I agree with your assessment of Q&A and the ABC in general but puzzled as to what motives someone would have to preach against GM crops and where they would get their finance from.

Hi David,

could you please provide some balance by posting about pro GM branding and perhaps about the the millions currently being spent by Monsanto, DuPont et al to avoid GM labelling in California? Also about how much biotech corporations provide to Australian Universities for R & D and how that an potential grant money has the potential to influence scientific views about the product? Thanks.

David
I shouldn't have used the term hired guns - because I don't believe all pro-gm scientists are paid for their views. On the other hand, the prevailing orthodoxies in science, including the notion that somehow corporate funding and control of science is benign, is probably a more insidious and dangerous problem than those incidents of 'hired' guns.

Rick
I think the correct question is do pro-gm scientists and industry manipulate the media. The answer, of course, is yes - and far more successfully than those who are anti-gm. There are plenty of examples, but one close to home is the media spin put on the gm pea study results. 'The System Work's' was the lead - and it was patent nonsense as the regulatory system never requires such studies (in fact, FSANZ argues feeding studies are useless). The real message should have been 'Concerns about safety of gm foods not assessed in safety studies' was of course ignored.

As I indicated in my post, scientists who are critical of gm have taken 'unusual' steps in order to try and avoid the kind of venom that pours out with every study critical of gm is to some extent controlled. This isn't always wise or successful, but if we're going to look at who has a greater degree of 'control' over media it is clearly the biotech industry.

I'd disagree with you further that an embargo is an attempt to suppress dissent. There has been no shortage of the usual biased venom since the story came out.

As far as Seralini buying some award. If true, pretty tacky, but are you arguing that this somehow implicates his science? And if so, is it worse than scientists who are funded by Monsanto or work for institutions funded by Monsanto? I find that worse than tacky and a situation that does implicate the science.

David
this is now a debate where there is no longer any middle ground. I expect that everyone involved in this issue has been bullied, demonised, attacked etc. At an individual level, I think it's just ugly...On the other hand, any power analysis of the issue provides a somewhat different perspective. It steps back a bit to the questions of who has power and how is it exercised. It is clear that pro-gm forces are more powerful or have more direct power. They have superior finance, access to power, influence over decision makers, influence within certain key government and research bodies. The anti-gm folks tend to be community groups without substantial resources and they rely necessarily on different tactics (including direct action) - tactics that tend to neutralise the kind of direct power that they are confronting. The examples you use tend to ignore the power balance that actually exists. It's a bit like saying that participants in the Arab spring were not benign because you don't like their tactics...Well, if those are the only tactics available the question is really do you agree with their motivations. I think in the examples you give, you simply don't agree with the motivation and it's easy to see actions as bad for that reason. As an activist, I think our tactics in relation to corporate interests and control have been far too soft and so my perspective leads to an entirely different analysis and conclusion.

We can all have credibility problems Rick and you are no exception. Despite having written for The Conversation on several earlier occasions, this is the first time you've disclosed a big conflict of interest - accepting Monsanto money for the research which I presume was published as: Rieger, M.A., Lamond, M., Preston, C., Powles, S.B. & Roush, R.T. (2002) Pollen-mediated movement of herbicide resistance between commercial canola fields. Science, 296, 2386-2388. Why did you not disclose this conflict sooner, and why now? Mary Rieger's paper (you were her supervisor) purported to reassure everyone that commercial GM canola contamination of neighbouring canola and other brassicas would be no problem. The Victorian, NSW and WA governments relied on these claims when lifting their bans on commercial GM canola in 2008 and 2010. Yet there have since been numerous GM contamination incidents on farms, roadsides and in silos; as a result thresholds for 'adventitious' contamination were set at 0.5% in seed for planting and 0.9% in harvested seed; and the GM industry now argues that contamination is inevitable and unavoidable because of natural, environmental processes. How do you and weed experts Preston and Powles explain the disjunction between your predictions and later GM contamination events? Should policy-makers rely on your predictions if GM wheat and other GM crops are proposed for commercial release in the future?

