There is much concern in Australia about the current drought. The forecast for this year’s wheat crop has been cut by 8.5 million tons to just 11million. This is less than half last year’s production of 24 million tons.
The forecast for the canola crop is also down and there is talk about local crushers importing oil seed from Canada.
The imported canola would presumably be crushed to make vegetable oil and margarine.
If the imports go ahead, we will be importing seed from GM varieties of canola because that is what farmers grow in Canada. Farmers are banned from growing these GM varieties in Australia.
Indeed the current bans on genetically modified (GM) food crops in place in Australia, were forced by Greenpeace in particular to block the commercial planting of GM varieties of canola.
How hypocritical will that be, importing a product that Australian farmers are banned from growing.
And with all the focus on the drought, and predicted low wheat crop, it is interesting that there has been no public comment about the research effort in South Australia to develop GM drought tolerant wheat varieties; despite the bans.
Rather than rational discussion, a rural newspaper has published a letter denying the potential benefits of biotechnology for breeding drought tolerance. David Tribe explains, and explains the science:
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/hyperbole-and-misinformation-versus.html
David also has an interesting blog post on how much natural ‘genetic modification’ occurs within plant species:
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/natural-gmos-part-26-nature-inserts.html
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jen Marohasy asks:
“How hypocritical will that be, importing a product that Australian farmers are banned from growing.”
Arguably, not very hypocritical at all. For instance, one of the major concerns with GM crops is that have a proven track record of contaminating non-GMO crops. Provided the imported seeds go direct from the port to the local crushers, the possibility of contamination is minimal.
By the way, do you think non-GMO should have the legal right to seek compensation if their crops are contaminated by GM producers?
Steve,
If it made any rational sense whatsoever to think commingling of GM and non-GM crops amounts to “contamination,” it would make equal sense to allow growers of GM crops to sue if they are “contaminated” by non-GM crops.
Which of course would be equally irrational, but at least consistent.
‘hypocritical’ is the wrong word – that was my reaction too. Lack of a relevant point suggests that there isn’t one. I’m not trying to be rude Jennifer although it’s bound to come across that way: it would help if you can decide what valid point you’re trying to make so then readers can give it fair consideration. I think you want to say that farmers are unfairly denied economic opportunities. But rather than being hypocritical, this situation is actually a “democratic outcome” under WTO agreements (you all usually support WTO policies).
Ok, so we all agree that it’s unfair for farmers to compete against imported crops that they’re not allowed to grow domestically. Assuming then they got permission to grow FrankenCanola (sorry detribe, heh:), then this is a valid question: should farmers of “non-GMO should have the legal right to seek compensation if their crops are contaminated by GM producers?” I’d like to hear people’s thoughts on that. (Notwithstanding that Schiller has his birds fertilising his bees). If farmers were given fair economic opportunity to grow FrankenCanola then would this impinge of the fair economic opportunity of non-GM farmers?
“Fair” is not the same as “free”, “fair” is a subjective term without an objective measure. Lawyers like to talk about what is “fair and reasonable” which is why they are always in court seeking judgement.
Put simply farmers are being denied the opportunity to provide the same product as importers. Importers have greater freedom than local farmers.
As Milton Friedman said, when “fairness” replaces “freedom,” all our liberties are in danger.
Or Thoreau, “If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.”
Empty point rog: what’s ‘free’? Does it consider the rights of others as well? Obligations too or only rights? Free on whose terms, from whose perspective? With freedom comes responsibility and accountability. You can’t help but consider subjective notions. There is no such thing as a truly objective human notion – objectively speaking IMHO, heh heh.
I’m very nearly embarrassed to very nearly agree with Pinxi.
Some are fond of proclaiming “rights of farmers” and they, along with farmers, should let farmers decide. If farmers don’t like GM crops, they won’t grow them.
Canadian farmers choose GM canola for reasons which are apparent to them, in rather convincing numbers.
Worldwide, the experience of people consuming GM canola shows that GM canola is, well, canola.
There are some mythologies about “consumer rejection” of GM canola, but it comes down to anti-globalist xenophobic protectionist marketeering:
http://www.fr-aktuell.de/in_und_ausland/wirtschaft/aktuell/?em_cnt=950940
Frankfurter Rundschau (Frankfurt, Germany)
August 18, 2006
[Bärbel Höhn, vice-president of Germany’s Green
parliament faction]:
“Many food companies, such as Unilever, no longer source soy oil from South America because the danger that it has been genetically modified is too great. Instead, they buy European rapeseed oil [canola], because it is still free from such components. For now, our farmers enjoy an advantage on the market, because Europe is more or less free of genetic engineering. Without agriculture free of genetic engineering, the farmers would no longer receive the 20 to 30 percent premium over the world price for soy.”
As a farmer, I would be against GM canola if I could get a 20-30 percent premium for “standing up against genetic engineering,” and as a farmer, I would be ashamed to know I was making money just because I had to use antique technology and my government was really just paying me to run an agriculture museum.
P.S. Using the word “FrankenCanola” betrays either an astonishing range of personal ignorance, or a penchant for valuing infammatory terms over reason.
Pinxi,
P.P.S. Your notion of “birds fertilising … bees” reminds my of the suggestion by Mae Wan-Ho that genetically modified European corn (maize) borers will have an innate but unnatural trans-species “urge” to couple carnally with Monarch butterflies.
Pinx and Schillsy harmonising – very suspect. I mean we wouldn’t want a discussion to actually get somewhere would we?
Drought? What drought?
I understood from earlier threads that there was no drought, the rivers were full and it was all a Greenie conspiracy.
The market is king. Market chooses. Market wants old varieties, values traditional techniques, market gets it. Free democratic markets demand NGO’s, they prefer non-GM, what righteous anti-marketers could object? Unless it can be contained, GM simplifies market options, removes substitutes and threatens market niches.
Phranken-Script: Frankly, objecting to my use of FrankenCanola betrays an astonishing penchant for humor over humour.
Socialist protectionist markets demand NGOs. That’s where eco-fascism comes from.
Meanwhile consider the freedom and democracy in African countries, where the wealthy are beholden to European markets and they are net exporters of food even as their own people starve.
In this situation the diff between fair and free Pinxii is that farmers should be free to produce what they want and not be governed by others who determine what is “fair”.
Similarly consumers should be free to purchase what they want and not be subjected to the whims of some ideologue.
‘farmers should be free to produce what they want’
And what if that impinges on the freedoms of their neighbour? The science is not settled on GM. Why should my neighbour be able to take risks on my behalf?
Can you give any instances where GM has been proven to “impinge on the freedoms” of the neighbour?
Bear in mind that GM has been legal in the US for some time now
Schiller, the African case supports my argument. A major contributory factor in the dire African situation has been IMF rapid liberalisation policies and fiscal austerity which have weakened the means by which African govts can govern their own nation and which have failed to create effective, independent institutions that are needed for a functioning market economy – IMF Washington consensus policies over which US has effective veto.
