“Victorian farmers have welcomed reports that the Victorian Government will give farmers the choice to grow genetically modified crops, effectively breaking ranks with other Labor states that have imposed moratoria on GM production.
“According to The Age, sources close to Premier Steve Bracks say the government is satisfied there is almost zero risk associated with GM crops and the ban “will be allowed to expire next year”.
Read the complete article at Farm Online: http://www.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=42448
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Well chalk one up for Bracksee – it took a while but science won out in the end.
ITs amazing isn’t it? Expensive food works wonders on anti GM policies. Read this article on global milk supplies … food eaters world wide have a massive shock coming!
“Got Milk?” ( California Milk Advisory Board and lead into Bloomberg article)
Those of you following this blog for a while know about my rants on the impact of higher oil prices, and declining availability of oil, on food prices and availability. (Economists might prefer the word “scarcity”, but I doubt our politicians would be happy about the use of “scarcity” and “food” in the same sentence.) But unbeknownst to many, we have a MILK shortage in the offing. Milk is a corn derivative, and corn is an oil derivative. This was reported today by Bloomberg news:
“Milk prices worldwide are rising at the fastest rate ever and won’t be falling anytime soon because of growing demand in China and Latin America and dwindling government supplies.
Dairy farmers have failed to keep pace with a 3 percent increase in annual milk consumption, according to Rabobank Groep in the Netherlands, the world’s biggest agricultural lender. Reduced subsidies eliminated milk surpluses in Europe and slowed production growth in the U.S., government data show. The rally started last year after Australia reduced exports because of its worst drought in a century.
“Over the next several months we’re going to see some pretty strong prices on all milk,” said Larry Salathe, an economist and dairy expert at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington. Production needed to bring prices down “takes at least several months, usually a year to two years, to come.”
Skim-milk powder, the benchmark for world trade, has risen 60 percent in six months to a record $1.58 a pound May 4 on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, seven times higher than the five- year average.
During the first five months last year, prices fell 14 percent. Fluid milk futures on the exchange advanced to a record $19.15 on May 3 and have risen 63 percent in the past year. The commodity traded at $18.75 on Friday.” – Bloomberg New, May 14, 2007
Tradable milk (skim-milk powder) is up 60% in 6 months. Corn doubled in the past 2 years. Wheat has nearly doubled during that period. The average retail price of a gallon of whole milk in U.S. grocery stores was $3.32 last month (April), right in line with its historical relationship to retail gasoline, which was just over $3 retail (milk has sold, for the most part, at 110- 125% of the price of gasoline since 1960, data from Illinois farm bureau). The correlation between the prices of bread, eggs and milk is very high. It seems it would follow that when the price of gasoline/diesel heads to $4, $5, $6 per gallon at the pump, that milk, eggs, and bread are headed 25%, 50%, 100% higher from today’s higher prices.
But let’s forget prices for a moment, and let’s talk availability:
“U.S. inventories of butter, cheese and dry milk peaked at more than 2.7 billion pounds in 1983. The government that year spent $2.5 billion on surplus dairy products to support prices and farmer income. Today, the U.S. has no surplus after selling the 27 million pounds it held in 2005, USDA data show.
European warehouses, which had 200,000 tons of milk powder in 2003, are empty, according to Erhard Richarts, dairy expert with the Bonn-based market and price reporting agency ZMP. Skim milk powder exports from Europe fell to 84,000 tons last year from 194,000 tons in 2005, he said.
The European Union said in March that only “residual quantities” of butter are left in member countries after a sale of some 6,000 tons that month.” Bloomberg news May 14, 2007
“No surplus”, “European warehouses… are empty”, “residual quantities”???!!! I don’t think I need to hype those statements. Here comes the kicker:
“The world consumes about 1.9 billion liters of milk a day, enough to fill five supertankers, based on estimates by Rabobank. The 14 percent jump in milk demand during the past seven years outpaced the 13 percent rise in oil use, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency in Paris.” Bloomberg News May 14, 2007
The writer had the cerebral capacity to link oil production to milk production!!! Halleluiah!!! Is it too much to think that the mainstream media might be getting it? Maybe. If oil production has peaked, has milk production peaked? DEFINITELY.
Unfortunately, for many more poor children in developing countries, and for poor children right down the street, the concept is not going to be quite so abstract.