David
It doesn’t surprise me that our perspectives are so different that we may in fact be speaking different languages to each other. On the other hand, there are parts of your post that are simply misreadings of what I said and meant. I never supported scientific distortions – and would argue that the vast majority of scientific distortions in the gm debate have come from those who favour gm. However, it is also true that science is not objective. Like any other human endeavour it is distorted by culture, politics, money, ideology and faiths of all descriptions. When the catholic church ran the university systems in Europe in the middle ages, the distortions now seem so obvious we assume that we can’t make the same mistakes now. And yet, we have biotech companies controlling whole sectors of universities and other public institutions and then claim that this doesn’t irrevocably alter and corrupt the science that is done. I don’t argue that accuracy in science is relative – only that science is subject to pressures and influences that we many can’t or won’t discern. GE is a classic example – and the ways in which GE has become part of our food system reflects the deep corruption of science and the profound corroding influence of big corporate interests on every aspect of our lives. I totally dispute the notion that the positions of Greenpeace are either incorrect or immoral or that those few brave scientists who have challenged the prevailing fundamentalism are wrong. I still find it extraordinary that the pro-gm advocates will vehemently argue against the science of Chapela, Pustzai etc but remain implacably silent on the science of Monsanto, Bayer, etc. You ask why I don’t simply accept the conclusions and criticisms of you and other scientists it is because I am completely convinced that you are deeply biased and actually incapable of the kind of impartiality that you demand. As I have said, the venomous, vitriolic treatment of scientists who produce contrary conclusions to yours is a clear indication that this is not a scientific debate in your world but virtually a religious war. If you and others were critical of Seralini’s science in a considered way and were equally critical of the science from Bayer and Monsanto, I would listen – but that doesn’t happen.
Anti-corporate and anti-capitalist ideologies are not necessarily wrong because some of those who opposed them 100 years ago, responded in ways that were ever worse. It is incredibly simplistic to assume that opposition to corporate models of governance and citizenship assume that one supports the stalins of the world. From any sane ecological perspective, the notions of infinite growth in a finite system is madness – pathologically insane. And the ecological indicators support that conclusion. If we don’t move beyond the current systems we have, we are catapulting ourselves towards both ecological and political breakdown. GE is absolutely part of the problem that needs to be changed.
I won’t repeat the arguments regarding golden rice. We disagree.
I have to say though that the notion that ge or biotech companies will do anything to solve the problems of hunger and manourishment is as absurd as the conspiracy theories involving aliens and Elvis Presley. I truly cannot believe that any thinking human believes it.
The GM issue is not isolated from a host of other related problems. Trying to prevent the spread of GE is also about a host of social and environmental issues that GE symbolises. These are real problems and the underlying causes and drivers are real too. I actually wish the NGO world would spend more time on these fundamentally destructive systems we live in rather than always dealing with the symptoms.

At the behest of the American Enterprise Institute, the Melbourne right-wing, free-market, think-tank Institute of Public Affairs http://www.ipa.org.au/ ran the concerted campaign of harassment you mention about a decade ago. You and David Tribe were both leading agents of that failed campaign.

My answer remains, as it was then: There are no vested interests in protecting the global food supply from monopoly corporate ownership and control. See: http://www.geneethics.org/about for our vision and mission of GM-free futures. Over 95% of Gene Ethics' meager annual income is from hundreds of loyal and generous individual donors and supporters. Their names are not for publication.

Are you seriously contending, David, that the following email was completely unassociated with the IPA's long-running and persistent campaign of harassment? Gene Ethics had been under the Australian Conservation Foundation's umbrella and you asked via the ACF website:

From: David Tribe [mailto:detribe@unimelb.edu.au]
Sent: Tuesday, 28 January 2003 11:38 AM
To: Reception
Subject: WEBSITE CONTACT: Genethics funding 2001-2003

You have been emailed through ACF's Website.
David Tribe has contacted you about: General.

Message: On looking through ACF 2002 Annual Report I found no information on sources of funding to the Genethics network, unlike the previous year's report. Can you please help me with the details of donors to the Genethics program for 2001-2003, in the interests of transparency. As you know this is a common request by Genethics of those who comment in this area and ethically, ACF needs to comply with this principle.