Schiller you talk knowingly yet repeatedly refuse to acknowledge the impact of US subsidies. You talk of African poverty and don’t mention US cotton?!!? Do you have comparative ‘dumping’ figures between the EU and the US? You criticise EU CAP payments without acknowledging that the US has to agree with the EU that both reduce ag subsidies (and that the EU considered such a deal under the WTO Doha discussions but the US wouldn’t). If ever you try to reconcile the contradictions in your position, you’re bound to go postal. And as for NGOs & NFPs, they’re all over the US and in other countries, funded by US dollars. You have plenty to fix in your own country.
rog, given that market freedom is beyond reproach, I’d like to purchase yr head mounted on a stick. Should any idealogue prevent that?
The big problem with the claims about GM impinging on rights of those farmers who wish to avoid GM resides on the claim of a zero tolerance for GM in crops such as certified organic produce. An ambit claim of zero tolerance impinges on the freedom of their neighbours in a far reaching way, and in my opinion is unjustified.
THe revesrse clain that organic farming creates a weed risks and an analogous ambit claim for zero tolerance of weed seed drift from organic farms would shut down the organic industry, as would zero tolerance of E. coli O157.
Currently export grain has reasonable tolerance levels for things like glass and dirt and faeces that are known to be harmful, whereas the harms from GM is unproven, and the zero tolerance claim is totally the creation of the organic sector ( arguably as a means of preventing competition from alternatives). They do not set levels for many other materials that are clearly harmful, and until GM most, if not all of their rules were process based rather than final product based.
And what about the economic harm that the zero tolerance claim inflicts on those farmers denied better yielding GM crops like hybrid canola, which does better in drought and yields 25-40% better? Can the non Gmers be sued for that damage.
It a sad day when nebourly farmers start treating one another like this for no objectively proven reason.
Its rather interesting to see all this chatter about markets deciding what can be done.
I wonder how many of those deriding market freedoms own a house or a car, and would happily give up the freedom to sell it at a price they themselves nominate.
I rather suspect they would prefer a free markets on those assets to one ruled by bureaucratic decisions.
In Germany they have legislation in place that regulates the growing of GM crops to the nth degree. This legislation was drafted by the previous Minister for Consumer Protection ( and Agriculture) Green Party co-leader Renate Kunast.
In essence in Germnay they favour biodynamic agriculture over any other form of agriculture.
Indeed they are actively discriminating aginst GM farmers that can be legally found to be liable if a organic farmers suffer some economic damage. And the GM farmer doesn’t need to bee found to be directly responsible for any unintended spread of GM crops. He just has to be growing his crops in the same area.
But the German laws go further than that. They give an organic farmer the right to grow ‘100% GM free crops’ without disclosing this to his GM crops growing neighbours. It is enough for the organic farmer to prove that he has found 1 seed in 100,000 of GM product and he can claim damages.
Perhaps this is what Steve M is hinting at?
Drought? What drought?
“I understood from earlier threads that there was no drought, the rivers were full and it was all a Greenie conspiracy.”
Lamnus: Mr Phelps is the one who seems to believe the drought doesntnt exist. Australian canola prices are shooting up because of the drought which means we dont have enough for local cooking oils, but Mr Phelps ignores this with his own opinions about why prices are high here.
The rural sector has knnow since they sowed the crop that a drought was on the cards. Thats why local prices have edged up. Its the “Greenies” such as Mr Phelps and Mr Chance who are turning a blind eye.
One of the interesting aspects of comments on GM posts is the way the key messages of the actual post are avoided by most discussion.
I noticed this in mt On Line Opinion piece on Golden Rice.
The main message in my essay was that Greenpeace spead disinformation about how much vitamin the rice had in it BY SEVERAL ORDERS OF MAGNETUDE error. They represented that children would need to eat 9.5 kg of golden rice a day to get their life saving vitamin when the amount now seen to be needed is about 100g or so, a normal dietary intake.
In 436 odd comments on the OLO essay maybe 3 or so touched on this issue.
In this post Mr Phelps makes an outrageous statement that is patently wrong about drought tolerance.
The Stock and Land Print his letter without comment.
Just what is going on. Do we all assume that activists always embellish the truth? Why does this kind of misinformation not get treated as corporate irresponsibility or fraud? Doesnt anyone care about factual accuracy?
Every time I bring this up with allies of these organisations they refuse to accept that Greenpeace or their allies could possibly mislead.
I last did so to a journalist at the AEF conference who makes a big dead about corporate links to public comment. He wasn’t interested in Greenpeace links to misinformation though.
As for Mr Phelps I know what he will say as I have already put a similar question of error to him. He will likely claim that by “crops” he really meant crops already being sold.
But that would be ducking the issue about GM and drought tolerance, because we are discussing clearly new drought tolerant crops coming through a research and dev pipieline (not so much in Australia, sadly, thanks to Mr Phelps).
instances where GM has been proven to “impinge on the freedoms” of the neighbour:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/More-GM-contamination-found-in-crops/2005/08/08/1123353257322.html
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/lawrpt/stories/s1488847.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/Story/0,,1855542,00.html
Pinxiis comments only prove the fatuousness of the lefts agenda.
detribe what research results (quick summary?) do you know of on assimilation of the nutrients in golden rice by impoverished/malnourished adults/children? ie, other dietary & health conditions unchanged, to what degree do they absorb it? I think(?) one of the latter improvements on golden rice has been to improve the nutrient uptake?
At the ABIC Melbourne conference, Jorge Mayer, who manages Golden Rice Development matters in Freiburg for Peter Beyer and Ingo Porykus, explained in a talk that recent preliminary result on Golden Rice grown in Lousiana field trials suggest that in feeding tests the provitamin A is equallly available as vitamin delivered in oil, which is the most accessible and efficintly deliverd form.
That is, the simple biochemical matrix of rice enable the vitamin to be fully nutritionally available. Previous judgements had conservatively assumes that it would be much less (~1/3rd less) nutritionally successful and this is VERY GOOD provisional news (still not formally published). (Vitamin A availabiliy from complex green vegetables is complicated by the other fatty components like carotenoids which reduce pro-vitamin availability.)
Other carful assessments by nutritional specialists (I have the papers somewhere) give encouragement to believing it will have effective impact on the impoverished malnourished target group. Remember Syngenta Golden Rice II has 23-fold more pro-vitamin A than the original. These two factors alone suggested that the latest generation of this rice will be at least ~70-fold more effective than originally estimated. The original Golden rice was estimated by Beyer and Potrykus as needing ~1.5 kg intake a day (from memory) contra Greenpeace 9.5 kg.
1.5/60= 200 g and this is probably conservative as I have not chased up some other (2-fold ?) improvement factors that were obtained after the first publication or argued about the need to only supply part of the recommended daily allowance to have some impact. More exact numbers in the Syngenta Golden Rice II paper.
(All above calculation off the cuff from Tribe’s memory of the numbers)
oops 1.5/70=21 g
Pinxi,
I don’t raise the matter of agricultural subsidies because in this context, they are largely irrelevant. Most African farming is subsistence farming, with farmers personally consuming 80 percent of what they grow.
Ag subsidies are only relevant to those engaged in international trade. Subsistence farmers are engaged in feeding themselves.
