There is a lack of clarity of who's liable when non-gm canola is found to be contaminated with genetically modified seed.I don't want your GMOs tresspassing on my land.I want to sell non GM.I don't want to sell food that's untested for human health.
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Rob states “ A type of Agriculture that comprises roughly 2 % of world production”…..I guess you mean organic.
Nobody is imposing their system on you, but you are definitely imposing your system on the world.
What you will do for a feed in 10 years time when the price of fuel brings agribusiness to a close Rob?
We are seeing the beginning of the end of Agribusiness, the most destructive force on Earth.It often consumes 10 times the calories it produces, destroys wilderness and creates desert.Of course some conventional farmers do it better.The fuel hungry farming system is flawed, and it will not be allowed to continue.
Permaculture is the future.It repays the initial energy used in setting up for generations to come.It means care for the Earth and care for people, and many calories produced per square meter for no input costs.
Rob states that organic agriculture has flourished alongside GM. No wonder people are willing to buy organic now...the food in supermarkets has become tasteless ,low in nutrients and often has chemical on it.Yes organic has flourished as people seek to support less chemicals in the environment.....but for how much longer will it be non GM ? We saw Canada's organic canola industry wiped out in 2 years and other veges will follow.

On the matter of whether canola was GM from its inception as you claim, argue with Wikapedia. Seeing as I note that most stuff emanating from your pen is a lie, I'd rather believe Wikapedia. Pity you are paid to advise our politicians on GM.
Couldn’t you drop this crazy GM stuff and start a garden? A bit of exercise and time away from the computer would do you good?

agronomist

"In fact the rate of increase in suicides in Maharashtra has declined since the introduction of BT cotton."

The farmer suicide rate in Mahrashtra was, according to the IFPRI figures linked to by Rob, 1917 in 1997, 3695 in 2002 and, according to the Indian Ministry of Agriculture, around 12000 in 2008. It is patently wrong to claim the rate of increase in suicides in that state has declined. It clearly hasn't.

250 farmers a week are killing themselves in Mahrashtra. It's about time you stopped fudging figures and looking for scapegoats and acknowledged there is a serious problem here.

Perhaps I was unclear about self imposed rules. It is the organic industry that has set zero tolerance for GM content. This level of adventitious presence is unattainable for any other crop so demanding it for GM is a non-starter. Then claiming harm where none can be demonstrated further weakens your position.

I do agree with you that agriculture threatens wilderness and biodiversity. That is exactly why the world must maximize yields from agriculture. To quote Dr. Norman Borlaug (Nobel prize for agriculture) Organic agriculture can only possibly feed four billion people, I don't see two billion volunteers to disappear.

Now increase that a couple of billion with the coming decades and it becomes even more clear why organic is not the major way forward. It will always have its place but will no longer be the primary means of feeding the world. It actually stopped being that with the green revolution in the 1960's.

As for arguing with Wikipedia, I took your reference and showed you how Canola was from fusing two entirely different species together. Primary literature is usually more detailed.

Yes other veggies are in the pipeline. Imagine poor farmers in India actually getting better yields with less insecticide spraying. Imagine poor Chinese farmers getting far more rice per acre with less insecticide. Imagine poor African farmers growing more bushels of maize per acre with less insecticides. Soon drought tolerance, reduced nitrogen requiring crops, truely viral resistant crops. The list is actually very long. You may not like this type of agriculture but the world has already decided to incorporate agricultural biotechnology into global agriculture.

Oh and I am not payed by anyone except my university. I will leave you with a suggestion for you to read "Tomorrows table" It is written by a husband and wife team, one a molecular biologist and the other an organic farmer. We can all learn from it I would guess.

Have a nice life.

Bronwyn,
16,632 farmer suicides in all of India in 2007. 4238 in Maharashtra. Both are lower than 2006 figures.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/More_men_committed_suicide_Report/articleshow/3842361.cms

2008 figures are not available. Perhaps you are the one fudging figures?

I happen to know several people involved in agriculture in India and they tell me that farmer suicides, while tragic, are not directly related to BT cotton, but to farmer indebtedness and family factors. In fact, so they tell me, farmers growing BT cotton are more likely to reduce their debt and so not commit suicide. This business about farmers committing suicides on account of BT cotton is simply a hoax perpetrated by the likes of Vandana Shiva and organic farming groups.

agronomist

"2008 figures are not available. Perhaps you are the one fudging figures?"

I extrapolated, not fudged, from the following quote -

".. I travelled to the 'suicide belt' in Maharashtra state .. official figures from the Indian Ministry of Agriculture do indeed confirm that in a huge humanitarian crisis, more than 1,000 farmers kill themselves here each month."

While it might not be strictly accurate to extrapolate an annual figure from an unknown quantity of monthly figures, on the basis of all else I've read on the issue I doubt it's too far wide of the mark. It could in fact be an accelerating trend and the annual figure could actually be higher not lower than 12 000.

It is certainly wrong to suggest, as you do, that the fact of thousands of Indian farmers suiciding due to GM crop failure is "a hoax perpetrated by the likes of Vandana Shiva and organic farming groups".

"India's farmers are also starting to fight back. As well as taking GM seed distributors hostage and staging mass protests, one state government is taking legal action against Monsanto for the exorbitant costs of GM seeds."

These farmers and this state government obviously don't consider it a hoax. I think they might be in a better position to judge than even the best informed of agronomists from across the world, particularly one with a self-declared interest and likely a pecuniary one as well in promoting GM food.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1082559/The-GM-genocide-Thousands-Indian-farmers-committing-suicide-using-genetically-modified-crops.html

3rd November, 2008

Yes, I know there are some good news stories, from the point of view of yields and profits, but they are patchy and inconsistent and certainly do not represent the full picture. Quite apart from the unknown long term environmental and health effects of growing GM crops, there is an immediate and very dark picture regarding the tragic plight of thousands of poor farmers involved in this massive on-the-field experiment. It's one you should at the very least acknowledge, rather than callously dismissing it as you have in post after post.

Another one of the many problems created by GM cropping in India and no doubt elsewhere is that of child labour.

"Thousands of children are being trucked across states to work on Bt cottonseed farms during the crucial pollination season. It is the child’s job to pluck the male flowers, granulate them, and then manually cross-fertilise the female flowers that have been emasculated the previous day by slitting the female bud with the fingernails. This is painstaking, labour-intensive work and farmers are finding it cheapest to hire children to do it."

"Agents hire groups of girls and boys who travel unescorted by adult relatives, making the long journey at night in small private jeeps. On the farms they live in makeshift huts, with boys and girls sharing rooms at night. They work for nine to 12 hours in the fields during the two-three-month-long season that begins in July. The pollination season coincides with the new school year, and many children are pulled out of school to go to work. They rarely return to school."

"The surge in demand for Bt seed has pushed the cottonseed farmers of Gujarat to recruit workers from south Rajasthan’s impoverished tribal districts. These districts have traditionally provided agricultural workers to Gujarat. However, the demand for child labour, rather than family labour, is new. An estimated 60,000-100,000 boys and girls migrate seasonally to work on cottonseed farms, says the Dakshini Rajasthan Mazdoor Union."

http://infochangeindia.org/200805267154/Children/Features/The-hi-tech-seeds-of-child-labour.html

May, 2008