David Tribe would like a response to this message.
The contact was made at 1/28/2003 10:38:13 AM

ACF's response to you on 5/2/2003 at 1.57pm was:

Dear David,

Thanks for your interest in ACF's Annual Report and funding for the GeneEthics Network. While significant corporate and foundation supporters
for that year are recognised separately in the text of the report, space
restrictions limit the level of detail that can be provided. This information is not differentiated on the basis of campaign areas.

It is most important to note that the main source of ACF funding is the
generous contributions made by our individual donors and members, this
applies to GeneEthics as it does for ACF's work in general.

Over the past fifteen years, ACF has been proud to support the work of the
GeneEthics Network which has tirelessly raised public discussion and debate over the environmental, social, ethical and economic aspects of gene
technology and its products.

Thanks for your interest in the Foundation and its work. I suggest that if you want any further information that you contact Bob Phelps, Executive Director of the GeneEthics Network ph: 03 9347 4500.

Regards,

Michael
____________

Michael Fogarty, General Manager
Australian Conservation Foundation
Floor 1, 60 Leicester St, Carlton 3053 Australia
Ph: +(61) 03 9345 1177, Fx: +(61) 03 9345 1166
http://www.acfonline.org.au

Hey Rick: Gene Ethics will be 25 next January. We are celebrating!

In an email to you on March 19 2003 we noted: "Mary Reiger in her published report in the Western Australian Government paper on GM (2001) acknowledges financial assistance from Monsanto and Bayer. Why did the Science published version of this same research not acknowledge this assistance?" Your reply the same day said: "Frankly, I don't actually know why the Science paper didn't mention the support from Monsanto and Bayer, but assume that it was an oversight in multiple revisions." But journalist Graeme O'Neill reported that Paula Fitzgerald of "agbiotech lobby group" Agrifood Awareness said: "I thought it was appalling that a scientist like Chris Preston, who has done some of the world's best research in this area, was taken to task for failing to write on a paper published in a peer-reviewed journal that Bayer and Monsanto had provided some funding for the study into GM canola pollen dispersal."

Science magazine tightened its policy on requiring the timely disclosure of conflicts of interest as a result. Perhaps The Conversation should also review its policy on the timely and honest disclosure of conflicts of interest since it is a such a feature of this site?

Later in your email you say: "we reported all sources of funding, to the dollar amount, in every annual report of the CRC. Can Greenpeace or GeneEthics make the same claim?" Yes, our sponsor ACF did make such disclosures, as mentioned in response to David's jibe.

You continued: "But as long as you are going to raise the spectre of financial conflicts of interest with this group, I'm going to ask Bob again as to whether he will come clean on his funding sources. No commercial interest nor anonymous UK donor pays our salaries; how about Bob's?" Then, as now, most of our funding was from individual donors as confirmed by the ACF. At that time Gene Ethics' meagre income funded our programs and I received no salary at all.

And you threaten: "I think he has a special obligation to be transparent on this. Until he does, I think you can expect as a result of Graeme O'Neill's article that every public question about funding to scientists will also now raise subsequent questions about funding sources for GM critics." This was a clear reference to the Institute of Public Affairs harassment campaign of which Graeme O'Neill was also also a part.

I do hope that is the end of this!

David: Your inquiry to the ACF in 2003 about Gene Ethics funding was concurrent with the IPA harassment campaign, so I asked you the reasonable question whether they were connected. Thanks for explaining there was no causal connection and that your inquiry was just a random act of kindness. I have no idea who gave The Wayward Fund donations to the ACF that have obsessed you and Roush for the past decade. I recall that Graeme O'Neill speculated it may have been the Prince of Wales but that seems far-fetched. If you find out, please let us all know.

"There is no terminator technology on the market"
Not at the moment there isn't - but Monsanto have spent a lot of money developing this technology. Why would they do that if they didn't intend to deploy it? And why deploy it until they have eradicated the opposition? If you have a *choice* between non-GM seed that you can save, and GM seed that you can't, then most farmers (especially in developing countries) will avoid GM. But if you've already bought into GM - or the choice has been taken away from you (by threat of prosecution for contamination of your non-GM crop, prosecution of owners of seed-saving equipment, etc.) then you're powerless if and when they introduce this technology.