There are, however, many Africans who *are* involved in international trade, and they are the wealthy elite who sell foodstuffs to picky Europeans. In order to cater to European appetites, they enact laws and policies which stifle development; and a careless attitude toward human life is endemic on the continent.
For the wealthy elite, it is better for millions of “disposable” Africans to die than for Europeans to detect a bit of DDT in their food–that would crush exports. The same thing with Europeans detecting GMOs in their foods.
In this way, the hands of Europeans, their tame NGOs, and complicit African leaders are red with the blood of innocents and the effects of this corrupt dynamic completely eclipse any imagined effect of subsidies on subsistence farmers.
Read the book Eco- Imperialism – Green Power. Black Death. Now in its second printing.
http://www.eco-imperialism.com/main.php
The WTO recently ruled that the EU trade bans on GM foods was illegal and against free trade. Green groups are predictably incensed, invoking alleged non-compliance with the mysterious “international environmental laws”.
Next will be the equally nebulous “precautionary principle” that has become a favoured war cry of the Left.
http://www.foodnavigator.com/news/printNewsBis.asp?id=70983
There a lot of talk about fairness. Maybe efforts should be directed towards Peaceful Co-existecve to provide fairness to all paties.
A recent Pew Workshop report seems relevant to me:
http://pewagbiotech.org/events/0301/WorkshopReport.pdf
Peaceful Coexistence Among Growers Of: Genetically Engineered, Conventional and Organic Crops
March 1-2, 2006 Boulder, Colorado
Introduction
In March 2006, the Pew Initiative on Food and Biotechnology and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) held a workshop that examined how growers of conventional, genetically engineered (GE), and organic crops can “peacefully coexist” in our ever-evolving marketplace.
The workshop, which took place in Boulder, CO, was the second of three sponsored by the Pew Initiative and NASDA. Participants included representatives from state and federal governments; GE, conventional, and organic farmers; the European Union, seed companies, food processing and marketing companies, academia and the biotech industry. All gathered to identify potential options for advancing peaceful coexistence in the marketplace and to understand the existing and future roles of the public and private sectors in achieving this goal.
PREFACE
It is a basic principle in the U.S. that farmers should be able to produce commodities by any method they prefer and to market them in any market available, assuming they meet all safety and marketing standards.
In recent years, market access problems have arisen such that growers of conventional and organic crops have at times not been able to meet the specifications required by their markets, due to unintended commingling with genetically engineered (GE) plant material. While the problems to date have involved financial losses to conventional and organic growers, many expect that the growers of GE crops with high-value output traits will soon face similar challenges in meeting stringent market specifications.
The need to segregate crops by production method is a relatively new development in agriculture. Strict, though varying, rules regarding GE crops in international markets are a key driver of the issue. The lack of standardized, internationally accepted marketing standards, testing methodologies, and protocols pose a significant challenge to the smooth and efficient operation of both domestic and international agricultural marketing chains. At the same time, they provide a marketing opportunity for producers and marketers who can successfully navigate the maze of standards and regulations.
Oftentimes policymakers, particularly state agriculture officials, are challenged to “pick sides” among GE, conventional, and organic production methods. In reality, however, all of these production methods provide key market opportunities for U.S. farmers and are critical to the long-term viability of our rural communities. In fact, the rapid adoption rates in the U.S. of both organic and GE production methods over the past decade could suggest that some synergy does exist. Some of the growth in demand for organic foods is certainly driven by consumers who seek to avoid products derived from GE crops. In turn, U.S. growers of GE crops have been able to
operate free of mandatory labeling (which has significantly suppressed GE crop adoption rates in other countries) at least in part because of the existence of a robust domestic organic market. So at the macro level, coexistence between organic, conventional, and GE crops is taking place.. ..
Schiller says “agricultural subsidies .. are largely irrelevant. … Ag subsidies are only relevant to those engaged in international trade”
Schiller don’t you realise how important this issue is and how it restricts Africa’s ability to participate in trade and move out of extreme poverty? Taking cotton, in which the US is the world’s largest exporter and massively subsidised, pls read the following:
“More than 10 million people in those countries depend directly on cotton production.”
“The scale of government support to America’s 25,000 cotton farmers is staggering, reflecting the political influence of corporate farm lobbies in key states. Every acre of cotton farmland in the US attracts a subsidy of $230, or around five times the transfer for cereals. In 2001/02 farmers reaped a bumper harvest of subsidies amounting to $3.9bn – double the level in 1992. This increase in subsidies is a breach of the ‘Peace Clause’ in the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, opening the door to the Brazilian complaint.
To put this figure in perspective, America’s cotton farmers receive:
* more in subsidies than the entire GDP of Burkina Faso – a country in which more than two million people depend on cotton production. Over half of these farmers live below the poverty line. Poverty levels among recipients of cotton subsidies in the US are zero.
* three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people.
In an economic arrangement bizarrely reminiscent of Soviet state planning principles, the value of subsidies provided by American taxpayers to the cotton barons of Texas and elsewhere in 2001 exceeded the market value of output by around 30 per cent. In other words, cotton was produced at a net cost to the United States.
Domestic public-policy madness has international consequences. Using data from an International Cotton Advisory Committee model, Oxfam has attempted to capture the cost to Africa of American cotton subsidies in 2001/02. For the region as a whole, the losses amounted to $301m, equivalent to almost one-quarter of what it receives in American aid. Eight cotton-producing countries in West Africa accounted for approximately two-thirds ($191m) of overall losses.
The small size of the countries concerned and their high level of dependence on cotton magnify the effect of US policies. For individual countries, US cotton subsidies led to economic shocks of the following magnitude:
* Burkina Faso lost 1 per cent of GDP and 12 per cent of export earnings.
* Mali lost 1.7 per cent of GDP and 8 per cent of export earnings.
* Benin lost 1.4 per cent of GDP and 9 per cent of export earnings.
These losses have generated acute balance-of-payments and domestic budget pressures, and pushed several countries to the brink of a renewed debt crisis. The economic losses inflicted by the US cotton subsidy program far outweigh the benefits of its aid. Mali received $37m in aid in 2001 but lost $43m as a result of lower export earnings. The cotton subsidy program has also undermined the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, costing countries such as Benin, Burkina Faso, and Chad more than they have received in debt relief.”
http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000038/index.php
“This system [of U.S. cotton subsidies] pits a typical Malian producer, farming two hectares of cotton, who is lucky to gross $400 a year, against US farms which receive a subsidy of $250 per hectare. http://www.africafocus.org/docs04/cot0405.php
******
KEY POINTS:
US taxpayers subsidise 25,000 cotton farmers with $3.9bn (3x the USAID to Africa) which depresses world prices with direct impacts on 10 million Africans in cotton production and with severe knock-on effects for their economic development.
******
No half-informed person could deny the role of Washington Consensus and WTO politics in African poverty and hardship or claim that greenie groups are wholly or significantly the cause! If you refuse to give weight to this information then you will reveal an inflexible and prejudiced agenda.