Mentatt (at) yahoo (dot) com
http://mentatt.blogspot.com/2007/05/got-milk-california-milk-advisory-board.html
An even more important read because food price inflation will threaten everything from the value of your house to the safety of your super fund! Don’t take my word for it though, read on …
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The pain in grain
Monday, April 23, 2007
The US sees corn-based ethanol as the answer to its oil and greenhouse problems. The resulting agriculture revision could well fuel global recession.
Remember the first oil shock back in 1974? Even if you were not around in those days, you probably know that this shock marked the end of the long boom that began at the end of World War II.
Quadrupling the price of crude oil from $US3 a barrel to $US12 a barrel ushered in a decade – even longer in the case of Australia – of high inflation and low growth. This was the era of stagflation.
What is often ignored about this episode is the critical role played by commodity prices – especially food prices – in driving OPEC’s actions.
Wheat prices for example jumped by 22% in 1972, then by 157% in 1973 before OPEC flexed its new-found muscles in October 1973 and hiked the price of crude oil. Metal prices, according to the Reserve Bank’s commodity index, were also up – by 59% – in 1973.
Then as now, OPEC was dominated by the Middle Eastern oil producers who imported most of their food requirements. With oil prices pegged in US dollars and with commodities soaring in price, the lid simply could not be held on oil prices.
Higher oil prices set off another round of inflationary pressures, which led to the second oil shock when the price of crude was doubled in 1979. Recession followed for most of the developed world – including Australia.
I recall these events because food prices have now joined the other commodity prices such as minerals and energy in shifting prices to new highs. Food prices are increasing across many countries at a double-digit rate compared with less than 3% in 2005.
This time it could be said that oil is dragging food prices along behind it, not vice versa.
Furthermore, political and economic factors are interacting in such a fashion that the rise in food prices could well extend over a number of years.
This is of particular importance to the developing countries of the global economy, a description which includes the oil-exporting region of the Middle East. In these countries, food accounts for a much higher proportion of the basket of goods that make up the consumer price index than is the case in developed countries.
In Australia, for example, food has a weighting of 15.8% in our CPI. In the Philippines, it is 50%; in Malaysia 35%.
Food prices are always volatile because they are dependent on climatic factors. Food has been the fastest climbing area of the Australian CPI – up 8.6% at an annual rate, according to the December quarter reading.
That was due largely to local factors, but when you have a major wheat exporter, such as Australia, that is suffering one of the worst droughts on record, it is not surprising that this is reflected in global grain prices.
The price index of Australian rural commodity prices has climbed by 10% over the last year and by 19% over the last two years. This is dwarfed by the rise in mineral prices but, point for point, food prices have much greater inflationary impact than mineral prices.
Compounding the climate factor in the global food market is the rapid industrialisation and urbanisation of large populous economies like China and India. This double-barrelled process alienates more and more land from rural production. Higher farming productivity does offset this to some extent but the real productivity gains come from the introduction of more efficient large-scale production techniques. Restructuring rural land usage raises the difficult issue of social and political stability among the large rural population.
The great ethanol bubble, still in its early stages but already having an impact, can now be added to the inflationary forces now impacting on food costs. The global food pool is being called on to satisfy demand from a totally new, rich and hungry market.
Last year, in the name of energy independence, President George W. Bush called on the US to produce 35 billion gallons of renewable fuel a year by 2017. His exhortation has been backed up with a subsidy program running into billions of dollars a year. (Direct corn subsidies cost the US taxpayer $US8.9bn last year.)
The impact of this multi-billion-dollar hand-out is already evident in the prospective plantings report released by the US Department of Agriculture earlier this month.
American farmers plan to increase the acreage sown to corn by 15.5% or some 12 million acres. To achieve this, they are proposing to reduce soy acreage by 11% and cotton by 20.5%.
The US is the major player in world grain production, accounting for more than 30% of global output. It is also the world’s largest exporter of corn, soy and cotton and the third largest exporter of wheat.
The reshuffling of its agricultural output priorities cannot fail to have a serious impact on world food prices. Grains are a major cost factor, not only in direct human consumption but also in fattening beef, swine and chickens.
As two economists, C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer, point out in an article in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs: “Filling the 25–gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires 250lb of [dried] corn – which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year.”
Using the Runge and Benjamin figures, a calculator and the back of an envelope, I concluded that it would take 315 million tons of corn to produce Bush’s 35 billion gallons of ethanol – assuming that this was the renewable fuel of choice, which it is at the moment.