"By reducing crop yield for the same amount of food produced"
Can you provide evidence for increased yields with GM crops? Without evidence, this claim means nothing.
Remember - increased yields at the expense of green "weeds" which were previously part of a mixed production system (e.g. eaten by people or poultry) don't count.

Traditional systems have multiple outputs e.g. in Bali, people eat not only rice from paddies, but also ducks, greens, frogs and dragonflies. Yes - dragonflies. No, I don't know what they taste like, but I know someone who does. I'm sure they're very nutritious too.
A paddy well-sprayed with pesticides and herbicides may well yield a greater mass of rice, but in reality it provides a smaller mass of food - and poorer quality food at that. Most of us would like something to go with our rice.

Hi David,

I'm still wondering why Monsanto would go to all the expense and effort of developing terminator technology if they weren't intending to deploy it.

As I outlined, I can see a worrying scenario whereby they would wait until uptake (and therefore, dependence) of GM crops were high, before deploying the technology. At this point, farmers would have no choice but to comply.

Can you please reassure me by explaining what this technology was developed for, if not for the sinister scenario I've described?

How about this?http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/15/india-gm-cotton-bayer

Well, the first sentence is very different, but then there's this:

"Pawar said farmers in Dhule district of Maharashtra and Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh have complained of yield loss after using hybrid cotton seeds produced and marketed by Bayer Bio-Science Pvt Ltd.

The loss was suffered as both Dhule and Khargone received higher than normal rainfall, he said adding compensation has been awarded to farmers for the losses but Bayer Bio-Science has gone in for appeal".

Looking at the articles again, I would agree that they are reported very differently. The one you cited is very brief and lacking in critical analysis. The Guardian article actually reports the same material as the Indian Express - but puts some of the facts in context. For example, the doubling of yields after introduction of Bt cotton:

"Opponents of GM crops claim the increased yields of the early 2000s were due to better irrigation and favourable weather. Over the past six years average yields per hectare have barely changed, despite a fourfold increase in the use of GM cotton".
So - rather than saying the GM crop losses were due to unfavourable conditions, this article suggests that the GM gains were due to a run of favourable conditions. Which raises the question - how well does the GM cotton cope with adverse conditions compared to non-GM varieties?

""Productivity in north India is likely to decline because of the declining potential of hybrids; the emerging problem of leaf curl virus on the new susceptible Bt-hybrids; a high level of susceptibility to sucking pests (straight varieties were resistant)," Kranthi explained in a paper published in June 2011. He also pointed out that GM varieties consume more water and nutrients, leading to soil depletion. This in turn means that fertilisers are needed to achieve optimal yields".

Finally:
"Ten years after the introduction of GM cotton, local seed varieties have virtually disappeared".
Which is fine if you have absolute confidence in the GM product. But extinction is forever, as they say.

Terminator is a whole lot easier to say and remember than its official title: Gene Use Restriction Technology (GURTS) used by the Convention on Biological Diversity. The reason Monsanto has not developed GURTS is that despite the opposition of the USA and its allies, including Australia, CBD member countries agreed to an international moratorium on GURTS which still stands. However, the ban was watered down in 2006 by the Australian government's intervention. Our Office of Gene Technology Regulator confirm that it will accept applications for the use of GURTS on a case by case basis. An extract from the report of the CBD negotiations here explains why: http://www.biosafety-info.net/article.php?aid=355 "Australia had won the inclusion of the wording on case-by-case risk assessment by using it as a bargaining chip, in return for dropping its initial insistence during the drafting group discussions that reference to the precautionary approach be removed in the pre-ambular paragraph. NGOs reported that this was done with a US government official consulting at the Australian negotiator's side." Monsanto demurred but I'm confident it would develop GURTS if the strength of global opposition did not make its deployment impossible.

Probably because Monsanto leant on them - the cumulative effect of stories about GM cotton in India are devastating

David and Christopher, can you comment on this please? Your comments didn't mention the existence of any moratorium - giving the impression that Monsanto had no interest in using the technology or were avoiding its use out of public interest.