I’ve mentioned (in earlier posts above) subsidies, access to trade and institutions (eg independent judiciary, property rights, basic human & gender rights, etc). Africa needs to participate in trade to access economic opportunities for development, but it also needs to develop robust institutions to support well-functioning markets, but rapid liberalisation undermines rather than delivers these necessary developments.
eg on non-agric issues: “African and other developing countries have suffered severe de-industrialisation as a result of policies of trade liberalisation undertaken over the past two decades, particularly under the World Bank/IMF structural adjustment programmes.”
While where talking about inter country effects, lets also keep on the table the efforts of NGOs to stop technology and their failure to “embrace change” and recognise the economic damage that this does to developing countries;
Despite this sabotage, with initiatives currently held up by legal stunts in the India supreme court, and despite the overly slow rate at which Golden RIce is progressing through to poor farmers thanks to “progressive civil society” we have some good news:
India: Area under Bt Cotton Bollgard variety cultivation trebles
16.oct.06
The Hindu
MUMBAI – The area under cultivation of Bt Cotton Bollgard variety in India has almost trebled to 8.6 million acres this year from 3.1 million acres in 2005, a growth that also helped multiply farmers’ income too.
Farmers’ income increased to Rs 7,026.5 crores up from Rs 2,100 crores last year as a result of the acreage going up, Bipin Solanki, Deputy Managing Director of Mahyco Monsanto Bollgard (MMB), which markets the hybrid seeds in India, said.
“The BT cotton technology has helped the year-on-year growth to increase by three times, thereby increasing the total yield by 400 kg to a farmer and has covered 8.6 million acres under cultivation this year. This in real terms has increased the per acre income by Rs 6,700 and generated an additional rural income of Rs 7,000 crore for farmers,” said Solanki.
This year, around 2.1 million farmers have used Bollgard and Bollgard II hybrids, as it is technically called, out of which one million farmers have used this technology for the first time throughout the country. Last year, the total production was 775 kg which has gone up to 2,150 kg this year, he added.
“This technology helps the yield to resist the insect attack as it destroys the bollworms and as a result there is an increase in the yield,” the company official said when asked about the debate on this technology.
This US cotton issue was taken to the WTO and in 2004 the US was found to be in breach of global trade principles and the WTO demanded changes.
Following a complaint by Brazil WTO are now investigating as to whether these obligations have been met. The US strenuously asserts that all provisions of the WTO have been complied with.
http://usinfo.state.gov/ei/Archive/2005/Jul/01-228642.html
detribe, I know that you do consider broader issues, so…. Taking Schiller’s rough stat that 80% of African food production is for subsistence: We know many people there barely subsist and have little or no money. If we introduce GM varieties with better performance (eg higher yields, vitamins, disease resistance), do we assume that by itself is sufficient enough to stimulate economic development and help alleviate poverty? I expect you would say well no, that it’s one important element among several in the whole development approach.
However, what practical proposal is there for the many smallscale farmers to afford the seeds and complementary inputs if they barely subsist, knowing that subsistence pattern is persistent and hard to break out of?
I talked to some smallscale farmers who could just scrape together the funds to purchase the local ‘package’ of seeds + chems and they felt dependent on that arrangement to scratch a living from their poor soil, but their net position wasn’t any further ahead (although their productivity may have well been lower without those modern inputs).
If the answer is to provide aid funds to supply the GM varieties until there’s a local improvement and locals can afford them, what safeguards are in place to make sure this works and is sustainable over time so it’s not another development policy failure? (I realise there may be additional environmental gains that’s not the crux of my question here).
(Thanks for yr earlier answer, btw)
The biggest problems the African countries face are their despotic leaders and a lack of property rights. It took the ‘west’ a very long time to create the environment that allowed for the creation of wealth that we see today. We can not and should not expect the africans to be able to achieve the same quality of life in just a few years. I agree agricultural barriers to trade are wrong…but so are barriers to trade outside of agriculture. The barriers that African states put up also damage the ability of their subsistence farmers to buy cheap farming equipment etc that would potentially allow them to improve their standards of living.
The USA is bad with its agricultural subsidies…..but Europe is probably worse…and even Australia is far from squeaky clean.
If only it were as simple as removing agricultural protection.
IMHO an obvious place to start is to link financial aid with female control. They are far less likely to spend the money on weapons to butcher their opponents. Are there any well run countries in Africa?
Pinxi,
Thank you for agreeing with me. Raising cotton is a distinctly trade-related enterprise and subsidies therefore have a significant impact on farm prices.
On the other hand, you can’t eat cotton. And subsidies for food production on the other side of the planet mean little to subsistence farmers who eat what they grow.
Back to the topic of this thread. I must admit that hypocrisy wasn’t the word that immediately came to mind here – it was irony.
I am sorry Steve m, but GM presence in non-GM canola was not a major factor in the decisions for moratoria. This issue was of concern to a few in the industry that had non-GM canola markets. Europe was touted a lot as a market, but that was a market of convenience for Australia. When Europe had unfilled crushing capacity, they purchased Australian canola. Otherwise, they were of little significance. The other potential non-GM market was Australia’s crushers. At the time of the moratoria they were quiet on whether they would or would not accept GM canola. The impression was left that they would not, in which case there would be a certain irony if they were to turn around now and import the stuff from Canada.
The irony would be true – here Australia would be importing a product that our own growers were not permitted to grow legally. Indeed given the difference in price, it might make excellent sense for our canola industry to import Canadian canola for home use and export our crop to maintain markets overseas. Certainly, given the rising domestic demand for canola, there will be considerable difficulty in placing canola overseas in markets at a competitive price, particularly those where we compete with Canada (or soybeans). Imports of canola from Canada would likely take the heat out of the Australian price and may solve that problem.
Sorry for the digression, now back to the main story. If you are uncharitable, you would claim the moratoria were all about state Labour’s concern for the erosion of votes to the Greens. If you wanted to be more charitable, you might point to some other issues in Agriculture. In the agriculture sector, most concern was about wheat and barley markets. These markets are significantly more valuable to Australia than canola and when markets started providing signals that GM canola may be a concern for cereal imports, exporters and farmers naturally became jumpy. This gave pro-moratoria politicians all the ammunition they needed to move.
Perhaps the final act in the non-GM canola saga is about to be played out. The Canadians have managed to get all but one minor canola event approved for import into Europe. Once this process is completed, Canada may well sell canola to Europe for both biodiesel and oil.
Hey isn’t margarine from cotton seed oil. Does that mean we’re all eating GM cotton seed oil already. Is that why Rog and Louis are so aggro and don’t make sense?
Luke,
Cotton was the first GM crop to be introduced and worldwide people have been eating foods made with cottonseed oil from these plants–primarily snack foods–for a decade now.
Europe produces enough canola and oilseed rape to meet its own needs and found banning imports of the GM version to be quite convenient and effective in protecting domestic producers from competition.
‘Europe produces enough canola and oilseed rape to meet its own needs’ – Schiller
Really? So in that case, logic might suggest that Europe doesn’t need to import canola and oilseed rape products, GM or otherwise / competative or otherwise.
