The Guardian 24 October, 2007
Cane toad crops: the GM debate
Clive Blazey
Why is GM canola such a threat?
Genetically manipulated canola is a crop that cross-pollinates easily — 20-30% of canola flowers are visited by bees that pick up the pollen, not just on canola but on plants in the same family, including mustards and weedy Brassica that already plague our croplands.
Seeds ripen unevenly so many seeds fall to the ground before harvesting. Now, because it is genetically manipulated to resist herbicides, the canola seed and pollen will cross with weeds and contaminate conventional crops.
GM canola pollen will blow all over Australia. Wild turnip, wild radish and charlock will become herbicide resistant super-weeds.
Tank mixes of the most dangerous chemicals will be used in attempts to remove them from our public spaces and croplands.
The Department of Agriculture in Alberta, Canada explained why the whole canola crop in Canada was contaminated in just two years. It calculates that if only 1% (not 20-30%) of flowers cross-pollinate, and reach a neighbour’s non-GM canola flowers, that would produce 10,000 seeds per acre, or 4 seeds-per-metre, and that is just in the first year!
Monsanto sues farmer
Remember Percy Schmeiser — the Canadian farmer who was forced to pay Monsanto $172,000 because Monsanto’s GM canola seed appeared on his property?
He didn’t buy it, he didn’t plant it, and he didn’t sell it — and what’s even worse, it contaminated his own canola varieties.
To add insult to injury the court confiscated his seed. Percy and his wife had spent 50 years improving their own strain of seeds, just like over a billion other farmers around the world who select to suit their own soils and their own climate.
Our whole food supply, which has been built on these sorts of preciously selected improvements, is now under threat.
Monsanto won’t accept liability
Genetically manipulated foods are not like faulty products that can be recalled.
Once a new gene, particularly in canola, which is a member of the promiscuous Brassica family, leaps the fence there is no telling what the repercussions will be!
It has taken decades of lobbying to ban smoking in public places because it poses a health risk to non-smokers.
If you are a farmer and bees pick up GM pollen from a neighbour’s GM crop and transfer it to your organic or non-GM canola flowers, then your crop will have GM genes that develop into seed.
These seeds are actually now Monsanto’s seeds due to their patent. To continue the passive smoking analogy, it is as though your lungs have caught particles patented by Monsanto so not only do you die without compensation, but also you have to pay Monsanto for the privilege!
When a neighbour’s tree falls on your property you have a legal redress; this does not apply with patented life forms.
In the case of Monsanto, not only does the tree destroy your house, but you have to pay for the tree as well!
GM crops threaten organics
Farmers who plant GM crops take away the rights of farmers who don’t want GM crops and the rights of consumers who don’t want to eat it! We will all lose our choices.
GM pollen contamination will destroy the seed crops of our conventional canola farmers.
It will destroy all non-GM canola that has been especially adapted to each farm and collected for replanting by those farmers.
Whilst a few corporate farmers say they must have the right to choose GM crops, they don’t realise that once GM canola is released it will contaminate the whole countryside. It can’t be recalled.
These corporate predators have a vested interest in contaminating non-GM crops because they know reproductive isolation is impossible. GM contamination is tantamount to poisoning the water supply.
By refusing to label GM foods, and by refusing to compensate for contamination, these rogue predators (with the tacit approval of our governments) can destroy all other sources of seed.
Our governments are willing supporters of this travesty of justice.
The Federal Minister for Agriculture, Peter McGauran said: "I strongly believe in the environmental and economic benefits of GM crops."
However, each state has imposed bans on the planting of GM crops because of concerns about losing our "clean green" image.
Victoria’s Minister for Agriculture said Victoria’s moratorium would expire on 29 February 2008, paving the way for the introduction of GM canola into our food chain.
Are GM crops killing honeybees?
"Every third bite we consume in our diet is dependent on a honeybee to pollinate that food", says Zac Browning, American Beekeeping Federation.
The honeybee population of the US has collapsed, putting in jeopardy $14 billion worth of horticultural and pasture crops (lucerne and rye). The flowers of apples, soft fruits, kiwis, almonds and many more won’t set fruit without bees as pollinators. If there is no pollinator, there is no fruit.
Bees are dying away from the hives, and it is feared that pesticides that haven’t been banned, as they have been in Europe, could be the cause.
Pollination/fruiting is lowest near GM crops, whilst organic fields, where GM is banned, is unaffected.
Forty per cent of corn fields in the US are planted with insect-resistant GM crops, which German scientist Hans Hinrich Kaatz believes could be the cause of the Colony Collapse Disorder.
Genetically manipulated Bt corn has a gene from Bacillis thuringiensis inserted in its genome, making the corn toxic to caterpillars. It also means that the corn is classified as a pesticide!
The pollen from this corn is thought to damage the surface of a bee’s intestines, making it vulnerable to parasites.
Rachel Carson sounded the warning about the complex interrelationships between pesticides and animals 50 years ago.
Genetically manipulated crops have been rushed onto the market without the scrutiny of long-term effects. We may be witnessing a similar biological disaster.
Albert Einstein said "If the bees disappeared off the surface of the globe men would have four years of life left, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man."
Genetically manipulated corn with a bacterial toxin is not planted in Australia, but Bt cotton is.
[Bt is a naturally occurring bacteria which is toxic to many species of insects.]
If you don’t want GM crops planed in Australia, it’s vital that you express your view.
Acknowledgements: "The Diggers Club" and The Beacon