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By Jane Bardon
Thursday, 31/01/2008
Green groups are furious the Federal Government has decided to support genetically modified crops, pushing government agencies to do more GM research.Following decisions by more state governments to allow GM crops to be grown, Federal Labor has dumped its scepticism.Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has advised government funded agencies to do more research on pest and disease resistant GM crops. "With the challenges that are in front of us I want to make sure Australian agriculture is in the best position it possibly can be, not just to be sustainable and to thrive."GM isn't the be all and end all by any means but I believe its going to provide one piece of the jigsaw in dealing with the challenges the climate is going to put before us in the years to come."Julie Newman from Network of Concerned Farmers says many producers and consumers don't want that."We are aware of our markets and our markets are very clearly that they don't want GM, just a few will tolerate it in certain circumstances. And the unfortunate thing is we can't segregate so all the liability is on the non-GM farmer and that imposes a massive problem to those producers that are aware enough to want to grow a produce that consumers want and its not GM."Supermarket surveys suggest many consumers don't want to eat GM food.So Coles, and Foodland in South Australia, are keeping it out of their home-brand products. But the federal minister points out many farmers feel they need GM crops to stay viable.Tony Burke says some government research will focus on strengthening safeguards.He says he's not worried about the image of Australia's produce in world markets, because individual states like Tasmania are already deciding to remain GM free where they think they can gain a market advantage.Mr Burke says he isn't concerned about consumers rejecting farmers GM produce."The people who will be most sensitive to making sure that we've got a market will be the producers. I don't think that we should for a moment underestimate the awareness that producers have of what the market will and won't take."
In this report: Tony Burke, Federal Agriculture Minister; Julie Newman, Network of Concerned Farmers
Thursday, 31/01/2008
Green groups are furious the Federal Government has decided to support genetically modified crops, pushing government agencies to do more GM research.Following decisions by more state governments to allow GM crops to be grown, Federal Labor has dumped its scepticism.Agriculture Minister Tony Burke has advised government funded agencies to do more research on pest and disease resistant GM crops. "With the challenges that are in front of us I want to make sure Australian agriculture is in the best position it possibly can be, not just to be sustainable and to thrive."GM isn't the be all and end all by any means but I believe its going to provide one piece of the jigsaw in dealing with the challenges the climate is going to put before us in the years to come."Julie Newman from Network of Concerned Farmers says many producers and consumers don't want that."We are aware of our markets and our markets are very clearly that they don't want GM, just a few will tolerate it in certain circumstances. And the unfortunate thing is we can't segregate so all the liability is on the non-GM farmer and that imposes a massive problem to those producers that are aware enough to want to grow a produce that consumers want and its not GM."Supermarket surveys suggest many consumers don't want to eat GM food.So Coles, and Foodland in South Australia, are keeping it out of their home-brand products. But the federal minister points out many farmers feel they need GM crops to stay viable.Tony Burke says some government research will focus on strengthening safeguards.He says he's not worried about the image of Australia's produce in world markets, because individual states like Tasmania are already deciding to remain GM free where they think they can gain a market advantage.Mr Burke says he isn't concerned about consumers rejecting farmers GM produce."The people who will be most sensitive to making sure that we've got a market will be the producers. I don't think that we should for a moment underestimate the awareness that producers have of what the market will and won't take."
In this report: Tony Burke, Federal Agriculture Minister; Julie Newman, Network of Concerned Farmers
10 comments:
How dare Burke say that we as consumers are unimportant enough to not even be considered in the decision of contaminating our food supply with GM. Cotton is OK because we can avoid eating the cotton seed oil and we only wear the main product. We don't want any major grains infected as we cannot as consumers avoid it. We don't want it and this has always been the case so why is Burke pushing it down our necks unless he has vested interest in GM. He is so wrong that farmers must stay ahead on a world market because GM will not give us better results, it will give us worse results. There have been independent trials showing without doubt that pesticide use increases after 5 years, also the amount of D4T which is the only thing that keeps GM out has increased dramatically, it has less yield (30% less at least) and the farmer has to pay subsidies to the GM industry for this biohazard. Why are we doing this? Because the chemical companies (they created Agent Orange and the gas chambers in the 2nd World war) want to be the new petroleum companies when oil runs out. If you don't believe me, have a look at Monsanto website and see how many millions has been paid for research on biofuels. It is only for money that this disgrace is happening and money is buying out these politicians and pro-GM supporters. Now they are even looking at contaminating sugar because lo-and-behold they can make plastics out of sugar. How can we as consumers avoid that then? We cannot. Scientists want GM because they get paid large sums of money to do research on it and they don't want that to stop, CSIRO included.