Still perhaps you will make more sense if you supply the latest details on US protectionist policies, start with steel, progress via clothing products, cars, African crop produce and end on foreign companies banned from buying US corporations…No?…..didn’t think so.
You might prefer to discuss the preferential trade arrangements between the US and certain South American countries?…No?..still can’t tempt you?
Pot, kettle, black.
Lamna,
Changing the topic is considered poor form. And even when you’re off-topic, you don’t do anything but beg like a dog for help on your off-topics.
Well, I’m not helping you. Stick to the topic and dig for the facts yourself. I trust you’ve heard of Google?
Hi Jen,
Why is it necessary for GM drought resistant wheat research?
I understood from GENET-News, that Australia had developed a non-GE drought and acid resistant wheat strain in 2002.
‘New wheat gives bigger yields – even in drought
A new variety of high-grade wheat capable of increasing grain yields in drought-affected areas by up to 10 per cent was released at the Wagga Wagga Agricultural Institute today.
CSIRO Plant Industry scientist Dr Richard Richards says the new Drysdale semi-dwarf strain utilises available soil moisture more efficiently than
other dry-area wheat varieties.
“It has a major advantage over comparable wheats in dry years, producing about 10 per cent more grain despite receiving the same rainfall,” Dr
Richards says.
“Drysdale also has a high resistance to all the major wheat diseases, a high tolerance to acid soils and, because the quality of its grain is high, growers will receive a premium price for it.”
GENET-News, 24th October 2002.
Something else that wasn’t clear was why it was necessary for Australia to buy GM wheat from Canada rather than non GM wheat from somewhere else. Is Canada dumping cheap, low grade, surplus crops on the Australian market and undermining the livelyhoods of hard pressed Australian farmers?
Pinxi
“However, what practical proposal is there for the many smallscale farmers to afford the seeds and complementary inputs:”
Although this is a bit off thread , you’ve put some fair questions on a worthy topic and I’m willing to address some of the without pretending to have full solutions.
My points
1. Don’t fully agree will Shiller, subsidies and world trade prices do affect smaller scale farmers through the cash prices they can get for their excess maize, an African staple.
2. Second, all this sniping at the US is not helping solve the problem: US, EU, Japan and even the developing countries all hold some responsibility for the lack of progress in the latest WTO round of negotiations. Why venting righteous anger at the evil Yanks helps us move forward I don’t grasp: continuing to inflame the issue with name calling is being part of the problem, and doesnt particularly address the plight of small farmers directly. Let’s try and be part of the solution.
But by calling for a halt to namecalling I dont mean there is only one side to this issue.
LISTEN to people like Pinxsi (and McCann for instance)who have noticed where the geeks have got it wrong in the past.BUT PLEASE, (as Luke would say) be civil in your remarks and treat those whom you disagree with with fairness, as the issue is too serious for polital polarisation to get in the way.
So lets put aside all this opinionated ideological name calling – it gives me the s-its. The pressing challenges are intractable local African problems such as poverty, lack of credit, low farm productivity, risks of crop failure, and fair access to good land, not armchair political theorising about global politics. The recent history of Zimbabwe illustrates what loose talk and crazyness can do – destruction of a flourishing food economy. The way change occurs has to be thought through very carefully.
3. GM crop varieties are not a magic solution, but they have a potentially valuable role which is hampered by EU trade policy and antiGM NGO actions in Africa.
4. The move from subsistence to cash cropping is a difficult one. But High tech seed does not require high tech farm operations, and planting seed is a technology all farmers know already. The record so far is that developing farmers can benefit MORE from GM than well developed farmers (as is the case for a lot of technological innovation this last 50-years, but the anti-technology crowd dont want to acknowledge that). Herbicide tolerant maize (either IMI tolerant non-GM maize, now available in Africa, or glyphosate tolerant-GM maize varieties, offer special advantanges to African farmers – management of parasitic striga, and saving of labour, water, plus opportunities for minimum-till.) The income of many a small farm is limited by how much weeding the wife can do and weeds and striga reduce yield. Whats very interesting to how stresses stop plant growth and to see what Bt maize does in the US, and there is hope that the same kinds of boost to yield can be realised in Africa. Finally commercial maize hybrids are TOUGH – all this NGO talk that they do nothing without imputs is false. The main risks they generate are financial not agronomic
5. As All farmers realise, costly inputs are a financial risk if the crop fails and schemes to undewrite the cash risks of farmers who experiment with new methods such as microcredit and my own very modest Sow the Good Seed foundation can make this possible. Gordon Conway, Grameen Bank and Jeffry Sachs /Columbia University programs are my heroes, and even Bill and Melinda Gates too. All these people are trying to do something. My bookshelf include Jeff Sachs AND his critics, Robert Evenson, James C McCann, Gordon Conway and Calestous Juma, plus anything I can find on agricultural development and African farming.
6. There no easy way forward, especially if and when climate throws a spanner in the works, but African farmers are very clever and resourceful people; they are worthy of partnerships to increase their choices in farming, allow them to learn local solutions by doing and by experimentaion, underwrite risks of input investments, improve infrastructure like roads and small trucks, schooling and ag extension, and hopefully provide better lives.
7. Efforts to reduce fertiliser costs in Africa might be worthwhile. That where infrastructure railways roads and the like can help. I dont agree that syntheitic fertilisers on on the way out but they ceratinly are a challenge in affica because of cost. BUT globally fertilisers use only 2.8% of petroleum (natural gas) consumption) and they could be made using solar or nuclear energy, or even biomass, to make the hydrogen they require. Basically they same hundreds of millions of forrest and wilderness from the plow, and feed 1 billion extra pepole, so think before you deride their use.
7. Glyphosate herbicide is not something evil to a poor woman labouring in the hot sun.
NASUS
“Why is it necessary for GM drought resistant wheat research?
I understood from GENET-News, that Australia had developed a non-GE drought and acid resistant wheat strain in 2002.”
The reason GM drought resistance (and other GM aproaches to improve food security) are necessary is because we need to keep on improving food output overtime to meet steady increase in demand from a diminishing arable lond area (due to city grooth), and challenges like climate change, water sesorce degradation, use of crops for fuel, and food and stockfeed demand wealthier people who eat richer diets. Worringly We are facing a slowing down in the rate of farm productivity improvement, and organisations like the FAO have concluded over the next 20-years new technologies will be essential to both meet these challenges and preserve what wilderness and rainforest we have from the plough.
The science behind development of Dysdale is mentioned in my On line Opinion essay on water management for farming BTW nasus.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4130
It took many years to develop. It well illustrates how, The crops we develop today will take many years (10-15) to reach the markest, and waiting till then to do something is not precautionary enough. Then there will be a much worse crisis
A Question for you NASUS: If waiting many years before reponding to challenges like climate change is poor public policy, Nasus, why is delaying action to meet forseable and well proven challenges a good policy for food and farmland management, as they are arguably even more pressing and well established challenges than climate issues?
Hi Detribe,
‘Zimbabwe’ –
How exactly are your GM crops going to oust Mugabe from power?
‘Glyphosate herbicide is not something evil to a poor woman labouring in the hot sun.’
