Biotechnology

How did I miss this: On 30th August there was an article in the West Australian titled ‘Libs flag new GM crop trials’ in which the Western Australian Opposition was reported to be calling for wide-scale commercial trials of genetically modified (GM) canola with a view to lifting the current moratorium banning GM crops in that state.

The WA Agriculture and Food Minister Kim Chance had already responded to the Libs new found enthusiasm for GM by detailing in a media release how Western Australia’s canola growers are now receiving premium prices for their crops because of the State’s GM-free status.

But David Tribe asks whether farmers are better off with the $1 a tonne premium if the GM canola is higher yielding.

Anyway, it is significant that a State Opposition is finally taking on the GM issue and that there is at last some sort of evidence of a price premium for non-GM canola.

Melbourne hosted an international agricultural biotechnology conference earlier in the week. I was expecting to read more about it in the mainstream media including how ridiculous it is that the Victorian Government is principal sponsor for a conference promoting a technology it has banned!

That’s right, moratoriums banning the commercial production of GM food crops were introduced into Victoria a couple of years ago.

I wrote a piece at the time for the Herald Sun entitled ‘Bracks Sowing GM Seeds of Doubt’.

Anyways, I’ve been surprised to hear so little about the three-day international event on the controversial emerging technology featured in a State that has banned it.

David Tribe posted comment at his blog about a session on the Australian Wheat Board and its view on GM bread.

Professor Jennifer Thomson from the University of Cape Town wrote a piece for The Australian entitled ‘Use Biotechnology to Feed the Poor’ with a summary of the GM crops currently being developed in Africa, by Africans:

“In South Africa, GM crops that are being cultivated include herbicide-resistant maize and soybean, as well as insect-resistant cotton and maize.

…The cotton and maize are being grown by many small-scale farmers who are experiencing great increases in yields. In addition, with insect-resistant cotton and maize, they are saving money by decreasing their use of insecticides — definitely an environmental improvement.

Other crops in the pipeline include maize resistant to the African endemic maize streak virus and cassava resistant to the African cassava mosaic virus. MSV is rampant in many African countries, and a few years ago Uganda nearly lost its entire crop of cassava to ACMV, which is spreading rapidly towards Nigeria, one of Africa’s most important producers of the crop.

Another trait that is being developed in important African crops is drought tolerance. The lack of water is surely one of the greatest problems facing agriculture in Africa.”

When will the Victorian government lift the moratorium on GM food crops?

It is interesting that during this period of overwhelming concern about global warming, and given bans on GM food crops in all Australian states except Queensland, that Australian scientists should find an antifreeze gene in Antarctica and begin a discussion about crop losses due to frost.

Victorian Minister for Innovation, John Brumby, made the announcement at a biotechnology conference in Chicago, and The Age reported his comment that:

“Over the next few years, we should see the development and application of technologies for frost tolerance in crops based on the knowledge gained from the functional analysis of these antifreeze genes.”

So when will the Victorian government lift its ban on the commercial production of GM food crops? And why is there a ban in place anyway?

Even Bill Clinton is pro-GM food crops – at least that’s according to today’s Sydney Morning Herald.

I would like to know more about the Antarctic hairgrass, which has the antifreeze gene. It apparently grows on the Antarctic peninsula.

Jeffrey Smith’s book ‘Seeds of Deception’ has been translated into several languages, so presumably it sold well in english when it was first published a couple of years ago. A basic premise of the book is that genetically modified (GM) food is unsafe.

I’ve searched and searched for an example of an unsafe GM food that is being sold commercially and can’t find one – and neither it seems can the UN. There have been foods that didn’t pass the tests and so didn’t make it onto the supermarket shelves.

I heard Smith on local ABC radio when he was in Brisbane promoting ‘Seeds of Deception’ about eighteen months ago. He was being interview by Steve Austin and every time Austin asked for an example of an unsafe food, Smith sort of wiggled out of the question with reference to how GM foods have not been properly tested and how it is our children who will suffer.

A second book by Jeffrey Smith about how GM foods are gonna kill us will be published in August. Called ‘Genetic Roulette’ it will apparently document the health risks from GM foods… and I thought that is what the first book ‘Seeds of Deception’ was all about?

