Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Archives for October 13, 2005

Farmers Reject ‘Testing’ Funded by Greenpeace

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The following press release from the Pastoral and Graziers’ Association (PGA) of Western Australia raises some interesting issues.

FAST AND LOOSE WITH THE TRUTH, YET AGAIN

Greenpeace and the Network of Concerned Farmers (NCF) have, once again, resorted to media grandstanding in their obdurate opposition to GM crops.

The Greenpeace press release titled “First Australian farmer falls prey to GE contamination”, released on 10.10.05, does nothing to advance the public debate. It merely reinforces the fact that
the misuse of scientific data is the principle technique employed by these organisations.

The press release claims that GM contamination was found in a non-GM crop at a rate of 0.5%. It is important to note that testing was on a crop owned by Geoffrey Carracher, a NCF member and known anti-GM campaigner, and the analysis was paid for by Greenpeace.

Would Greenpeace accept a scientific analysis as to the benefits of a GM crop, where the data came from one farmer – one pro-GM farmer – and the analysis was paid for by a biotechnology company? Would the media?

Such an analysis is meaningless – certainly without significant corroborating evidence, and particularly as the supposed quantity found (0.5%) is actually well within the threshold set by the EU (0.9%) – one of the most restrictive markets in the world. Just as with the false ‘contamination’ scare in WA three weeks ago, the opponents of biotechnology will take any opportunity to run a fear campaign on this issue.

The PGA position on GMOs remains the same

How Many People?

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I am in Darwin for a conference with the grand title ‘Creating a Vision for a Greater Australia – big ideas for a big country’. Chief Minister Clare Martin and The Hon Dr Barry Jones AO will both be speaking this morning.

It is interesting to ponder that in about 200 AD when the world population was about 200 million Quitus Septimus Florence Terillianus a Roman citizen was worrying about population. He wrote:

“farms obliterate emply places, plough fields vanquish forests, herds drive out wild beasts, sandy places are planted with crops, stones are fixed, swamps drained, and there are such great cities where formley hardly a hut .. everywhere there is a dwelling, everywhere a multitude … We are burdensome to the earth. The resources are scarcely adequate for us … already nature does not sustain us. Truly, pestilence and hunger and war and flood must be considered as a remedy for nations, like a pruning back of the human race becoming excessive in numbers.”

In 2005 there are more than 6 billion of us, with a projected population of 9.5 billion by 2050, at which point human population growth should plateau.

Scientific America has a feature on population in its September (2005) issue. Prof Joel Cohen writes that

“… the dramatic fall since 1970 of the global population growth rate to 1.1 or 1.2 percent a year today resulted primarily from choices by billions of couples around the world to limit the number of people born. Global human populations growth rates have probably risen and fallen numerous times in the past. The great plagues and wars of the 14th century, for example, reduced not only the growth rate but also the absolute size of global population both largely involuntary changes. Never before the 20th century has a fall in the global population growth rates been voluntary.”