I think you will find it is, if she cannot afford proper protective clothing and equipment and most ‘poor women labouring in the hot sun’ cannot. Would you like to supply us with some of the figures for pesticide poisoning of agricultural workers from third world countries?
‘BUT globally fertilisers use only 2.8% of petroleum (natural gas) consumption)’
Absolutely, it is frankly nothing less than cultural imperialism by the Green conspiracy to force African farmers to use the excrement of people and animals as free fertiliser when there are modern, patented products available at very reasonable prices via loans from the IMF.
It is frankly shocking that such primitive methods should be persude just because they cost nothing. It is deeply insulting to African farmers to suggest they are not capable of achieving the same debt burdens as farmers in developed nations to biochemical suppliers. ARE THEY NOT MEN AND BROTHERS?
‘The crops we develop today will take many years (10-15) to reach the markest’ – Detribe
Quite, its just I don’t see why they have to be GM crops and so far you are doing an extremely shoddy job of persuading me otherwise, when you continually ‘forget’ to mention the non GM alternatives which are also being researched and made available, while you are holding forth from your GM pulpit.
‘feed 1 billion extra pepole’ – Detribe
Absolutely, we wouldn’t want to spend a fraction of the cost on birth control, education and Non GM solutions when there is a fortune to be made by biochemical corporations in the developed world from selling patented products into new markets.
Nasus I see you have got a blog http://www.sharkbait.blogspot.com where you in one of your postings present the underwhelming evidence from ‘relaible’ sources such as the UK Soil Association, Mae Wan Hos ISIS web site and other anti GM activist sites to back your arguments against GM crops.
On the same site you refer to detribe as ‘ Dr Tribe, GMO lobbyist’.
You and the Shark Trust in UK might right about protecting the dwindling fish stocks but your modus operandi with attacks on people with integrity ,like my friend David Tribe, is really reminiscent of other UK activist organisations such as GM watch which has got a hit list of people that they don’t like who all gulity by association with the GM industry although the links have never been proven.
It seems to me that you are bringing the dubious tactics of other UK based anti GM activist groups into this forum. Perhaps we should be discussing this on your own selfcongratulatory blog?
With a harpoon and a stun grenade…
Some more specifics on where Mr Phelps is wrong and where there is potential for subsistence farmers from the latest generations of technology in the US helping with drought
http://www.firstseedtests.com/Reports/2006/B6ILWCAsummary.pdf
http://www.firstseedtests.com/
http://www.seedquest.com/News/releases/2006/october/17211.htm
Sheffield, Iowa
October 16, 2006
Latham Hi-Tech Hybrids’ triple-stack hybrid LH5617 has topped the Farmers Independent Research of Seed Technologies (F.I.R.S.T.) in LeMars with a yield of 171.6 bushels per acre (bu/A) as compared to the plot average of 105.8 bu/A.
The F.I.R.S.T. seed-testing program was established in 1997 by Agronomic Seed Consulting, Inc., to generate independent seed product data. Each hybrid is tested equally in three replications.
“Our dealers and customers have been achieving tremendous yield results with our triple-stack hybrids, so we’re especially pleased to be able to back up their testimonials with this real-world, independent yield information,” says John Latham, president, Latham Hi-Tech Hybrids. “Latham Hi-Tech Hybrids 5617RRBTRW has tremendous yield potential, and data from the F.I.R.S.T. trials helps prove it is a great choice for farmers in this maturity.”
Latham Hi-Tech Hybrids’ LH5617RRBTRW has a relative maturity of 106 days. With a combination of YieldGard® Plus – offering in-plant protection against rootworm, corn borers and a host of secondary pests – and the Roundup Ready® Corn 2 System, this hybrid offers excellent root strength and drydown. Latham says 5617RRBTRW performed especially well in northwest Iowa where many fields – including the F.I.R.S.T. plot – experienced moisture stress.
“Hybrids with YieldGard Plus have larger root systems that are able to absorb more moisture than their conventional counterparts,” says Latham. “The difference is especially noticeable in dry conditions because hybrids with YieldGard Plus maximize subsoil moisture.”
The University of Nebraska observed in 2005 that hybrids with YieldGard Plus absorbed three more inches of moisture than their conventional counterparts. Under drought conditions last season in Illinois, hybrids with YieldGard Plus averaged 16.6 bu/A more than conventional hybrids with soil insecticides. Across the U.S. Corn Belt in 2006, YieldGard Plus hybrids had a 10.9 bu/A advantage over conventional hybrids with soil insecticides.
“It’s no coincidence that nine of the top 10 hybrids in the F.I.R.S.T. plot in LeMars are stacks with YieldGard Rootworm technology, and the top 16 hybrids have YieldGard Corn Borer and/or YieldGard Rootworm technology,” says Latham. “The popularity of hybrids with YieldGard technology increases each year as farmers reap the benefits, and we expect demand to be even greater for stacked hybrids in 2007.”
And I like you to prove that David Tribe and I are in the pocket of the GM giants.
Sharkbait…..
‘With a harpoon and a stun grenade…’ – Dr. Kalla
RAOTFLMAO! my my Dr Kalla who’d have thought you could be so macho and from the safety of another continent too, I am soooooo impressed.
‘Zimbabwe’ –
How exactly are your GM crops going to oust Mugabe from power?
Where exactly did I claim this Nasus. I used Zimbabwe as an illustration that dopey thinking and bad politics can do harm. Why the red herring?
“biochemical corporations in the developed world from selling patented products”
The point Nasus is (that like Mobile phones for instance) some technology benefit’s those who are free to use it – why should your distaste for corporations veto the choices of people who could benefit from GM seeds even if they pay for them and are more profitable because of that (as the African now do with mobile phones even tho Vodaphone in Africa is making a profit from their poularity in the villages that never got a simple landline telephone).
In India the last few yeards the commecial cotton seed industry has expanded massively. The rsults has been a massive increase in profits and crop output for farmers. Your argument would have prevented this because it also gave seecos profits.
gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/07/truth-about-bt-gm-crops-in-india-and.html
gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/indian-farmers-profit-from-gm-cotton.html
If there is an overall welfare benefit is there anthing wrong with ALL parties benefiting financially. Additionally the profits draw in private investment in bebeficial technology, which can only prosper year after year if it does provide a real net benefit for the usr.
Every year now for 10 years GM crop have expanded in use. Most users are farmers in the third world. $15 billion extra income (and rising rapidly) has gone to these farmers because of the technology, according to ISAA and PG Economics. Do you have special qualifications to speak on their behalf (presumably in the UK you have become an African farming expert.)
“continually ‘forget’ to mention the non GM alternatives which are also being researched and made available”
We have limited time and space Nasus, and the topic of this post is on GM issues; if you read my OLO piece for example and even my blog you will see that there is a full gamut of discussion..
You will notice for instance I’m very enthiusiastic about imidozolium herbicide tolerant maize available this which is not GM but it potentially the solution to striga pararistic weed that causes massive losses of crops in Africa.