Current US production of corn is 267 million tons. Consequently, the current total crop would still come up shy of the target. Current production would need to be expanded by some 20% if all the corn was diverted into the national fuel cycle, and by a lot more to satisfy traditional demand.
At the moment, only one-fifth of corn output is transformed into ethanol.
Corn syrup is the sweetening used in American soft drinks; corn is also used in the manufacture of products ranging from adhesives to crayons. It is estimated that of the 10,000 items in a typical grocery store, 2500 of them use corn in one form or another. At the butcher’s shop, the proportion is much, much higher.
For the Bush target to be hit will require the dedication of many more hectares to corn production. Because all the prime agricultural land is in use, that means other rural production will have to be phased out. Exports would be cut back, not only of corn but soy, cotton and wheat as well.
Imagine what this would do to the household accounts in developing nations. Or look at what has already occurred in Mexico. It is estimated that about half of Mexico’s 107m people rely on corn-based tortillas as their main source of calories. Late last year, the price of imported US corn doubled over a period of months. Public angst was exacerbated by a surge in speculation and hoarding.
Political unrest threatened to explode into violence and the new president, Felipe Calderón, imposed a cap on corn prices in January.
In China, the government has begun limiting the construction of corn-based ethanol plants to ensure that there is sufficient supply for humans and animals. TheWall Street Journal reported last week that Chinese officials have even banned new golf courses on farm land and begun unwinding subsidies they once paid to grain distributors to sell excess corn overseas.
To some extent the shortfall in supply could be filled by increasing output in producing countries such as Brazil.
But the USDA estimates that global corn consumption will increase to a record 730 million tons this year, exceeding supplies for the sixth time in seven years. Worldwide stockpiles will drop to 88 million tons, the lowest since the 1970s. So far this production shortfall, which has seen corn prices more than double, has not led to farmers elsewhere committing to increased output.
When we look back at the mid-’70s and the onset of stagflation, it is evident that the most powerful factors pushing the global economy in that direction were the economic policies pursued by the US under President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Johnson believed he could conduct an expensive war in Vietnam while running large deficits to fund his “Great Society” welfare program domestically.
Arthur Oakum, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, reassured sceptics, saying: “When recessions were a regular feature of the economic environment, they were often regarded as inevitable … Recessions are now generally considered fundamentally preventable, like airplane crashes not hurricanes.”
Johnson exploited the reserve currency character of the dollar, printing greenbacks and flooding the global market with them. This surge in liquidity lifted global activity but set the fire underneath commodity prices leading to inflation, then stagflation. Among the first casualties was the fixed exchange rate system.
Johnson bequeathed the global economy a tainted economic legacy that took years to restore to health. Back then, however, the Federal Reserve was far less independent in spirit than it is today.
If food and oil enter in a push-me, pull-you inflationary spiral, which is a growing risk, then US Federal Reserve chairman “Gentle” Ben Bernanke will need to stop playing the nice guy.
It’s not impossible to consider that, thanks to the ethanol bubble – a classic case of exploiting a genuine problem as an excuse to roll out the pork barrel – the global economy could be tipped into our first climate-change recession.
“No surplus”, “European warehouses… are empty”, “residual quantities”???!!! I don’t think I need to hype those statements.
RAOTFLMAO! No hype Edmunds?! Hype and Spin is exactly what you’re writing…
If that report is true, GOOD! Europeans have been having to pay to stockpile and then destroy vast amounts of food that nobody in Europe wanted but farmers had been subsidised by the CAP to produce (so European tax payers have been paying for it twice!) for decades…and before you start a Thurkettlesque rant about the starving millions in the third world, dumpimg vast quantities of food aid merely destroys the local agricultural economy because no-one is going to pay for food if they can get it free, so all the local farmers go bust.
Since you’re a farmer who chose his signature crop..nuts. because it paid more, rather than choosing a crop you could export to the third world to feed the starving.. spare us the ‘moral’ crusade, simplistic rhetoric and (FILL IN ALARMIST FACTIOD HERE)…
‘Farmgate prices for milk have been low for a number of years and this has been reflected in dairy farm incomes.
As a result of the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), prices are expected to fall further.
