“THREE years ago Labor backbencher Luke Donnellan voted for a four-year ban on genetically modified crops in Victoria. Last week Mr Donnellan invited his Labor colleagues to attend a pro-GM meeting at Parliament House sponsored by the Institute of Public Affairs …
ALP insiders say that senior ministers, especially Treasurer John Brumby and Premier Steve Bracks, regard the ban as running counter to the aim of making Victoria an international hub for biotechnology.
Read the complete article from The Age newspaper here: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/now-for-the-hard-sell-on-modified-foods/2007/05/19/1179497342307.html
I will be speaking along with Rick Roush, the dean of land and food resources at Melbourne University, and Chris Kelly, a Mallee grain grower.
I will probably reiterate what I said in my The Land column of a couple of weeks ago, the text is here: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/articles.php?id=127
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Is this crop subject to “a license”? I mean a fee to be paid to an American coy who developed the technology.
Farmers in America are regularly sue by bio-tech companies for planting without having bought their seed from said company.
Is there any market advantage to”green crops” no GM?
I understand some countries will not accept imports of GM food?
To advance a technology that would disadvantage us
on world markets would be crazy.
The smell of spin is in the air.
fluff4
frank luff,
you sound like your have bought the Greenpeace spin without checking any facts … Which farmers have been sued in the states? how come we are importing GM canola and losing market share to the canadians?
did you read my recent piece in The Land: http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/articles127.html
i’ve heard it said that ignorance aint what you don’t know, it what you do know that aint correct.
Nearly all new innovations are subject to some sort of intellectual protection and royalty payments, plant breeders have rights too y’know.
http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/
http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/pbr/index.shtml
And in Australian we have not one ASX listed agricultural biotech company because of the nonsensical bans politically slapped on by the Labor State Govts. With an agricultural boom already well underway, the lack of investment in plant breeding is a disgrace. Particularly when everyone sees the impacts of droughts on food prices …
Frank Luff you need to go back to school. Unfortunately there are many like you out there. Not to worry though, your ignorance will be rewarded by ever increasing food prices as farmers have run out of conventional options to increase output. Its a term todays economists are calling ‘agflation’ – the most dangerous form of inflation.
rog,
You apparently haven’t been following the news. The elite glitterati such as the ETC. Group (formerly RAFI) and others have decided, in concert with the United Nations, that breeder’s rights are important.
They are so important, in fact, that germplasm belongs “to the world” and therefore should be owned by nobody.
It should only be controlled by an elite who will govern, smugly but oh-so-beneficially by environmentalists who only have our “sustainable well-being” in mind.
It’s just eco-Stalinism, you can find it in agriculture, global warming, lots of places.
Nouveau Marxists need a home, now that the USSR blew their dreams of global dominance to shreds.