See
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/02/imi-herbicide-tolerant-maize-for.html
Roger Kalla mentions you call me a GM lobbyist on your blog, implying I am a paid actisvist.
Where did you get the evidence from this statement, why didnt you check it with me, and why do you need to bring this personal ad hominem approach to this discussion? Can I assume it is you have nothing of substance to offer?
(I note also you didn’t, to my knowledge, answer the last question I asked you about evidence you use for making derogatory statements about me. Have you ever me me or talked with me? Why dont you adopt the journalistic practice of checking for accuracy?)
‘I’m very enthiusiastic about imidozolium herbicide tolerant maize available this which is not GM but it potentially the solution to striga pararistic weed that causes massive losses of crops in Africa.’ – Detribe
Can’t argue with the potential benefits of that product, but with all due respect, having to go back to February 2006 to find one article on non-GM is not what I would describe as a balanced and non partisan ‘pundit’.
Well Nasus, I didn’t “have to go back to February, but only a few hours ago.
Here’s two recent GMO Pundit Posts, one, just a few hours before you made my posts. I dindn’t “have to go back to Feb” , only a few hours, and the second, a day or so ago. I can in fact retrieve date and time stamps on my posts to prove these.
http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/track-and-save-that-water-to-survive.html
gmopundit.blogspot.com/2006/10/peaceful-coexistence-among-growers-of.html
It would help if you actually check the blog before you make erroneous conjectures like like that.
I’m not claiming GMO Pundit to be totally free from bias in favour of mentioning GM technology, but there’s a fair swag of other technology stuff , and a bias towards any new and interesting technologies (including one on a crazy water purificaion method Vivifier. GMO Pundit covers biofuels quite heavily, and has a lot on general water issues.
BTW last time you mocked me for self advertising by linking to my blog.
The point I was actually making was THAT I’D ALREADY CONSIDERED THE OBJECTIONS YOU MADE previously, and my blog linked proved that I had written so before you raised the issue.
Do you now want a long lisk of non-GM links to GMO Pumdit . How about salinity control? Is That non GM enough for you?
Or something basic like hunger?
gmopundit2.blogspot.com/2005/11/do-you-know-what-hunger-really-is.html
Something ecological like Land Use ?
gmopundit2.blogspot.com/2006/03/full-monty-on-global-land-use.html
I’m even quite happy to talk about evolution and biology in general.
I’m glad though that you see the potential in a solution to striga.
*Would you like to supply us with some of the figures for pesticide poisoning of agricultural workers from third world countries?*
Specific to glyphosate, the acute toxicity of glyphosate is very low, almost zero, the WHO list the oral LD50 in the rat of pure glyphosate is 4,230 mg/kg. If someone weighed 50kg they would have to ingest a metric cup of the stuff for a sub lethal dose, using the LD50 as a guide coffee (or caffeine) having a rating of 192 mg/kg is far more toxic to rats by a factor of 22.
Hi Dr Tribe,
You posted a link to your blog entry in Feb. 2006, don’t have a pop at me because I dont spend my entire spare time reading your blog.
I notice two of your latest links are not exactly hot off the press either, November 2005 and March 2006. The amount of pro-GM opinion you post here, let alone your own blog fails the non-partisan test.
Seems you forgot to mention surfactants and formulation when you cut that glyphosphate toxicity description a tad short.
Acute toxicity
The acute toxicity of glyphosate itself is very low. According to the World Health Organisation, the oral LD50 in the rat of pure glyphosate is 4,230 mg/kg, or 5,600 mg/kg according to Monsanto(6). The low acute toxicity of glyphosate can be attributed to its biochemical mode of action on a metabolic pathway in plants (called the shikimic acid pathway) which does not exist in animals(7). However, glyphosate can also disrupt functions of enzymes in animals. In rats it was found to decrease the activity of some detoxification enzymes when injected into the abdomen(8). In general, controlled toxicity tests report adverse symptoms from exposure to glyphosate only at extremely high doses, ie several grammes per kg body weight.
While glyphosate itself may be relatively harmless, some of the products with which it is formulated have a rather less benign reputation. Marketed formulations of glyphosate generally contain a surfactant. The purpose of this is to prevent the chemical from forming into droplets and rolling off leaves which are sprayed. Some of these surfactants are serious irritants, toxic to fish, and can themselves contain contaminants which are carcinogenic to humans.
The most widely used type of surfactants in glyphosate formulations are known as ethylated amines. POEA (polyoxy-ethyleneamine) has been frequently mentioned as a surfactant, but in fact it refers to a group of ethylated amine products used in glyphosate formulations. Members of this group of surfactants are significantly more toxic than glyphosate. They are serious irritants of eyes, the respiratory tract and skin, and have been found to contain dioxane (not dioxin) contaminants which are suspected of being carcinogenic. Accordingly, the UN FAO has set standards of 1ppm for levels of the contaminant 1,4 dioxane which may be present in POEA surfactants.
Monsanto states that all surfactants used in its glyphosate formulations fall well within the FAO standard. However, being aware of the irritant and toxic potential of the surfactants in general, the company has now developed new surfactants which have none of these toxic effects. Products containing the new formulants are sold in the UK and elsewhere and are recognised by approval authorities as being non-irritant(9). Currently in the UK, all garden products contain the new surfactant, and most local authorities are using it. However, the new formulations are more expensive and as long as there is demand for the cheaper, old formulations they will continue to be sold. Currently these are available in UK agriculture and horticulture and for professional amenity use(10).
In the UK, a local authority was prosecuted after a child was accidentally sprayed with a glyphosate formulation and suffered allergic reactions. Recently there have also been claims from residents of St. Just in Cornwall that they have suffered severe reactions following application of glyphosate for weed control(11).
In the UK, glyphosate is the most frequent cause of complaints and poisoning incidents recorded by the Health and Safety Executive’s Pesticides Incidents Appraisal Panel (PIAP). Between 1990 and 1995, 33 complaints were received and 34 poisonings recorded including a single death by suicide in 1990(12,13). In California, glyphosate is one of the most commonly reported causes of illness or injury to workers from pesticides. The most common complaints are eye and skin irritation(14). The US authorities have recommended a no re-entry period of 12 hours where glyphosate is used in agricultural or industrial situations.
– Pesticides News
Yes, we can all read PAN Lamna, they are committed to a pesticide free environment.
I liked this piece of double speak ” it is extremely unlikely that human users or members of the public would be exposed to doses as high as those used in the trials, but extrapolating toxicity data from rats, mice and rabbits on which trials are run, to humans can be inaccurate and misleading.”
They are denying the evidence.
Nasus,
Why are you then going on about dates in the first place then?. Why are you making all sorts of gruatuitous assertions about my memory (with sly jibes like ‘forgot’), implying I’m deliberately leaving out relevant facts based on things that arnt in my website. Absence from my website doesnt mean I ‘forgot’ as you ‘graciously’ put it.
Believe it or not, I have taken the trouble to read the standard comprehensive text on glyphosate toxicology as part of my efforts to ensure I’m fully aware of its hazards. I won’t bore you with the details, but the detergency aspect is not something I have ‘forgotten’.