Sorry David - I saw that you stated your opinion that terminator technology isn't sinister, but I didn't see where you explained your reasoning (us teachers set a lot of store on the difference between stating and explaining).

David,

I think the decision also coincided with some rather ugly law suits in Canada brought by farmers. Can't remember the details. I'll get back.

Thanks David. Do you have any references for the wealth flowing to Indian farmers? Vandana Shiva blames GM crops for farmer suicides in India. I understand that the seeds are significantly more expensive, that the crops require more water and fertiliser than non-GM varieties, and that they are less resilient in adverse conditions.

Given the unpredictability of the weather and markets, it seems to me that yields would have to be truly impressive to make up for the risk associated with buying ore expensive, hungry and thirsty seed (unless these attributes don't actually apply to GM crops).

Thanks David,

Taking a constructivist view of learning, the existence of a booklet, however great, doesn't guarantee anything about what students and practitioners learn about applying ethical principles and navigating ethical dilemmas.

I'm reminded of the debate about ethics as an alternative to SRE in schools - those opposed to ethics were outraged at the fact that students were posed questions rather than being told what to think.

Excellent. I was hoping that this was now the case David and that engineers are now getting something approaching an education rather than just training.

Could you post me some links of biotechnology courses in Australia that incorporate ethical or critical studies - not just training on the rules and regs for doing experiments of course?

David,

I think we're at cross-purposes here. We seem to agree that there are global challenges in food production and water for agriculture. But from that point we diverge. You discuss the ethics of how GM production is carried out. I'm asking - is GM agriculture the only or best way to address these challenges?

What about alternative fibre sources to cotton? I already mentioned hemp, but there are others. If those alternatives require significantly fewer inputs, then replacing conventional cotton with GM is tinkering around the edges.

David - just had a quick squiz at the Melbourne course outline - can't see anything specific dealing with criticism or public concern - send me the detail please.

Excellent mo by the way.

Now here's the problem Rick:

Above you quote the USDA Economic Research Service report of 2002:
“Glyphosate binds to the soil rapidly, preventing leaching, and is biodegraded by soil bacteria. In fact, glyphosate has a half-life in the environment of 47 days, compared with 60–90 days for the herbicides it commonly replaces. In addition, glyphosate has extremely low toxicity to mammals, birds, and fish. The herbicides that glyphosate replaces are 3.4 to 16.8 times more toxic, according to a chronic risk indicator based on the EPA reference dose for humans”

Now this quote comes from a paper by J M Malik et al of 1989. Sadly this is not available on-line Nevertheless it is routinely cited in the literature and public debate, for example it was quoted verbatim in 2005 here http://www.cgfi.org/2005/08/response-to-pimentelresponse-to-pimentel-response-which-was-not-published-in-science/";.

Now curiously, Monsanto itself does not actually quote this research preferring to rely on "company reports" when submitting applications to the USEPA (for example have a looks at the SIDS data in this submission: http://www.epa.gov/hpv/pubs/summaries/glypintr/c14947.pdf

Now I am a bit amazed that Malik et al were able to pin a single number of 47 days for estimating the half life of glyphosate in the environment. Surely this depends entirely on the nature of the soils it is binding to - notably the clay content but also other factors.

Anyway, given that you are proposing the safety of GM products such as Round-up ready lines, please advise the science on which your assurances for the safety of glyphosate are based - hopefully they're better than a 1989 study which Monsanto itself no longer cites.

Peter, how much evidence do you need of glyphosate's safety? It's the world's most widely used herbicide, and by any measure, one of the great inventions of the 20th century, in terms of the savings it delivered in greenhouse emissions and sparing back-breaking labour. It has been in use for for nearly four decades, no epidemiological evidence of long-term adverse health effects, no mass deaths or evidence of acute toxicity, no mass poisonings of wildlife, or aquatic life, soil biota, no cancer spike - in fact, we're living longer than ever. It replaces herbicides like triazines that are known to have adverse environmental and health impacts. As evidence of the wondrous flexibility of mind of the anti-GM movement, including Greenpeace, the R-R canola moratoriums ensured atrazine was kept in widespread use across Australia for more than a decade even as Greenpeace supported the banning of triazine herbicides in Europe and the UK. The organics industry supports the use of copper fungicides, when copper is acutely toxic to all life, and it endorsed the use of rotenone, until science showed this "natural" insecticide can cause Parkinson's disease. And the organics industry's use of Bacillus thuringiensis as a natural pesticide, while it opposes the use of Bt genes in GM plants, is a triumph of ideology over common sense.

