The Rich
Prince Charles and Camilla visited an organic farm near San Francisco over the weekend, and reader of this blog David Tribe made a few comments about organics on ABC Television Landline over the weekend.
I rather like this extract from the Landline commentary:
PRUE ADAMS: In Australia, there is no doubt organics is catching on among consumers and farmers. Still, it accounts for less than 1 percent of our agricultural output. Proponents point to little government support as one reason for its relatively slow growth.
BERNWARD GEIER: I must say – allow me to be critical for a moment although I’m a guest in your country – compared to other governments, Australia not only can do much more, it has to do much more, otherwise you will be left behind, because other governments have much more understood how important it is to support organic farmers, up to getting votes for doing the right thing because that’s what consumers want.
PRUE ADAMS: The organic sector is still rather a small niche in Australia and that’s where Dr David Tribe says it should stay.
DAVID TRIBE: I think in many areas, in many localities, it’s a great way of producing good quality food for rich people.
Prince Charles is rich enough to not only eat it, but also grow it.
Organic Tolerance
Interestingly under standards set by the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia (NASAA), organic products are allowed 5 percent non-organic material and there are allowances throughout the standards for the use of non-organic inputs where it can be established that organic alternatives are not available.
GM Tolerance
But the organic growers want zero tolerance for genetically modified crops:
“Contamination of organic grain production is a very real possibility in Australia with this latest announcement. While the loss of premiums due to GM contamination might be arguable with conventional grains, it is a major reality with organic grains where premiums can be up to 100 precent above conventional prices.
BFA & ACO believe as a minimum that State Governments should:
1. Indemnify growers against loss of premium, cost of testing, liability for contamination costs down the supply chain
2. Introduce legislation to make seed companies strictly liable for any future sale or planting of contaminated seed
3. Seek to recover the cost of the contamination identified in Australia this year from the Seed Company(s) concerned
4. Reject any calls for pro GM industry groups to legalise contamination of up to 0.9 percent.”
In summary, organic can be only 95 percent pure, but a 0.9 percent contamination with GM is unacceptable?
Strict Liability
The Network of Concerned Farmers and organic growers have advocated the introduction of a ‘strict liability’ regime for GM crops. Mark Barber has just authored a significant report for Acil Tasman titled Managing genetically modified crops in Australia.
Barber makes the following comments concerning ‘strict liability’:
The Australian Government has chosen not to implement a strict liability regime for possible damage caused by GM organisms, and nor have the United States, New Zealand, Canadian or United Kingdom Governments.
Even so, the courts may be asked to consider the application of the principle of strict liability by a plaintiff. Strict liability is a tortious common law principle which imposes liability at law to a third party for the actions of another party, without proof of fault in their own actions. In other words, strict liability is liability regardless of fault, rather than without fault. The doctrine relates predominantly to matters of public and/or social policy importance. Its intention is to provide a safety net for compensation of activities, particularly those considered hazardous and inherently dangerous.
However, a former Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, after
discussing a range of case law, concluded that the doctrine has “no place in Australian law”.The Australian courts resistance to strict liability is also partly explained by the difficulty the courts may face in defining what an extra-hazardous activity is.
Defining GM crops as extra-hazardous would mean that the courts are over turning the OGTR [Office of Gene Technology Regulator] approval process.
In the US ‘there is no strict liability for harm caused by an abnormally dangerous activity if the harm would not have resulted but for the abnormally sensitive character of the plaintiff’s activity (Kershen 2002): it is reasonable to assume that this concept would be also be considered by the courts in Australia.
It may be difficult for the organics industry to claim damages under ‘strict liability’ on the basis that GM crops are ‘hazardous and inherently dangerous’ as it would be difficult to establish that these farmers’ tolerance of GM crops was not abnormally sensitive, given that other areas of their activities allow quite generous tolerances of the use of non-organic inputs in comparison.
Is GM Different?
According to Mark Barber:
The Australian Trade Practices Act, 1974 has little concern with the actions of farmers growing GM crops per se or with AP [adventitious presence*] tolerances, other than ensuring that farmers (or any other parties) deal with each other in a truthful and honest manner. The Act does become relevant when a specified claim (whether non-GM, GM-free or organic) by sellers is found to be misleading or deceptive, just as in any other commercial situation.
Marketing claims by sellers have to be able to be substantiated by an assurance or identity preservation system. This is why, for example, NASAA emphasises that organic production relates to a set of production standards, not product standards:
‘Organic products shall not be labelled as GMO free in the context of this Standard. Any reference to genetic engineering on product labels shall be limited to the production and processing methods themselves having not used GMOs.’In any event, a claim that a product is GM-free, non-GM or organic would only be made when there is a clear economic incentive. However, as noted earlier, most analysis conducted on the impact of GM crops in Australia has concluded that there are few price premiums available in conventional markets for non-GM crops proven to be free of co-mingling with GM product.”
