Congrats to Madeleine Love and Shadow Minister for establishing communication.

Thanks Daniel Sacchero for lucid & intelligent points re labelling.

Yabby, thanks again for your input. When I said I had 'GM information' stalls, I should've said 'GM-free information' so, yes, it wasn't 'objective' but wasn't intended to be. The stall sign said: Label All GM Food.

You say "people will sign petitions for anything", but almost without exception they read every word before signing.

Re Americans eating GM and "not falling off their perch", I wouldn't exactly draw attention to Americans' health. Sadly they have about the worst of any industrialised nation. (Statistics easily available.) As Daniel S points out, of course a link to GM can't be proved without clinical trials & labelling.

Re Coles & Woolies selling blemish-free/'uniform size' produce because consumers want it, it's true. But as people become aware of the wastage that that entails they might broaden their definition of 'perfect'.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Re the right to know what's in our food, you might be interested that people recently sent submissions to the Federal Government's proposed Human Rights bill asking for inclusion of 'the right to unadulterated food'.

But if anyone wanted a reason to curtail growing GM crops then Monsanto must be it. 'The Future of Food' documentary (released 2004) had a public screening in Sydney last night.

Nothing libellous - Monsanto would act swiftly if there was. The viewer was left to draw their own conclusions. But this viewer was depressed by the misery - and fear - the corporation has caused to US & Canadian farmers by its lawsuits, & threats of lawsuits.

I wouldn't give them one dollar of my food budget even if they were purveying organic food.

Quote from Monsanto director (in film): "Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the F.D.A.'s job" - Phil Angell, Monsanto's director of corporate communications, October 1998. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Philip_Angell

Mmmm.

From Diane K. D.

Profile on soil scientist Maarten Stapper:

http://biologicagfood.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=49

http://www.naturalsequencefarming.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=275

http://au.video.yahoo.com/watch/5458068/14364485

Madeline, I'm surprised you hadn't heard GM cotton has been grown here for more than 10 years, it's something the cotton industry has been extolling due to the reduction in insecticides. By about 80%. I can't imagine anyone considering GM cotton as anything other than a good news story.
Not only are we applying less insecticide we are, by this very virtue, maintaining naturally beneficial insect populations keeping bio-diversity and further reducing damage to cotton plants.

When we started with GM cotton we kept the seed segregated, until it became apparent that customers didn't require gm-free product. Now as close to 90% of Australian cotton is GM there isn't much choice anyway.

I guess the question is what decisions would GM cotton change for the informed consumer?

Thanks Protagoras for the information about Maarten Stapper. The online forum was not terribly helpful and I didn’t want to watch the video, but I found his personal profile on the biological farming website is interesting – although it gave me no idea why he would be considered one of Australia’s top agricultural scientists. It also clearly indicated he was not a soil scientist – irrigated wheat seems to be his speciality.

I decided to follow up myself. CABI comes up with 13 scientific papers (which is a more accurate assessment of value) in 23 years. He wasn’t exactly a prolific researcher was he? Do you think the fact that he had only published 4 papers in his last 16 years at CSIRO might have influenced their decision about his value to the organisation? As a comparison, I did a similar search for Mark Peoples also a CSIRO agricultural researcher: 99 papers with 43 in the past decade.

Perhaps on this basis we should consider Mark Peoples ‘one of Australia's top farming experts’? What does Mark say about GM crops?

Dear I'm getting tired of the pro-GMers setting up the non-GMers by asking for more information, eg, re Maarten Stapper, labelling, glyphosate, then demolishing every piece of information sent back.

The pro-GMers tenacity in this regard is formidable and indicates there must be an agenda.

Agronomist, rojo, Shadow Minister all know too much 'inner circle' GM information to be convincing as just members of the public enjoying some lively banter.

A plumber, hairdresser, language teacher, IT worker is hardly going to have the degree of scientific knowledge displayed by the pro-GMers contributing to this discussion - and certainly wouldn't bother taking up their precious time beyond 1 or 2 postings.

* I wouldn't exactly draw attention to Americans' health. Sadly they have about the worst of any industrialised nation*

Kesha, at this point you do have to apply some common sense to the
discussion and you don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to do it.

Yes, America is the home of fast food, junk food, processed food,
trans fats, IMHO all far greater problems then GM food.

For that we have some evidence. A trip to America some years ago,
was quite enlightening for me. Go the US deep south and everything
edible is covered in grease and fat. Many people are battling to
walk, such is the problem. Head North, towards the Canadian border,
it changes dramatically, diet changes, restaurant menus change,
peoples shape changes. Go over the boarder into Canada, where I went
anyhow in Nova Scotia and they were much as in Europe.

Now Canadians grow and use large amounts of GM crops, is there
a problem in Canada that you know of?

I have concerns about GM, but for very different reasons then you do.
IMHO Roundup, or now the off patent glyphosate, is far too
valuable a herbicide to be misused or used too often, for as we do,
nature will naturally respond and mutations resistant to glyphosate
will appear in the natural population of weeds. It has already
happened with rye grass etc at something like 89 sites in Australia.

Now the reality is breeding of new varieties used to be financed
by Govt contribution, with farmers making up the balance. Govts
pulled their money out, so companies like Monsanto have moved in.

CSIRO today is doing less and less when it comes to agriculture,
so if you want to blame anyone for your predicament, its the
Govts that you helped to elect.