Peter, I have no connection with Monsanto. I'm an independent science writer. I've used glyphosate on my hobby farm since 1997, and on my garden in the Dandenongs for a decade before that. Both my farmer neighbours use it. I am in perfect health. We had a the two wettest years on record in Mildura in 2010 and 2011, and I had a lake on the clay flat at the bottom of my sandy red loam property for eight months. Within a week of it forming, it was teeming with frogs. Any residual Roundup would have washed out of the sandy loam into the lake. If glyphosate were toxic or teratogenic, we would have had deformed and dead tadpoles when the frogs spawned. I'm reasonably certain that Roundup is safe, using the literal meaning of "reasonable". Again, how much proof do you need? You seek laboratory studies, but you must know that they cannot possibly replicate the enormous range of variables at play in the farm or natural environment. Testing for all contingencies is practically and economically impossible. You seem to be asking for absolute proof of glyphosate's safety, which is unreasonable, but typical of the quantum of proof demanded by the most implacable opponents of GM crops and foods. A reasonable person would conclude that glyphosate is probably the safest of all herbicides, and accept that if its use involves any risk to human health or to the healthy functioning of eenvironment, it is reasonably small, in both absolute and relative terms. We accept much greater risks with equanimity - for example, if you drive a car, you accept the risk of driving around with the explosive equivalent of about 30 sticks of dynamite in the fuel tank. If you are concerned that glyphosate might cause cancer, your diet and exposure to ultraviolet radiation involve much greater risk of inducing lethal cancers.
While I am convinced of the safety of glyphosate, used as per instructions, I am far from unconvinced that organic produce is safe for human consumption, much less better for my health than conventionally grown produce. On the basis of research showing that cattle manure is almost universally contaminated with the 0157:H7 strain of E.coli, a commensal organism in cattle, but a lethal pathogen in humans - especially children - I have warned my children not to give my grandchildren organically grown leaf crops like lettuce. I have a reasonable concern, based on my observations of human behaviour, that not all organic farmers will be perennially diligent in composting the manure they use as liquid fertilsers on their crops - research has shown that the microbe can be taken up through the roots and retained in phloem tissue, where it is impossible to remove by washing. I worry about the frequency with which mass outbreaks of food poisoning are traced to organically grown vegetables - the recent German and Californian (Salinas) outbreaks being cases in point. I do not understand why the expression of a Bt toxin gene in crop plants is unacceptable to the organic farming movement, while 6000-odd genes in living cell of Bacillus thuringiensis - a proven human pathogen that can infect open wounds - are endorsed as a harmless organic pesticide.
Research by Bruce Ames, inventor of the Ames toxicity test, has shown that when crops are not protected by synthetic pesticides and fungicides, they default to producing their own "natural" defensive compounds, which produce intestinal and bladder cancers in laboratory rates at the same rate as synthetic pesticides. One could reasonably ask if your concerns are disproportionate to what is known, empirically and from scientific studies, about the negligible risks involved in using glyposate, as well as a distraction from the greater risks to human health that flow from your choice to farm organically?

Apparently there was. But how come when a rare piece of independent research - and i mean rare and independent - comes to a conclusion not agreed with by the biotechs there is a wave, a howl of opposition?

Let me point you to another study thst found against the biotechs and the results of that

It's the story of the discovery by two biologists at the University of California, David Quist and Ignacio Chapela, that traditional Mexican corn (criollo) had been invaded by Monsanto’s Roundup Ready and Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) genes – Bt, a soil dwelling bacterium which acts as an effective insecticide, is genetically inserted into plants like cotton and corn.

In November 2001, The publication of Chapela and Quist’s peer-reviewed paper on their research in the journal Nature caused a furore. Monsanto entered battle in ways that were described as “extreme” – a war of fake emails et cetera. So successful was their deluge of complaint that Nature, in an move unprecedented in its 133 year history, ‘disavowed’ Quist and Chapela’s story.

