[Pil-pc-oceania] Urgent GM action required this week: States Ministers to meet on Friday

[Deb Guildner]

Please forward this message to all your contacts


URGENT: GM-free cyber action: quick, easy and crucial!!!
Tell your MPs to extend the GM crop
bans and to keep Australia GM-free!!


It appears Australia is on the brink of losing its precious GM-free status.


The Agriculture Ministers of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia are set to meet on Friday November 9th to decide our GM future. Yet the Ministers will not even:


  a.. publish the reports of their GM crop ban reviews, received last week; 
  b.. respect most shoppers and farmers who want GM-free crops and foods; 
  c.. negotiate with the Tasmanian and WA governments which support the GM bans; 
  d.. heed scientific warnings that some GM foods are not safe to eat; 
  e.. take seriously the threats of herbicide tolerant weeds and chemical pollution; or 
  f.. admit Australia's reputation as a producer of clean, green foods for export will end.


To quickly, easily and effectively have your say, before it's too late, visit any or all of the following web pages by clicking the links.

  Gene Ethics: http://geneethics.org/actnow/display/2


  Mothers Against Genetic Engineering: http://www.madge.org.au/support.php


  Greenpeace: http://www.greenpeace.org/australia/take-action/online/genetic-engineering/help-keep-australia-ge-free%20


Please call on your MPs to extend the present bans on GM crops in your state. Also voice your concerns to Premiers and Ministers in other states. If GM canola is planted next March, its pollen and seed will cross state borders. GM pollution would be irreversible!!


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Some of the Unresolved Threshold Issues
on managing the GM canola bans


The state and territory bans on GM food crops, particularly canola, should be extended for at least five years. Various threshold issues must be resolved before the bans could be lifted. For instance:

o There must be a consensus among state, territory and commonwealth governments that the bans should end. No single government or subset of governments should unilaterally lift their GM bans. This would commit the whole nation to GM as canola seed and pollen will cross state boundaries and cannot be contained (NB: in response to the Timbs Review of the Gene Technology Act, Victoria, NSW supported a national uniform approach to GM marketing issues);
o The Primary Industries Ministerial Council's segregation, coexistence and identity preservation system must be issued for public review and be adopted by the whole food industry and the community;
o Comprehensive, monitored and enforceable GM supply chain management systems and processes must be agreed by the whole food industry and the community, including testing, identity preservation, segregation, transport and handling;
o Costs associated with seed certification, testing, crushing, the cleaning of agricultural machinery, including windrowing equipment, Identity Preservation, segregation, grading equipment, transport, storage silos and labelling should be met by the gene technology companies, and not passed on to GM-free farmers, the food industry or the community at large;
o Require gene technology licensees Bayer Cropscience, Monsanto and others to submit seed of their approved GM varieties to National Variety Trials, to compare every aspect of agronomic, environmental and safety performance with the best conventional varieties. The design, conduct and results of the trials must independently determined and the results published;
o GM-free farmers and the public must be enabled to participate in determining system parameters;
o Require all the products of GM canola, including animal feed and oil, to be fully labelled so that any product of GM canola or cotton that may be present is disclosed. Labelling must be specific and vague terms such as "by-pass protein" or "%crude protein" that do not specify GM content must not be allowed. Labelling of pelletised stock feed and bagged canola must specify if it contains GM material;
o As Bayer and Monsanto intend to levy end point royalties on grains and oilseeds at the silo, they must set in advance the fees to be charged to GM growers. (NB: Monsanto charged $245 per hectare for GM cotton seed in Australia; Canadian farmers get just a 29% share from GM canola)
o As GM-free growers will deliver into the same facilities, Bayer and Monsanto must specify in advance the level of GM contamination in GM-free growers' conventional canola that would trigger a claim for a technology use royalty payment;
o Gene technology companies must publicly specify the allocation of promised GM canola benefits, between themselves, the growers, handlers, marketers and shoppers. In North America, over 90% of benefits from GM canola accrued to GM seed and agrichemical companies for the first five years. It remains over 70%. The price of food has not fallen (EU, 2006);
o Seed cleaning, grain harvesters and transport businesses must have their additional costs due to separately handling GM and non-GM grain covered by GM companies or the government;
o A state-wide system of public notification of commercial GM crop sites must be required to enable apiarists and other affected industries to identify and avoid the GM locations sites, to protec their products and markets;
o Insurance Brokers to confirm they will underwrite non-GM farmers' claims if their GM-free crop is contaminated with GM material and they suffer market loss. Also a GM farmer's claim, when their crop spreads and contaminates a neighbour's property;
o a strict liability regime for any GM contamination of conventional or organic cropping systems, supply chains or export shipments is required, with the technology owners and their licensed users being responsible to pay for any market loss associated with their product.;
o Imposts on the public such as higher Roundup tolerant weed management costs;
o Discrepancies between the various forward estimates of benefits from GM canola must be reconciled. For instance, ABARE projects $3 billion over ten years but RIRDC says $28 million pa, but only $15 million if the EU keeps its bans, and a loss if costs blow out and markets are lost).
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