…………
* Inadvertent mixing of one grain with another is often referred to as ‘adventitious presence’.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
In the same program, Sue Kedgley, a NZ Green MP, organic grower enthusiast, and coincidentally, an avid campaigner against her commercial rival GM agriculture, downplays any health problems with fungal toxins in foods that are damaged by insect pests. She makes a comment that this is a beat-up,and says, rhetorically, How can microbial natural toxins be compared to the risks of pesticides? Well Sue, compare the natural fungus toxin fumonisin that causes throat cancer and the horrendous birth defect spina bifida – and which has been detected in organic cornmeals withdrawn from sale in the UK – with synthetic pesticides whose toxicology is subject to regulatory approval. No one ever subjected natural fumonisin to regulatory approval though, and it definitely causes many cancers and birth defects in poor Mexicans and Africans who eat corn (maize) as a staple food.
Another interesting comparison is (a) the absolute organic ban on GM food presence in organic produce, affecting the livelihoods of many other, often struggling, Australian non-organic canola farmers who have to give away a 20-30% cost advantage to their Canadian competitors basically to keep the organic sector happy, with (b) the continuing organic industry tolerance of cupper fungicide use by organic farmers, say in potato farming. Copper is a persistent poison, builds up in the environment and stays there forever, and promotes the proliferation of antibiotic resistant bacteria in soil. The organic movement bans antibiotic use in farms because of health arguments, but tolerates copper that promotes the antibiotic resistant bacteria that might cause dangerous hospital infections – why: the organic industry would suffer commercial financial losses if they discontinued copper fungicide. This is the industry who proclaim they are freeing farms from toxic chemicals.
In all, precautionary principles go out the window when it comes to real and present hazards – copper and mycotoxins – that are potentially exhibited by organic farming, but when it comes to GM presence, zero tolerance and exploration of every unanswered hypothetical safety issue, and cost penalties for their competitors is the name of the game.
Politics has contaminated the organic movement, if they just stayed focussed on producing a quality product instead of trying to scare the bejasus out of everyone by preaching unsubstantiated and political doom and gloom….as for those wacky Windsors…
With reference to Bernward Geier, from memory he is referring to the now ex-Green German Govt ‘s heavy subsidy of organic movement.
Now that their economy is in tatters the new Govt may be less generous, without State subsidies “sustainability” may be compromised.
So do the organic growers, who always take the moral high ground, charge so much for their product because they can? I mean what about cheap organic so the ordinary person can experience it?
Does the epithet “BoBo” fit Charlie Winsor-Battenberg? (via Dough Powell’s Agnet)
Organic farming’s American heartland awaits royals
November 5, 2005
New York Times
Patricia Leigh Brown
POINT REYES STATION, Calif., Nov. 3 – Lee de Barros, a Zen Buddhist priest, was, according to this story, contemplating the arrival on Saturday of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall while reading a book called “The Spiritual Athlete: A Primer for the Inner Life” at Toby’s Feed Barn, the all-organic general store here. ”
The story says that when the organic prince and his bride amble among the organic Blue Lake green beans and wool socks and Birkenstocks at the farmers’ market next to Toby’s this weekend on the last leg of their mostly diamond-studded American tour, they will enter the Slow Food Nation, an idiosyncratic, famously insular part of the world that is the national epicenter of the organic food movement.
Here in Marin County, where 50 percent of the land is agricultural, it is organic farmers who are treated like royalty. Warren Weber, a professorial-looking former back-to-the-land-er and Ph.D. in Shakespearean literature who lived for a time in a caboose, was cited as saying in between frenetic food deliveries for the royal couple’s visit that it was among Marin’s hills, made moist from the Pacific fog, that demand from “long-haired consumers” first transformed organic food into a marketable premium commodity, adding, “We were burned out by the Vietnam War. The organic movement was a great place for people to be excited, to feel there was a good future.”
The story explains that Prince Charles, who along with the rock star Sting lent his support this week to Food for Life, an international campaign to promote organic farming, is scheduled to tour Mr. Weber’s 40-acre Star Route Farms, the oldest certified organic farm in California.
The royal couple will also visit Toby’s here in Point Reyes Station, host to the farmers’ market, where a yoga studio is tucked amid sacks of organic oat alfalfa and barley.
Last year, the county voted to ban genetically engineered crops, one of two such bans in the state. The local aura is symbolized by the huge “Keep West Marin Sustainable and Pesticide Free” banner plastered on the outdoor community bulletin board and especially by the Point Reyes Station version of Big Ben, an ear-wrenching “moo” that emanates from a loudspeaker over the barbershop at noon sharp.