C'mon Australia, ban this outdated disgrace as the health implications are showing that it is dangerous for our health with major differences in heart, lung, kidney etc. which shows that GM should have been banned at inception. We as consumers do not want this product. Listen to us please before it is too late as even if Tasmania is GM-free it will be contaminated by the GM companies as they mix the GM with non-GM and sell it as non-GM as they now own most of the seed companies in Australia. We must stop this before it is too late as we cannot retract GM once it is in unless you want to cover Australia with Agent Orange. Don't let this be another cane toad disaster.
Thank you Anonymous. This is the type of debate, discussion that I established this blog for. Look forward to seeing more of your ocmnments on topics posted.
Thank you Willard. The other interesting thing that I have found out is that the so-called farmers that are pro-GM are actually the head of the pro-GM sectors that are farmers in their profession.
The VFF grains president who is in that category said "For grain farmer Andrew Weidemann, genetically modified food is the revolution Australian farming has to have" to give you but one example.
This is an outright lie as if we follow the Canadian farmers into GM who by the way are subsidized, all canola farmers in Australia will go broke. They will find that they will no longer have the edge on selling their canola anymore as there will be a level playing field which is what the American and Canadian governments want. At the moment their countries cannot sell their grain and have to subsidize all their farmers due to GM contamination.
The figures are at non-gm-farmers.com (and no I am not Julie Newman). These are facts as she would have been successfully sued if they were wrong but the GM companies cannot sue her because her figures are right which shows the lies of the GM advertising even through personal threats and all. It is a fascinating set of different figures that don't lie at her site and well worth the read.
To continue with the reasons not to have anything to do with GM, A 2004 study found that growing herbicide tolerant crops reduced herbicide use in the U.S.from 1996 to 1999. (This is taken from the MADGE site - mothers against dangerous genetic engineering)
However, starting in 2000, the total pounds of herbicides used per acre has been higher for herbicide tolerant crops than for conventional crops and this number increased each year. Additionally,herbicide tolerant volunteers have forced some farmers
to resort to using older herbicides that are more human toxic,such as 2,4-D.
Even as Canadian farmers increase efficiency and gross farm revenues hit record highs, net incomes have hit record lows. The past five years have been the worst in history for Ontario farmers, yet agribusiness corporations have posted record profits. For example, 2004 was the best year in history for agribusiness profits and the second worst in history for
Canadian farmers. In addition to the price of technology packages such as patented GM seeds with accompanying herbicides, biotechnology companies charge a “Technology Use Fee”per acre.
So, as you can see, the pesticide use and potency (D4T) increases which in turn increases the profit margin of the GM companies. The thing that also concerns me is who decides how much to charge for these Patent and Technology Fees?
Oh look, it's the GM companies and what is stopping them charging impossible to pay fees to manipulate which country has farmers selling any grains at all?
Thanks for listening.
Justaconsumer
Thank you again "Justaconsumer",
I have heard discussion around the GM debate. Hear are some points that I would welcome your opinion on:
1. By being able to genetically input omega 3 into canola, it will a) provide better health for those who cannot afford or are unaware fo the benefits of omega 3, and b)if Tasmania does not go GMO with crops, how do we propose to address the issue of stock feed coming across from the mainland (should mainland states go GMO - which some are). This last agrument based on stock feed contaminating non GM crops?
Look forward to your comments.
Ah yes, the myths created by the GM companies and the people that are wanting to make profit from it. Ok, let's tackle these two for starters (feel free to suggest more).