The reasons for the low UK farmgate price of milk are complex and include, at different times and in different combinations: exchange rates; the prices on world and community markets; domestic supply and demand; the low value of the product mix; the low level of product innovation; and the structure of the UK dairy industry.
You will appreciate of course that the setting of farmgate and supermarket prices is a private, commercial matter for companies and their suppliers. The Government cannot and should not get involved in price negotiations as long as competition rules are respected.
The average farmgate price for milk delivered in November 2006 (the most recent month for which figures are available) was 19.01 ppl pence per litre.’
– Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, UK. Jan 2007
‘Three British dairy farmers leave the industry every day, driven out by low prices Those that hang on in there selling their milk at, or even below, the cost of production are being forced to intensify, often using imported grains for concentrated feeds, to extract ever higher yields from their cows.
The price paid for milk to farmers has fallen from about 24.5p per litre in 1995 to about 18p per litre now, even though farmers’ costs in fuel, feed and fertiliser have risen dramatically.
On average they have been losing 3p per litre.
Supermarkets have managed to increase their margins from about 3p to 16p per litre in 10 years. Our dairy farmers have been caught between excessive supermarket buying power, a processing industry that is dominated by three companies, Arla, Wiseman and Dairy Crest, and global commodity markets that have kept prices weak.’
– The Guardian, 24th April 2007
The real issue behind all of this is whether or not Australia will with its policies signal that its culture and its government is practical and science-based, or driven by whims, fads and greenies.
‘practical and science-based’ – Schiller
What Thurkettle really means by that is driven by the whims of globalised corporations and free market forces with no loyalty to Australia at all….
So, Lamna,
Do you prefer the whims of multinational corporate activist groups with no loyalty to Australia?
Explaining your preferences might make your comments more clear.
Certainly not Thurkettle.. I do not support multinational corporate funded, right wing Free market and globalisation think tank activist organisations.. Unlike your good self…
‘Since you’re a farmer who chose his signature crop..nuts. because it paid more, rather than choosing a crop you could export to the third world to feed the starving.. spare us the ‘moral’ crusade, simplistic rhetoric and (FILL IN ALARMIST FACTIOD HERE)…’
Actually Lamna I’m growing nuts on marginal country that is now too risky to throw hyperinflated fertilizer inputs at and hope declining rainfalls can turn it into below average yields of fossil fuel hungry cereals. In other words I am turning food unproductive land productive and profitably (after all nobody does anything for nothing). Whats more I am instrumental in overseeing growth of at least 3500 hectares of Australian land this year turn from fossil fuel intensive to fossil fuel free. You give that any value? How about precautionary principle value? Something Old England is slowly waking up to in terms of energy, water and food security … In 2008 once we get corporate Australia onboard we’ll likely have our first post 10,000 hectare plantings year. You see the future for broadacre agriculture is clear and the simplistic theme is this – reduced fossil fuels inputs, increased weather resiliance = sustainable food production (that is as opposed to none because believe me this land can produce none and with the headache of having paid to receive nothing).
And I am actually bedding down a supply contract with an Indian corporate house now to ‘export’ the system and my genetic base, presumably to feed some hungry Indian people.
So since you see fit to make comment albeit personally inclined how about you lay us all out with some substance of your own. You have provided no explanation of how the world is going to address the decline in global stocks of all key staple food groups. I appreciate it is hard to get sunburnt seated at your computer.
Future markets are providing the warning signs not Aaron Edmonds …
The current Australian drought may interrupt your grand plans Edmonds..
I was listening to a remakably astute Aboriginal gentleman being interviewed on the regular BBC Radio 4 programme “Costing the Earth’ a couple of days ago, who pointed out most of the current drought problems reflected the fact that modern Australian agriculture was based on European models including the necessary enormous water extraction but Australia doesn’t have a European climate… and anyway Europe is now experiencing its own water over extraction problems….
Edmonds answer is apparently – Crikey! Plant more crops!
Tell me Edmonds how are the Australian government’s plans for buying back water rights progressing?.. Or where you assuming that other Australians were happy to go without water so you could expand your business?..
Lamna you clearly have no understanding of how agriculture needs to evolve and you would be well served to actually read through my website rather than just eyeball the pictures. Sandalwood nuts are NATIVE to my farm so I am in fact basing future agricultural development on an ancient crop most likely utilised by aborigines. I am re-planting this drought tolerant native crop which hosts upon an equally drought tolerant host tree that is leguminous – Acacias. So no production is directly correlated to rainfall and there is no need for fertilizer inputs since nitrogen nutrition comes from the Acacia and being native the trees are adapted to poor soils with low phosphorus levels.