One of the reason my usually fallible memory is so good on this is that it happens that I have actually been personally involved in experimental studies of the target enzyme of glyphosate action inside cells during my doctoral studies, namely the enzyme enolpyruvylshikimate phosphate synthase which is in the aromatic biosynthesis pathway, present in plants and bacteria BUT ABSENT FROM HUMANS, anaimals ans SHARKS) and I have published one modest scientific article about it in the 1970s, and I first became away of glyphosate biochemistry during that period.
To wit
Constitutive and repressible enzymes of the common pathway of aromatic biosynthesis in Escherichia coli K-12: regulation of enzyme synthesis at different growth rates.Tribe DE,Camakaris H, Pittard J. J Bacteriol. 1976 Sep;127(3):1085-97.
I have thus emphatically not ‘forgotten’ that glyphosate is a structural analogue of phosphoenolpyruvate which is condensed with shikimate phosphate by that enyme. And certainly I have not ‘forgotten’ that animals dont have this target enzyme because we lack the aromatic biosyntheisis pathway which it is the second last step, but you for some reason don’t mention this salient feature of glyphosate toxicology in your own remarks.
My memory of that material is so good I even remember who it was who first told me of its mode of action and when:(now Dr) Graeme Baldwin, a biochemistry Ph.D. student at the University of Melbournce in 1973 whose Ph.d. topic you can verify is anothe enyme in this part of metabolism.
I have also not ‘forgotten’ why I was so interested in glyphosate’s mode of action in 1972-80, and strange as it may seem, I will neever forget.
It was because I was interested in chemicals that could enable me to select mutant bacteria that over produce the nutrient tryptophane which was potentially useful (and still is) as a way of the improving nutritional quality of maize as a stock feed or food..
At that time there was great interest in improving human nutrition using genetic technology, and I retain that interest today.
*Would you like to supply us with some of the figures for pesticide poisoning of agricultural workers from third world countries?*
Don’t forget that GM insect protected contton’s reduce farmers deaths from synthetic insecticide poisening and save the lives of cotton farmers in China and Africa where they spray insecticide with backpacks.
detribe, what you say about glyphosate, that the pathway is absent in humans and animals, is something that even greens cannot deny
“Glyphosate is a broad spectrum, non-selective systemic herbicide. It is effective in killing all plant types including grasses, perennials and woody plants…… This pathway exists in higher plants and microorganisms but not in animals.”
http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/actives/glyphosa.htm
I mean, what sense is there in invoking the hallowed “precautionary principle” to a situation that cannot exist?
Chemical campaigns ‘misleading’
By Rebecca Morelle
Health reporter, BBC News
Leading toxicologists have warned green groups are “misleading” the public with chemical contamination campaigns.
They said they are deliberately and unfairly scaring the public.
In particular, they criticised a WWF campaign that has highlighted the presence of certain chemicals in blood, food and in babies’ umbilical cords.
The scientists said the minute levels detected did not warrant the group’s focus on health dangers, but WWF has denied it was scare-mongering.
“The message they are putting across is misleading, and deliberately so” Professor David Coggon
The tests have formed part of WWF’s campaign to strengthen proposed EU legislation, called REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals), on the testing and phasing out of chemicals.
They argue the presence of chemicals, such as musks (found in perfumes), brominated flame retardants, and dioxins (a by-product of heating processes), in the environment pose a danger to health in humans and wildlife, and more stringent protective measures are needed.
But while many scientists believe monitoring levels of chemicals and the phasing out of dangerous ones are vital, as is REACH, they say WWF and other green groups have been playing on the public’s fears to highlight their campaigns.
Dose-response
Alistair Hay, professor of environmental toxicology from the University of Leeds, said: “The presence of these things is a warning that we are exposed to chemicals in the environment and we have to try and understand what this means – but it is wrong to frighten people.”
While David Coggon, professor of occupational and environmental health from Southampton University, added: “The message they are putting across is misleading, and deliberately so.”
According to Dr Andrew Smith, of the Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit, University of Leicester, it is the amount of a chemical present that is key when considering toxicity.
“We are weighing up the difference between alarm and ignorance – we are not looking to scare-monger”
Elizabeth Salter Green, WWF
And the researchers said the levels of the chemicals found in some of the tests were extremely low – measured in parts per billion or parts per trillion.
Although some of the chemicals were dangerous at high doses, they said, one could not go on to assume that because a trace amount was detected it posed a danger.
Dr Smith said: “Any toxicologist will tell you that dose – the amount – is the important thing.
“I would rather we didn’t find these chemicals present, but trying to ascribe toxicity to them is a different matter.”
Professor Coggon agreed: “One of the most important things in toxicology is to look at how a person is exposed and how much of a substance they are exposed to.
“The fact that you can detect something at all does not imply a material risk to health.”
The researchers said the chemicals were being found in trace amounts because of advances in detection techniques that could uncover substances at ever smaller concentrations.
The researchers admitted there was uncertainty surrounding the effects of some of the chemicals, but said just because it couldn’t be confirmed something was 100% safe this did not mean it was 100% dangerous.
Professor Richard Sharpe, an expert in endocrine disrupters from the Medical Research Council Human Reproductive Sciences Unit, in Edinburgh, said: “By and large, I think people shouldn’t be worried. Most chemicals will not do any great harm at these very low levels. You have to put this into perspective.”
Chemiphobia
Dr John Emsley, a visiting professor at Manchester University, said the word “chemical” had become a synonym for “toxic”, and that the public was growing increasingly fearful of contamination, something he called “chemiphobia”.
“I think the public are afraid because it is all about the unseen danger – it is presented as something malevolent lurking below the surface. You don’t know what it is and you don’t know what it does. It is a risk they do not feel in control of.”
Elizabeth Salter Green, director of the WWF’s toxic campaign, said: “I think WWF’s raison d’etre is to protect biodiversity. We feel that there are certain drivers such as chemicals undermining future generations’ viability.
“We are keen that the core aim of REACH is maintained – to protect future generations of humans and wildlife while not undermining the competitiveness of the chemicals industry.”
She said she was concerned with possible health risks associated the lifestyle exposure to different combinations of low-level chemicals, and pointed to studies which revealed the chemicals were working together.
“We are weighing up the difference between alarm and ignorance – we are not looking to scare-monger – we are looking to highlight an issue such that the UK population are aware of exposures and to call for better regulation.”
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/6040146.stm
Published: 2006/10/16 01:01:51 GMT
“The fact that you can detect something at all does not imply a material risk to health.”
This argument is equally valid in the detection of genetically modified ingredients in our foods.
The very sensitive methods for detecting minuscle amount of genetically modified DNA in a sea of ‘normal’ DNA doesn’t automatically tell us that the product is ‘contaminated’ or even ‘dangerous’ to consume.
The levels of unintended presence of herbicide resistant GM canola, that had received regultory clearance from the OGTR and considered to be harmless , was in the order of 1 seed per 100,000 or 1 seed per 10,000 of ‘naturally’ herbicide resistant conventional canola.
Marketing of Australias commodity exports is not a science it’s a perception and in this case it was certainly not a health issue.