More to GM Ruling Than Meets the Eye

More to GM ruling than meets the eyecontact with GMOs until the Marshcase came along.

Before this trial, the best that anti-GMO organic activists could do wascontend in the court of public opinionthat GMOs contaminated organiccrops. This is now no longer debatablein Australia. Advantage organicactivists.

It gets worse. Justice Martins rulingwill indefinitely delay approval of theGMO wheat currently under develop-ment in Australia, while also delayingadoption of the other GMO crops list-ed above, in spite of the fact that theyare all grown elsewhere without issue.

Again, advantage organic activists.Meanwhile, authorities like Andrew

Weidemann of the Grain Producers ofAustralia, and John Snooke of ThePastoralists and Graziers Association,are so busy celebrating they dont evensee whats coming.

Instead of pressing on with the goodfight, theyre calling for Australiasorganic industry to accept a 0.9 percent tolerance level for GMO contam-ination, assuming this will put a stop toall future litigation.

But the minute an organic farmerdiscovers his crop is above that level,thats when well see the sequel to theMarsh v Baxter trial, the only differ-ence being that the organic com-plainant will use 0.9pc as his thresholdfor alleged contamination instead ofthe organic industrys self-imposed aus-terity measure of zero tolerance forGMOs that Mr Marsh used.

News flash: Its not the threshold forGMO contamination of an organiccrop thats the issue. Its the very idea ofcontamination itself thats at the root ofthe problem.

If Australian farmers want to avoidgoing backwards like European farmersare enduring successive crop failures,protesting for the right to grow GMOswhile officials import GMO shipmentsfrom Canada and the United States people like Mr Weidemann and MrSnooke will want to establish the sameconditions that exist in Canada and theUnited States: cross-pollination withGMOs does not constitute contamina-tion of an organic crop. Not ever, notunder any circumstances. Full stop.

If its an organic crop for food, cross-pollination makes no differencebecause GMOs were not used by theorganic farmer. Advantage GMO farm-ers.

If its an organic seed crop as inJackson County the defenders of sci-ence-based farming need to stress thelong-held principle that its the organicseed growers responsibility to ensurehis crop does not cross-pollinate, nothis neighbours'. Advantage GMOfarmers.

Just because organic activists con-cocted a marketing system thatexcludes GMOs, it does not follow thatwe should play along by granting themwhat theyve wanted all along.

Establishing an allowable limit onGMO content in non-GMO organicfood a threshold will only give con-sumers the impression that somethingis indeed wrong with GMOs, preciselywhat organic activists claim.

Organic activists can describe thehorrific things they believe will happenif an organic crop cross-pollinates withGMOs increased cancer rates,autism, you name it.

But its all just so much cultural driv-

el in the end, not based on peer reviewor even a single replicable experiment.

And by failing to respond to suchflawed thinking when its applied out-side the organic sector, we lend cre-dence to it, along with every organicactivists idiosyncratic view of how theybelieve farming should be practised.

The world is watching. Its time forAustralia to stop playing along withorganic zealots. *Mischa Popoff is a former organicfarmer and USDA-contract organicinspector. He is the author of, Is itOrganic?, and is the author ofnumerous articles in defence ofgenetic engineering.

Mischa Popoff.

WEEKLY NEWS4 Farm Weekly Thursday, July 3, 2014

Says MISCHA POPOFF*

DONT fall for the biggest pieceof Kabuki Theatre (posturing) everstaged by organic activists.

Yes, Michael Baxter prevailed (ina recent WA court case defendinghis right to grow GM canola) andwill not pay damages to StevenMarsh based on Marshs claim thatMr Baxter contaminated hisorganic fields with genetically-modified organisms (GMOs).

But, in his Judgment Summary,Justice Kenneth Martin left thedoor wide open to a litany offuture claims.

Part of his summary reads: GMcanola only posed a risk of trans-ferring genetic material if a canolaseed germinated in the Eagle Restsoil? and then later cross-fertilisedthrough its pollen beingexchanged with another compati-ble species...

As is plain to see, what saved MrBaxter is that canola would neverpollinate the cereal crop Mr Marshwas growing.

So anti-GMO organic activistswill simply find a different case.And, rest assured, they will - theirvery existence depends on it.

An organic cotton or canolacrop will do. So will broccoli,Brussels sprouts, cabbage or cauli-

flower, all of which are in the samebrassica family as canola.

These vegetables have been keptseparate from each other and fromcanola over the decades by seedgrowers.

But an activist organic seedgrower could use any of thesecrops as the basis for anotherGMO contamination case.

It was, after all, organic sugar-beet seed production at the centreof the recent ban on GMOs inJackson County, Oregon, in theUnited States.

Finally there are GMO soy-beans, corn, potatoes and sugarbeets crops already approved butnot-yet in use in Australia.

Until May 28 (Justice Martinsruling), there was no such thing ascontamination by GMOs of anyof these crops when grown organi-cally in Australia, mirroring thestate of affairs in the United Statesand Canada, where organic farm-ers are only prevented from usingGMOs, the same as theyre pre-vented from using synthetic herbi-cides.

And, just as organic farmers donot face decertification when theircrop comes into contact with her-bicides from a neighbouring field,they likewise have never faceddecertification for coming into

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