Subsequently, a study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences which refuted the presence of Bt and Roundup Ready genes in criollo corn. That study has been condemned as ‘not scientifically justified’ by a number of international researchers. The genetic invasion of criollo has been subsequently well documented by local scientists and farmers. But the paper refuting this had already travelled around the world. Including to Australia

In 2002, in response to a letter I sent to Food Standards Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) querying their approval of a Monsanto genetically modified corn, citing the Nature paper, I received a reply which assured me there was no cause to worry, and pointing me to the second paper refuting the Quist and Chapela research, with no reference to any dissenting view.

I'll be watching - and ready for you

<If putting unlabelled GM products into the markets is not coercing people into buying them I'd be grateful if you can explain how.>

The first answer is that there are products offered for sale that are specifically labeled GMO-free, and people who care about this can buy them. Also in the United States (e.g. in California, where proposition 37 would, if passed, require those labels) there are also literally hundreds of products labeled "organic" and part of thje organic standard is GMO-free. So people who really care about the GMO issue have plenty of choices.

Personally, I'm somewhat more concerned by the coercion on the other side. I've talked to dozens of people about why they think GMOs might be dangerous. Almost without exception, their principal reason for concern is that they have uncritically accepted some false story they heard. Examples (and they are too numerous to
list completely): They are untested. The seeds are sterile so the farmers are trapped into buying new seeds each year. They are reducing biodiversity. There are fish genes in tomatoes and scorpion genes in corn. They have been shown to cause sterility in farm animals. etc. The people peddling these false stories are surely guilty of coercion.

But I'd like you to consider also the people who are NOT concerned about GMO content. Any time you use a label to communicate to the consumer that the product has a feature, the label can be either positive or negative (sometimes both). I define a positive label as one that tells the consumer that the product has a feature the consumer wants. A negative label is one that tells the consumer that the product has a feature the consumer wants to avoid. Manufacturers love the positive labels and nobody needs a law to compel them to label positively - the only enforcement needed is to make sure that the claim is correct. Manufacturers hate the negative labels because they cause them to lose some sales. Sometimes we need negative labels because we want to avoid harm, as when a food contains a known allergen. An example of a product feature analogous to GMO-free is Kosher. Some Orthodox Jews look for Kosher food, a feature that most consumers are not looking for. So a label of Kosher is like a label GMO-free, announcing a feature that will promote sales to the customers who want it. Do you see any products in the market labeled "non-Kosher"?

But every label has a cost - the manufacturer has to be able to assure that the feature is actually there. In the case of a negative label, the customer who wants the information does not buy the product and therefore pays none of the cost! I think you will concede that many people who want a "contains GMO ingredients" label are people who will not buy the product that has it, and many others will buy it only if it is much less expensive than similar products that are GMO-free. So the cost has to be borne by the customer who doesn't care. I see that as coercion.

There's another argument that GMO proponents often make. It's an argument I don't support, but I pass it on for your consideration anyway. They say that if a feature is labeled "contains GMO ingredients", many consumers would think that the label is there because there's something wrong with GMO ingredients.

Why don't we wait for the French analysis:?

Hi Peter,

Bet they were anti-vaxers too...

There seems to be a tendency for some people to take "pro-science" or "anti-science" positions - without being terribly critical of the diverse nature that "science" encompasses.

I suppose it's easier than working through the complexity and multiple, conflicting interests that are inherent in any human endeavour.

Fraid so Ms Lorna ... anti-pretty much everything - except for diesel 4WDs and generators.

One couple were so anti- everything that they would not allow their 2 year-old child to touch or be cuddled or kissed by his grandmother or anyone else, insisting that physical contact should be "his choice". Poor little fella was well on the way to weirdness.... almost an induced autism in his interactions.

So you bet - no vaccinations, lots of "Traditional" Chinese Medicine and druidy sort of nature worship. Just not enough worship to go cutting lantana by hand.

Almost put me off hippies for life.

"cutting lantana by hand" - I can attest to that being a load of not fun.