I reckon Smith should tell us right-a-way what the health risks are. Why should we wait until August?

Unless it’s all hype, as David Tribe explains at his blog, click here.

I am starting to wonder how many people buy these books to be titillated rather than informed? Perhaps it’s a bit like the hysteria surrounding global warming? The elite, in particular, want to talk about it, and be frightened by it, but do they really believe it?

Question: when is a tomato not a tomato? Answer: When it’s an organic tomato. Those who are into organics say it’s superior to anything you can get that has been grown using conventional production methods. They will tell you that an organic tomato tastes better, is better for you and is grown in away that causes less harm to the environment. It may be more expensive, but you get what you pay for, don’t you?

Thats accoring to an article on organics titled It’s only natural published over the weekend in the Sunday [colour] Magazine of the Sydney and Melbourne tabloid newspapers. I didn’t see the magazine, but Detribe kindly sent these snippets for the blog:

Critics, however, say it’s a rip-off. Nothing more than a load of marketing hogwash aimed at people with more money than sense, which plays on fears about the misuse of pesticides and is supported through a series of far-fetched claims. Weighing up the pros and cons can be confusing, but one thing that’s New Age crystal clear is just how popular organic products have become in recent years.

In 1990, just 372,000 ha were farmed organically in Australia. Today, the total land area given to organic production is around 10 million hectares and Australia now accounts for nearly half the world’s organic farmland. Staggering as that increase may seem, organic food production still represents less than two per cent of the total value of agricultural production in this country.

The Australian organic food industry, estimated to be worth between $250-$500 rnillion, remains a minor player in the agricultural sector But, according to the government’s Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC), domestic demand for organic products significantly outstrips supply, despite an estimated growth in organic production of at least 15-25 per cent per annum, every year for the past five years.

… “Our market is intelligent consumer” says Pierce Cody founder of Macro Whole foods, a new chain of organic supermarkets sprouting up in Sydney and Melbourne. The stores sell everything from organic toilet paper and toothpaste, to cleaning products and pet food. Cody believes the key to growth is treating the consumer with respect.

“I can’t see us advertising on a billboard, ‘Macro: You’ll love us’ because people don’t buy organic just because you tell them to. It’s a choice they arrive at themselves” he says.

Cody’s background is in advertising, he confesses he only got, into organics because he could see there was “monstrous scope for growth”. “It’s the thing,” he says. “The concept is very simple to understand. It’s clean, original food, made the way it used to be made. We are taking food back to the future.”

Cody admits that “our market tends to be more white collar than blue collar”, but he, denies the higher cost associated with organics makes it elitist.

“It is more expensive, yes, but it’s the real cost of food prior to industrialised farming, which cuts comers.”

[But]… by not using artificial fertilizers -like nitrogen, organic farmers have smaller yields – typically around 30 to 50 percent less than crops grown on conventional farms. This is the main reason why organic products are more expensive.

…In 1994; Trina Karstrom took over the Botobolar vineyard in scenic Mudgee, NSW. The 22 ha vineyard was the first organic one to be planted in Australia. That was in 1971 and the vines have always been grown without the use of pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers. She is in no doubt about the health benefits of organically grown produce.

“I shudder to think what residual spray is in [conventional] wines,” she says, “Grapes don’t get washed before they’re processed and the chemicals growers are allowed to spray are quite scary.” Or are they?

Not according to Microbiologist Dr David Tribe, Senior lecturer at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne. “The organic lot make all these claims about better nutrition and health benefits but, overall, the hard evidence simply doesn’t support it” he says.

A review of more than 100 studies that looked at differences between organic and conventional food, conducted in 2002 at New Zealand’s University of Otago found there was “no convincing evidence to back claims that organically grown foods were healthier or tastier than those grown using chemicals”. The review found that nutritional value had more to do with freshness and methods of storage than whether artificial inputs, such as pesticides, were used during production.

Strictly speaking; professional bodies outside the organic movement, such as the Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA) and the Australian Medical Association (AMA), do not share the view that organic food is necessarily healthier than food grown conventionally.

Sunday Magazine (News Ltd Herald/Sun), page 23.
February 19 2006 Craig Scutt

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Thanks Detribe.