I have to wonder why a farmer would enter into a contract with Monsanto to grow canola. The contract specifies that the land used to grow the crop can only be sold at a later date to someone else willing to enter into the licence agreement with Monsanto!! The farmer trying to sell his land would have a pretty limited purchaser base I'd imagine.Monsanto are keen to make money OUT OF farmers, not help them. Bring on permaculture.

lillian,

I ingest billions of bacteria and viruses every day. Sadly, I suspect very few of them has been have been tested at all, let alone as well at GM foods. And the little buggers mutate daily. I guess I am stuffed.

Bronwyn, sorry my post was not meant to ridicule you personally, more the general mentality behind the attack on GM via obscure means(say GM insulin efficacy), when in reality there are a myriad of variables involved with any failure, and no-one focuses on the majority of GM insulin users who have no problem whatsoever. The assumption being it's GM thats the problem, not dosage or application or convienient excuse(in defence of manslaughter or murder). What I find strange is the fervour with which such weak "evidence" is latched onto by the anti GM lobby.

"I’m still not at all convinced that there is absolutely no link between the increase in GMO in our food supply and the increase in the incidence of allergy problems in the general population."

The world use of GM crops has increased exponentially, surely someone can work out if allergies have increased proportionally. And are there really more allergies, or more awareness of allergies

Hi Rojo,
We've done a little bit of preliminary work putting together the allergy-GM food association, with a few references to varying international food policy. It's in a document on the web www.madge.org.au/allergy-report.pdf

We've done quite a bit more work since then (particularly related to the cross-reactions of soy) but haven't updated the document yet. The other GM crops will be involved too though - we know of issues around GM canola and corn, for example.

The first animal study looking at GM feed consumption and allergy response found significant differences at immune cell level - the researchers focused on young weaning mice and old mice. We put out a media release on it at http://www.madge.org.au/Docs/madge-release-2008-12-04.pdf
The study references are within it.

My understanding is that the biotechs know their GM food is responsible for the incredible rise in allergies - I was told twice that "it has to be proved". It wasn't said in the sense "We won't accept the truth of it unless it's proved", but rather "You can't sue us unless it's proved".

It should be possible to prove it, even without food labelling - but money is being invested for research along every implausible line!, and along therapy lines rather than 'proof of cause'. We just want the food off the shelves. Wait for the ...Continued blog.

Madeleine Love
One of the MADGE's (Mothers are Demystifying Genetic Engineering)

Hi Merri bee, I had trouble following your comments. Now it is my understanding that official crop variety trials in Australia are done by the NVT. I haven’t seen their results yet, but I would have thought they would have to follow a standard protocol. Where is the evidence they have not done this? Other trials have been conducted by Nufarm. Now correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t Nufarm the biggest seller of triazine herbicides in Australia? Would they not have an interest in not damaging those sales? Why would they conduct their trials incorrectly? It would be in their best interest to come up with a horses for courses approach.

Sorry, I don’t want to check the details with Julie Newman. Unfortunately, Julie tends to tell me a whole bunch of stuff that is wrong. This includes Canada being unable to sell its canola, Europe has not banned use of atrazine, Canadian GM canola varieties yield less than non-GM, that atrazine-tolerant canola was never grown in Canada, and so on, all easily disproved. Now we have Down’s syndrome being the result of a ‘bent gene’. Why should I believe anything Julie Newman says? She seems to say whatever first comes into her head without bothering to check it.

But I do know why there have been no trials of GM canola in Western Australia. You see until recently they had an Agriculture Minister, Kim Chance, who effectively banned the commercial growing of GM canola in Western Australia. Why would you bother running trials for a crop farmers were never going to be permitted to grow

rojo

Apology accepted, thank you.

Agronomist

Quite apart from the benefits or risks of GM food, aren't you concerned at the dominance of Monsanto and the corporate control it's acquiring over the world's food supply and its farmers?

Madeleine and Non-GM farmer

Appreciate the information you're sharing with the rest of us. The more I hear the more I realize there's a lot the general public aren't being told. Thanks for bringing us up to speed on this important issue.