*I have had 'GM information' stalls at markets & fairs. The thousands who signed petitions asking for full GM labelling/banning were anything but "veggies or organic fans". *

Well firstly people are always nervous of change and things which
they don't understand. Its a human foible. Secondly, I would be
surprised if the information which you gave them, was objective :)
People will sign petitions for just about anything. On one of
the ABC science shows, they once got people to sign a petition
to ban water! It certainly proved a point to me.

OTOH, hundreds of millions of Americans and others are eating GM
foods and AFAIK, they are not falling off the perch because of it,
so thats a pretty big experiment. I'd personally be far more
nervous about using mobile phones too often.

Yes seed companies own plant patents, its part of PVR. Those
companies who pay for the breeding, get the royalties. Perhaps
I should buy some shares in Monsanto :)

* to advertise they were GM-free as they couldn't guarantee every item was GM-free and didn't want the liability.*

Probably what will happen there, is as with organic. Nobody can
guarantee organic, but a certified process and testing makes it
highly likely. Mind you, some stuff coming from China and
"certified organic", umm, I would rather eat the stuff I grow
with Roundup and fertiliser used lol.

Thats always a good test btw. If a farmer eats what he grows, you
can presume its most likely ok. if the veggie grower has a special
patch of veggies, just for his family, well you should shop elsewhere
perhaps.

Next time to you go to Coles or Woolies, note how fussy that people
are, when they pick out their veggies. Anything with the smallest
blemish is left behind. That is why farmers use alot of pesticides,
its the consumers choice. Heaps of stuff is thrown out, as it does
not look perfect

Protagoras, surfactants are added to glyphosate formulations to stop the drops bouncing off the target leaves. They enhance absorption into the leaf. The surfactant itself does not go in, it stays in contact with the cuticle. Lots of other herbicides have surfactants added. In fact, Certified Organics market an organic herbicide that contains a lot of surfactants and is used at a rate much higher than glyphosate http://www.certifiedorganics.info/prodbwcapplication.html#general http://www.certifiedorganics.info/images/BioWeed_Control_MSDS.pdf.

The FAO merely hold a document with data that I was interested in. It is a bit like criticising the library for not guaranteeing the veracity of every book in their collection. It might be better if you dealt with the data.

Maarten Stapper? No never heard of him. What are his important agricultural advances? How many papers has he published? You say he was one of Australia’s top farming experts. Is he held in as much esteem as John Angus, Tim Reeves, Les Copeland, Tony Fisher, John Kirkegaard, Steve Powles or John Passioura?

Protagoras, you still have to deal with the fact that the Benachour and Seralini study bathed placental cells in formulated Roundup. They needed a glyphosate concentration of over 1% to get any effect at all. That is 10 g/L. The average human adult contains 5L of blood. So to get to a concentration of 10 g/L a mother would need to ingest 50 g of glyphosate and have all of it in move into their blood. Rat studies show about a third of glyphosate is absorbed http://www.inchem.org/documents/ehc/ehc/ehc159.htm#SectionNumber:6.1, but most of that is excreted quickly. Someone would have to consume 300 mL of Roundup concentrate or 15L of solution for spraying to get anywhere close to 10g/L in blood. It is just not going to happen unless someone tries to commit suicide with Roundup

Shadow Minister,

Thank you for your response. There you admit to a core element of the GM proponents position. One that they normally do not dare to mention because it shows their contempt for people. You conclude your response by admitting what the GM proponents believe: that the right of the person to know what they are eating has to be denied for them to consume GM product. You seem to discard this important "right", and don't seem to believe that is necessary. I disagree, I believe that from cultural and individual identity reasons it is important to know what we are eating. It is important because it helps protect ourselves against potential harm and enables us to exercise responsibility and choice. Try telling a Jew or a Muslim that you will deny their right to know what is in their food, try to tell parents of anaphylactic children that you will deny their right to know or people suffering from allergies

Shadow Minister,

This is a continuation of my earlier post.