Last year was the worst drough on record for my European crops. It was the best on record in the 8 years I have been fostering this system for sandalwood establishment.
There was never any irrigation in my area so we never got dumbed down with imported resources for illogical production regimes.
So
The current drought bears no burden to my plans. If anything it actually hastens my sense of urgency to convert wheat acres across to Australian NATIVE sandalwood acres. A crop that is NATIVE to most of Australia’s southern cropping zones and hence has a high degree of drought tolerance. Its also a parasite and adapted to host on another drought hardy Australian native legume – the Acacia. So a drying climate is an ideal backdrop for this production system which requires NO IRRIGATION and NO hyperinflating nitrogen FERTILIZER.
So rather than just eyeball my website’s pictures (I know I am a good looking chap and all) maybe you should explore the substance in the text. You’ll probably learn something albeit reluctantly. After all it is a model of staple food production for drylands around the world where rainfall is dropping and fossil fuel based inputs are hyperinflating in price.
“Edmonds answer is apparently – Crikey! Plant more crops!”
The answer is not to plant more crops. The answer is to plant new (old) ones. If your farmers had any brains they’d be planting chestnuts and other indigenous perennial staple crops because if the oil stops flowing out of the Middle East, the food stops coming out of that beautiful rich soil of yours.
The current drought bears no burden to my plans. If anything it actually hastens my sense of urgency to convert wheat acres across to Australian NATIVE sandalwood acres. A crop that is NATIVE to most of Australia’s southern cropping zones and hence has a high degree of drought tolerance. Its also a parasite and adapted to host on another drought hardy Australian native legume – the Acacia. So a drying climate is an ideal backdrop for this production system which requires NO IRRIGATION and NO hyperinflating nitrogen FERTILIZER.
So rather than just eyeball my website’s pictures (I know I am a good looking chap and all) maybe you should explore the substance in the text. You’ll probably learn something albeit reluctantly. After all it is a model of staple food production for drylands around the world where rainfall is dropping and fossil fuel based inputs are hyperinflating in price.
“Edmonds answer is apparently – Crikey! Plant more crops!”
The answer is not to plant more crops. The answer is to plant new (old) ones. If your farmers had any brains they’d be planting chestnuts and other indigenous perennial staple crops because if the oil stops flowing out of the Middle East, the food stops coming out of that beautiful rich soil of yours.
Here’s a dainty little story for you too Lamna. Poor old motherland! Dependent on others for oil, for gas, for water and even food. Dangerously complacent stance to take …
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Economists chew over ‘agflation’ and wonder if high food prices are here to stay
Reuters
Published: Tuesday, May 15, 2007
LONDON – Food prices, historically as changeable as the weather, are often put to one side when central bankers and economists gauge inflation, but soaring prices for everything from corn to milk are forcing a rethink.
Calculations of core inflation strip out food and energy prices, seen as volatile and therefore liable to skew any snapshot of consumer price levels. But some analysts now argue that a steep climb in the cost of food worldwide in recent months could be permanent, or at least long lasting.
Merrill Lynch has even coined a term to capture the phenomenon of food prices forcing up consumer prices more broadly: “agflation.”
Corn prices are at 10-year highs, pushing up the cost of feed for livestock and therefore meat as well. Wheat and dairy prices are also up across the board.
The implication for global growth is potentially serious if the inflationary threat convinces central banks to set interest rates at higher levels than they would otherwise do. Few countries, developing or developed, seem immune.
In China, inflation was three per cent in April, just off a two-year high, driven by food-price inflation of 7.1 per cent.
U.S. food prices, normally in line with broader price levels, are expected to outpace the general inflation rate by as much as two per cent for the next two years. A leading culprit in Britain’s 3.1-per-cent inflation in March, famously beyond the Bank of England’s target zone, was food prices, up nearly twice as much.
Forecasting the future of food prices is more the realm of the agronomist than the economist. But enough evidence has now accumulated for economists to contemplate what-if scenarios of persistently higher food prices and their impact on inflation.
Hot, dry weather in many parts of the world augurs poorly for this year’s harvest — that is seasonal volatility.
However, there are also shifting demand and supply patterns, which could amount to structural change.