1. There have been no sucessful GM grains that insert Omega 3 into canola at all and this is a lie created by the GM companies to con everyone into thinking it will be more than safe and be able to help people who don't have sufficient Omega 3 in their diet. The nearest thing that they have produced is Golden rice and even that is flawed. Golden rice was produced to supplement Vitamin A into the poorer countries of the world so that they would not be deficient in this vital ingredient but a few major flaws which is constantly hidden by the GM companies, is that an adult would need to eat 44kg of rice to get the daily dose and children would need to eat 15.4kg to get their dose per day. Now I'm pretty sure that no-one would ever eat that amount of rice per day? Syngenta, the GM company even said that delaying this product for a month would cause 50,000 children to go blind. Mmmm Basic concepts forgotten in their race to get rich. Pure deception don't you think? No published scientific evidence has ever shown that the human body could convert the beta-carotene into Vitamin A from Golden Rice. Pure wishful thinking on their behalf. Instead people like Vitamin Angel alliance are handing out pills that are strong enough that the malnourished children would only need two a year, for only 5 cents. Better that don't you think than spending billions of dollars developing something that does not work.
2. If Tasmania can get their act together, they can ban any GM ingredients from coming in and get the farmers to keep an eye out for something that I think is fascinating. When given a choice, some animals avoid eating GM. In farmer-run tests, cows and pigs repeatedly passed up GM corn. Other animals that avoided GM food include pigs, geese, elk, deer, raccoons, mice and rats.
Therefore if a farmer has a chance, to make sure that he has two different sources for the meal, then it would soon show up which meal is actually contaminated when the livestock don't eat it and proper returns and fines could be given. Farmers could also note if they are getting extraordinary health problems with their stock which is a character flaw of GM. Other than that, there would be no way to tell as GM does contaminate. Most seed merchants in Australia are now Monsanto or GM company owned which is a real worry as they will contaminate crops on purpose as they have through their "trials".
When the crops are sprayed with Roundup, the Bt variety will clearly show up and it would be up to the farmer to get rid of it out of their paddock. From there, it will contaminate if they don't and Tasmania will become GM without wanting to be. Bad tidings, I'm afraid. Best to stick to Tasmania or Western Australian seed only. There are meant to be scientific instruments available that test for GM but I am unsure if these are accurate enough. So hears hoping they are and the GM meal can be tagged.
Justaconsumer
An interesting focus on what will happen to the farmers of Australia on the reality of GM is located at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9SywTI3jsI&feature=related
Other concerns are also on that site with the health implications and the problems of contamination.
As they say, if you go down the GM track, you will find yourself having to pay a lot more for seed (Bayer, Monsanto etc. decide on how much you are going to pay for the seed), chemicals (they own the chemicals as the GM is actually called "Roundup Ready") and the costs of technology fees which the GM companies decide on how much they are going to charge you.
Hope you enjoy the interesting watching.
Justaconsumer
I have found out how the New South Wales government tossed out the Moratorium was because of timing.
I think it is a disgrace that the NSW parliamentarians decided after their Christmas party last year approx. 10pm that their state would have GM. Can you imagine? Most of them would have been drunk and if two pro-GM'ers nudged them they would have put their drunken hands up not knowing the full implications of their actions.
This is a disgrace and it should be redone. Log onto the Hansard and you will see the facts that are not told to the general public. Victoria just lay down and allowed one pro-GM'er the agricultural minister (who has connections to the GM companies and as people in his home town have said "an arrogant person") to say "NSW has got it so we are too".
This is a disgrace to the parliamentary system and should be amended. Hope you had a fantastic weekend.
Justaconsumer
If you are involved in meal for your stock you should have a look at the 2008 Monsanto User agreement where it states quite clearly warning farmers not to graze GM Canola stubble because there is insufficient information to prove its safety. This is a new part of the contract so it should be interpreted that they have reason for concern where they previously did not have.
Keep in mind that FSANZ has no regulatory authority of stock feed (meal). So what of the oil that I as a consumer eat? Surprise, surprise no testing is done on the oil!
So why are stock considered more important than consumers in Monsanto's eyes. Is it that they are kept in the paddock where consumers cannot pin health problems down to canola oil?
Justaconsumer
An update on the "new" Golden Rice episode that they are saying still works wonders for the poor. They are now able to say that children only have to eat 3kg of rice per day and adults only have to eat 5-7 kg of rice per day to get their daily Vit A content. I'm sorry but I still think that this is a farce. There is no way that I could eat 1kg of rice per day never mind that these people are poor and do not have any food and that is there main problem. So even with their best scientists working on it (they cannot get the figures lower than this) it is still a furphy.
Justaconsumer
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