984.

USDA’s Phelps stated that the US Government’s goal in fostering the widest possible development of Terminator technology was‘to increase the value of proprietary seed owned by US seed companies and to open up new markets in Second and Third World countries.’

Under WTO rules on free trade in agriculture,countries are forbidden to impose their own national health restrictions on GMO imports ..arbitrary powers over world agriculture trade.

It all fits into a neat picture of patented seeds, forced on reluctant WTO member nations,under threat of WTO sanctions,and now of Terminator or suicide seeds

Rob :The whole red herring of mutagenisis is irrelevant to the topic of GM.You mention hybrid breeding. Not relevant either.I have no problem with traditional plant breeding of hybrid plants. I have a big problem with genetic engineering though,because that is where one species is combined with another in a way that could never happen in nature, not even in a million years. Again, we see the deception , the claims that GMO’s are nothing new. “We’ve been improving plants for centuries” say Pro GM.
Rob said “ Lets first discuss how canola came to be created. It was the result of using artificial means to combine two entire genomes. That is genetic engineering on a grand scale. The notion there is something called "organic canola" is false.”
I referr Rob to Wikapedia:
“Canola is one of two cultivars of rapeseed or Brassica campestris (Brassica napus L. and B. campestris L.).[1] Their seeds are used to .....
Canola was originally NATURALLY BRED ( emphasis mine) from rapeseed in Canada by Keith Downey and Baldur R. Stefansson in the early 1970s,[3][4] but it has a very different nutritional profile in addition to much less erucic acid.[5] The name "canola" was derived from "Canadian oil, low acid" in 1978.[6][7] …………
Genetically modified canola which is resistant to herbicide was first introduced to Canada in 1995".Rob, you mislead us.
Unfortunately, organic canola can no longer be grown in Canada because it took only 2 years for that continent to be contaminated. I believe the organic farmers are appealing the disallowance of class action status. We hear of a huge rate of uptake by farmers of GM , but it isn’t because its better ...they simply don’t have a choice any more.
Organic farming has promoted peoples health and has never destroyed anyone elses farming business. Prove to us that your methods will allow co existence of all farmers and that GM foods are harmless. Volunteer yourself and your family members for a human feeding trial of GM food

I did not mislead you on anything. Here is a reference that demonstrates the genomic composition of Brassica sp.

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/ncnu02/pdf/raymer.pdf

You can see from figure one B.napus is a result of the fusion of the entire genomes of B.rapa and B.oleracea. So you can see mixing different species is common. Every gene of two different species were fused to make B.napus. And finally chemical mutagenesis or GE created Herbicide tolerant Canola. In one variety (GE) we know a great deal about the genetics and the other (Chemical mutagenesis)nothing. Those would be the non-GM HT canola grown in Australia.

In the past twelve years both GM crops and organic crops have flourished. The notion that GM crops threaten organic crops is a myth. The IFOAM does not advocate testing for GM content. There is no threshold level that results in decertification of an organic crop. As far as I can determine there have not been any decertification of organic farms for GM content. Please let this forum know if you know otherwise. This is why the class action status was denied. As the organic industry likes to say, organic farming is a method of farming and not a product per se.

Have a look at "The Good found in GURTs" on my website and see how this technology could help alleviate your fears of cross-pollination for the organic industry.

If a farmer chooses hybrid seeds, and most do today, they buy new seed each year. The same as with GM seeds.

There is no such thing as impact free agriculture. Again why should a small percentage (~2%) of farmers make up a set of rules that must be adhered to by all farmers? The world is moving ahead with agricultural biotechnology. It is our best hope to deal with the pressures of the growing population. Having said that it is not a panacea but is the best option for many of the problems agriculture faces today.

Pro-GMers deliberately miss the point but this comment regarding organics can easily be applied to the GM industry in reverse:
"A type of agriculture that comprises roughly two percent of world production makes a set of rules that govern itself. Then this small group decide their rules must be protected and therefore they can dictate how the other 98 percent of the world grow food. Seems a bit rediculous doesn`t it."
Yet we have GM agriculture that has designed a set of rules that govern itself by ensuring contamination is widespread, that non-GM farmers lose their ability to market as non-GM and that non-GM farmers can be charged for contamination we do not want. The alliance deals between plant breeders and the GM companies mean that choice of new non-GM varieties will be denied in the future.
Yes, it seems very ridiculous.
This is anti-competitive and ethically and morally wrong.
It should not be up to the non-GM sector to subsidise an industry we do not want to support. Governments need to wake up to this anti-competive practise and stop supporting it.