Demand for agricultural goods has spiked because of the fast-developing bio-fuels industry and bigger appetites in China as it continues to surge. And unlike past periods of rising food prices, farm experts say there is less spare capacity of cultivatable land.
Some analysts are confident that the agricultural market will respond to the incentive of higher prices and begin to produce more, putting a lid on agflation.
“You have all sorts of forces going in opposite directions,” said Danny Gabay, director at Fathom Financial Consulting.
Advances in the science of genetic modification, admittedly controversial, could increase farming yields for crops from wheat to tomatoes. And though water and land supplies have grown tighter with the global population explosion, some suggest there is still more room for farming, such as Brazil’s grasslands.
If agflation does truly take off, it would hurt most in developing countries, because of the relatively large portion of personal expenditures their residents devote to food. This is reflected in the heavy weighting given to food in the commodity baskets used to measure inflation in developing countries.
Although the developing world would bear the brunt of agflation, it could ripple through to consumers in wealthier countries.
For example, costlier food in China could lead to increasing wage demands there — and, consequently, more expensive made-in-China goods for shoppers overseas.
Such an import price shock is the main way that Alan Castle, chief U.K. economist at Lehman Brothers, thinks the food factor could impinge on medium-term inflation forecasts.
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/business/story.html?id=51cf50a2-b610-4777-832c-4ed466d7e2….
is someone pretending that GM food is CHEAPER?
ha, well ive read it all now.
GM can be cheaper if the trait engenders increased production. That is as simple as it gets in Economics 101!
Farmers in India, Brazil, Russia, France, Thailand and China have defied government decrees banning engineered crops.
They’ve faced threats of fines and imprisonment to grow GM crops. In Brazil, they’ve driven off government inspectors with guns and dogs.
Farmers know better than anyone what improves agricultural productivity, and with this degree of enthusiasm, you either say, “farmers are drooling cretins” or you concede that these crops are good for farmers.
Of course GM crops, and the foods made from them, are cheaper. If you shop for non-GM “organic” food, you will quickly discover that the alternative is cheaper by orders of magnitude.
This sort of research is within the reach of anyone who shops at grocery stores.
‘I am actually bedding down a supply contract with an Indian corporate house now to ‘export’ the system and my genetic base’ – Aaron
Are you saying you are setting up a deal where you are going to export an Australian crop species that parasitizes on an Australian tree species to India?…What independant scientific studies have been conducted to ensure that this is not going to cause environmental damage to native Indian flora and fauna?.. Water Hyacinth, Cane Toad etc. 101…
“You have all sorts of forces going in opposite directions,” said Danny Gabay, director at Fathom Financial Consulting
Well at least one part of Edmunds latest cut and paste job was accurate.
GM can be cheaper if the trait engenders increased production. That is as simple as it gets in Economics 101! – Aaron
Since the same can be said for non-GM crops, thats
the usual GM propaganda… Out of interest how many of your expanded range of nut cultivars are GM enhanced? Your site appears to only mention a ‘nut breeding program’.
‘The answer is to plant new (old) ones. If your farmers had any brains they’d be planting chestnuts and other indigenous perennial staple crops’ – Aaron
Ya gotta admire Aaron, from promoting GM to promoting native species in one breathtaking volte-face… I wonder if the idea of indigenous perennial staple crops is being promoted with quite the same enthusiasm by Edmunds to a certain Indian corporate house…
Breeding based purely on selection. First stages on any breeding program particularly with wild species always begin with Selection 101. Given India has native sandalwood and wheat is not a native there is a fair chance using native Indian host trees the ‘new’ Australian production system will be an environmental winfall for the triple bottom line.
Yes Lamna asus, I have the intelligence to be able to comprehend that GM and native crops can exist side by side. In fact given the chance I would actually prove it for you. No GM trait/s could help production on my marginal soils so I plant native trees there 101. On my ever reliable soils GM could provide great benefits to production. EG BT resistance to Heliothis attack in canola and pulses. Glufosinate tolerance in legumes and canola for end of season crop topping (ie weed control). Interspecific hybridisation of Lupinus mutabilis with angustifolious for high oil acid tolerant legumes. The list is endless and no doubt beyond your lack of agronomic engenderment.
Why would I adopt both? Because I can see the inevitability of being able to increase productivity, sustainability and marketability. Food inflation (agflation) is coming to a supermarket near you. And when it really bites, the ‘people’ are going to be mightily p#ssed off.