In your response you start by saying that there is important for customers to have information such as fat, salt for example; but change your position in regards to the GM component arguing that they are difficult to test and that there is no evidence that GM is harmful.

First I propose that we need to differentiate GM from non-GM produce and label accordingly so no test is necessary for food manufacturers. Second, according to you "that there is no evidence (only speculation) that GM is harmful" does not suggest that there is not causality, only that the link has not been proved yet. Most importantly you cannot claim the opposite: "that GM foods are safe", as far as I know there are no scientific tests carried in humans that prove that hypothesis. Many years of consumption cannot be used as evidence to suggest that GM foods are safe for many reasons: first we are not screening for "GM food" in disease diagnostics, second damage can manifest itself many years after consumption (for example asbestosis, or lung cancer due to smoking) so the time that has past may be too short to assess and third there is significant complexity in assigning causality beyond reasonable doubt in non controlled populations with a large number of variables.

In other words GM foods may be affecting people in ways that they are currently not detected or not be possible to prove. For all those reasons we should exercise caution with GM foods. As a minimum provide clear labeling and an audit trail so individuals could assess their personal risks when consuming GM foods.

I write to confirm that the Shadow Minister contacted me - all praise - very courageous.

Shadow Minister's background had been detailed on the forum and I offered mine in response. As an introduction I offered the context in which I began to research GM food and crops in detail. The first part is presented below if anyone would like to challenge information in the references…

I was shocked to learn in Oct 07 that Australia was about to grow GM canola because I hadn't heard anything. I would've thought the issue demanded strong open debate given general public anti-GM opinion. At this point I smelled a rat - how come I didn't know?

When the politicians and 'esteemed authorities' said there wouldn't be any contamination between GM and non-GM canola I went straight to the pubmed database. I found studies detailing the contamination in Canada. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed - type Brassica Napus Canada. Studies will appear (some compiled at this link http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/australia/resources/reports/GE/ge-canola-out-of-control-in.pdf . This was from Dec 07 – more studies now.)
The politicians/ authorities must have known about the contamination, and yet they were saying there would be none. Why? I smelled another rat.

I began to research through the contamination side. I went into the Network of Concerned Farmers and found Julie Newman's "The Drive Behind GM Crops"
http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=2854
This went into the global/corporate control issues. It was a huge eye opener on how this big trading world worked. I was surprised by the disregard given to consumers – people – in the decisions – this was big power, and it didn't read well.

I also learnt that Australia had grown GM cotton since 1996. I'd known nothing about it, though it would've formed a vital part of my consumer decisions. There was a big rat in hiding this from consumers.

I read an amazing Hansard conversation between the Gene Technology Regulator and Senators at the Senate Estimates hearings in November 2003.
http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/S7055.pdf pp 148 - 166 - particularly pp 161-162 – I’ll detail it in the next post - curse this 350 word limit.

DS,

Unfortunately, your examples were poorly chosen, as they prove my point.

Jews have the right to buy kosher food,
Muslims, - Halal,
For people with allergies you can buy gluten free or nut free, organic,
For patriots, - made in Australia.
All these people can buy food prepared and labelled for their particular needs or wants, and it would appear that in Aus there is such a labelling system being developed for GM free food. What more can you reasonably ask for? Or do you want all other food to be labelled non kosher, non halal etc?

This is the situation in the USA where one can buy GMO foods at a premium, but in spite of an initial vocal protest, the vast majority of consumers don’t care enough to dip into their pockets.

So in short, you have the right to know what you are eating, but you don’t have the right to inflict the costs of any food fetish on the other 90% of the public.

As far as food safety is concerned, the complete lack of any observable negative consequences from the hundreds of millions of users would indicate that either there is no causal link or it is so tenuous as to be ignored. The failure to prove complete safety is circular argument. I cannot prove that anything is completely safe. To follow your extension of the precautionary principle I should go outside with a steel umbrella to protect against meteorites.