I'm wondering though - what's the effect on native (and lantana) seed germination of using herbicides? What's the effect on soil erosion? I've only ever used a modified (read - lazy) Bradley method for bush regen so I've never used herbicides, but I've noticed that where "gardeners" use herbicide to "tidy up" lawn edges along paths etc. there's always bare soil and erosion.

Well the hand cutting is all that's left if you're not going to use round-up Ms L... and even that is much worse than you might think given that you've gotta go back and do it again in 12 months because of the re-shooting and the bits left lying about. One could cut and paint the stumps I guess but even then it will be back.

To deal with a 400 acre of so infestation we were looking at - in steep ravines and gullies with limited access... not really doable save for the most robust and fanatical.

The idea with the splatter gun is to achieve a slow death in patches and strips and do it very methodically and strategically . There's actually very little can or will grow under a dense lantana canopy but if you do it right the leaves drop, the roots stay holding the soil and you get a lot of stuff coming through from the seed bank while the lantana quietly goes on dying.

Requires a bit of patience and planning and no small degree of skill and expertise. Not to mention damn hard work - but nothing like doing it by hand - or trying to.

The few areas I did manage to do on my patch before glyphosate (round-up) was banned from the valley, saw ground orchids and a solid resurgence of wattles, silky oaks and native grasses - bit like a fire had gone through.

I did about 50 square metres and my hands were shaking for a day afterwards. On the upside, great exercise - and it got me away from the keyboard for a few hours. You're talking about a completely different type of undertaking...
Your experience of roundup sounds interesting from a bush regen perspective - especially given the vast areas of inaccessible country. You mention patience, planning, skill and expertise, though - do you have any information about how this method can go wrong if those things aren't in place?

Of course, the fact that roundup (used appropriately) can be a valuable tool in the regeneration of lantana-infested eucalypt forest has got sod-all to do with the safety of GM corn for human consumption; which in turn has sod-all to do with whether GM corn is good for the environment, for farmers, for food security, for national and local economies, etc etc. Which in turn has only a small bearing on whether GM crops as a whole are "a good thing" or "a bad thing"...

50 meters by hand! No trifling effort Ms L - Why isn't clearing lantana an Olympic Event?

The NPWS uses the splatter gun system for keeping lantana under control to some extent in NSW National Parks . Here's a useful pamphlet with some pics that give you an idea of what the technique involves ...http://www.weeds.org.au/WoNS/lantana/docs/65_Splatter_gun4.pdf

I did some courses with a mob of biotechnology engineering students ten - fifteen years ago and I was deeply concerned to realise that ecology and ethics etc were not part of their core curriculum and none had actually encountered critical concerns about GM... none at all.

Hopefully things have moved on a bit since then. But probably not given the approach adopted in engineering type courses when these concerns are dismissed or ignored rather than studied. It means that their graduates were not equipped to deal with these concerns other than by dismissing them.

I'd call that trained rather than educated myself.

"Can be used from a vehicle, from horse back or on-foot". Horse back splatter-gun. Now THERE'S an Olympic event!

Seriously, however - I'm very concerned to hear that biotech engineering curricula weren't / aren't addressing ecology and ethics. That's a huge - and dangerous - omission.

You and me both Lorna.

At the time there had been a bit of a problem with GM rapeseed getting out and going feral - interbreeding with some near relatives - in the US from memory. They'd heard nothing about it whatsoever. Didn't see the problem. Didn't see any problems at all.

I was rather concerned that these very enthusiastic "can do" kids would be going off and designing experiments and the like without the least understand of the regulatory controls and regimes to which they were then becoming subject, and would not see the need for them.

We ignore critics at our peril I reckon - even if we just learn how to debate and argue the case. But not to know was rather unforgivable actually.

Engineers of all shapes and sizes should be educated as well as trained I think.

The rapeseed story I heard was about GM canola in Canada appearing on a downwind neighbouring farmer's property in subsequent years, probably due to pollen dispersal.

Monsanto got some Canadian court to order this hapless bystander to pay Monsanto royalties for use of their IP. (Looks like the Canadian legal system was gearing up to rubber-stamp Albertan oil-sands exploitation). For mine, this judgement flies in the face of the reality that plants actively disperse their genes every year.