In case you haven’t noticed consumers are having less say in just what they are served because in their droves, farmers are choosing to sell their produce to biofuel manufacturers. Palm oil futures, soyoil futures have made record highs just this week. This will continue and lord help you when the crude oil price rallies on top of this. So if you are worried about GM food we simply sell to the cars 101.
Anonymity is a safe place to preach from eh Lamus asus? Gutless mate gutless … 101.
‘there is a fair chance using native Indian host trees the ‘new’ Australian production system will be an environmental winfall’ – Aaron
So you are saying no studies have been carried out Edmunds? You’ve just decided it will probably be ok, not very scientific 101…what happens if its not?….
‘No GM trait/s could help production on my marginal soils’- Aaron
Sounds like GM heresy 101, Edmunds…
‘The list is endless’ – Aaron
Almost as endless as the list of weed and pest species out evolving the Ag-biotech industry’s GM attempts to kill them…
‘In case you haven’t noticed consumers are having less say in just what they are served because in their droves, farmers are choosing to sell their produce to biofuel manufacturers.’ – Aaron
Really Edmunds? You sure your local supermarket just didn’t have much demand for Durian fruit and so stopped stocking it?
Just to indulge your pet theory for a moment, logically GM crops increased yields will allow farmers to grow more produce for the biofuel manufacturers since clearly farmers must be making more money from that market, which is why they are not selling it to supermarkets on whichever planet your economics 101 was studied; however Biofuel cannot meet the demands of the petro dependant West and demand is going to keep on rising, pushing up demand and therefore prices as the third world develops… so the ‘people’ starve in both your GM and your non-GM scenarios….. at which point ‘the ‘people’ are going to be mightily p#ssed off’… at farmers..
‘soyoil futures have made record highs just this week’ – Aaron
I very much doubt that is organic soyoil futures Edmunds.. so much for your championing of GM will feed the world 101.
What the same scientific rigour that was carried out when all important agricultural crops were adopted? ANd I am sure if we had 20 years to scientifically verify to a ‘European’ standard then maybe it would be done. But because of resource constraints now hitting everywhere I’d say there is a sense of urgency to bring marginal lands into production around the globe yesterday.
Lamna Asus your predicament is unchanged by your apparent wisdon. World grain stocks continue to fall, world food prices continue to rise and as of yet in all your posteuring you have failed to alert the thread to any technology or system of food production that can halt the global calamity from occurring you seem surprisingly relaxed about. Just what is it you are argueing about? A confused lot you Europeans. Adopt the moral highground until the resource base around you starts to hyperinflate in price and disappear from stockpiles.
Just imagine where vegetable oil futures would be without the high yielding GM soy crops coming out of South and North America? Palm is GMed yet it continues to rise suggesting perhaps there is a problem with supply relative to demand … theres that 101 again.
So put up some constructive comments if indeed you have any. Its easy to be critical (and avoid sunburn). Credibility comes from solution suggestions … ah but then again you can’t have solutions if you don’t acknowledge problems. Obviously your wife does the shopping …
‘Credibility comes from solution suggestions’ – Aaron
As I have repeatedly stated in past threads on many forums, human over population is the source of the problem and contraception is neither difficult nor expensive Edmonds….and unlike your fantasy suggestion that GM crops will replace oil and at the same time feed an ever expanding population, it works.
Much of this discussion is based on accepting the disturbing premise that it is appropriate to dictate others’ business to them.
Once that noxious notion is swallowed, the only remaining arguments are over what we should force people to do, and why.
Which is equally noxious.
So are you volunteering to go Lamna? Overpopulation is the number one problem of this world but I have a will to live … You?
Schiller what erks me is that we have people with no experience in food production dictating how we can and can’t grow food. Granted not every farmer is the smartest cookie in the jar but some of us have meaningful solutions for a more sustainable future. GM is NOT the solution, GM is part of it, allowing us to breed back survivability traits decades of conventional breeding disposed of because they generally compromised yield to the assumption oil would always be cheap. Well clearly that was a dangerous path to take …
Can we avoid a die-off? I doubt it … but we must do our best to at least have a sustainable agricultural base to whatever equilibrium population can be supported. Food for fuel is a crazy notion but it only happens because humans are undervalueing food commodities …