Jason Koutsoukis lobbies a lot for GM food in The Age lately. He quotes a governmental report that claims that GM food poses no danger to human health and the environment.
The US and Canada, two nations that engage a lot in producing transgenetically engineered food, don't label GM food as such, which makes it virtually impossible to determine which impact on individual health this food has.
Cross-pollination with conventional crop spreads the transgenetic material around - nature is no lab. Genetic material from GM corn in the US was already found in remote areas of Mexico, which has not allowed planting of GM crops.
Per definition, organic food can not make use of GM food, which means that there will be no more chance to produce organic food in the long run, or just on a very limited scale.
GM canola probably looks and tastes like conventional canola, but it is sufficiently different from it to deserve being patented. Basically, it is a new species. Australia has some experiences with introducing new species into its ecosystem, as far as I know hardly any positive experiences. There's lots of toads here naturally, so the cane toad can't harm.... There's lot of canola here, so GM canola can't harm...
The way Jason describes the customer's desire for GM food is quite interesting as well. The acceptance has risen, he states, but mentions no statistics. Was the rise from 10% to 11%? Leaving out precise figures nourishes the suspicion that most customers don't want GM food. Asking customers whether they would want to pay more for non-GM food is not really an objective way to find out about acceptance, and maintains the myth (also known as sales promise) that GM food can be produced cheaper, and the consumer would as well pay cheaper prices. Somehow this contradicts the capitalist mantra of maximising profits, but it nurtures the myth of benevolent corporations.
If you suspect that I don't want GM food to be introduced here, you are right. In Germany, illegally planted GM crops have already cross-pollinated adjacent crops, and thus destroyed the livelihood of organic farmers. Monsanto sued a farmer in Canada whose crop was affected by cross-pollination and made him pay for things he didn't want to have in first place.
Although I'm quite happy with your implicit consent to my prior postings, I'm curious about your thoughts about GM food.
Do you want it? Do you think the introduction of a new species into the Australian ecosystem is a good idea? If GM food isn't labelled, can we with certainty conclude that it has no health impacts? Isn't it a reduction of consumer's choice, if "the whole world" plants GM crop? Wouldn't there be an enormous advantage for Australia to be one of the few countries to still produce organic food?
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I'm unsure why you define GM canola as a different species to regular canola. The guidelines for defining species is often the ability to reproduce, and create viable/firtile offspring. A newer, more academically accepted differentiation between species is a sort of natural reproduction where - that this reproduction happens in nature (e.g. organisms capable of reproducing but for natural barriers etc.).
So clearly, the cain toad is a species separate from other toads. And clearly, as you pointed out, GM canola can reproduce ("cross-pollination").
I suppose it can be argued that GM canola is a sub-species - able to produce viable offspring with ragular canola, but not naturally. But even this is a stretch.
Not saying we shouldn't be more careful than we're being - but relating GM canola to cain toads carries no weight, and you have very few other arguments.
Avoiding science, the argument, to me, is clear. There is a slight risk in using GM foods but already easily enough food for everyone in the world to eat (sustainably).
But, as people will starve while capitalism still exists...
GM everything, I couldn't care less.
-dic
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