More to GM ruling than meets the eye

contact with GMOs until the Marsh

case came along.
Before this trial, the best that anti-
GMO organic activists could do was
contend in the court of public opinion
that GMOs contaminated organic
crops. This is now no longer debatable
in Australia. Advantage organic
activists.
It gets worse. Justice Martins ruling
will indefinitely delay approval of the
GMO wheat currently under develop-
ment in Australia, while also delaying
adoption of the other GMO crops list-
ed above, in spite of the fact that they
are all grown elsewhere without issue.
Again, advantage organic activists.
Meanwhile, authorities like Andrew
Weidemann of the Grain Producers of
Australia, and John Snooke of The
Pastoralists and Graziers Association,
are so busy celebrating they dont even
see whats coming.
Instead of pressing on with the good
fight, theyre calling for Australias
organic industry to accept a 0.9 per
cent tolerance level for GMO contam-
ination, assuming this will put a stop to
all future litigation.
But the minute an organic farmer
discovers his crop is above that level,
thats when well see the sequel to the
Marsh v Baxter trial, the only differ-
ence being that the organic com-
plainant will use 0.9pc as his threshold
for alleged contamination instead of
the organic industrys self-imposed aus-
terity measure of zero tolerance for
GMOs that Mr Marsh used.
News flash: Its not the threshold for
GMO contamination of an organic
crop thats the issue. Its the very idea of
contamination itself thats at the root of
the problem.
If Australian farmers want to avoid
going backwards like European farmers
are enduring successive crop failures,
protesting for the right to grow GMOs
while officials import GMO shipments
from Canada and the United States
people like Mr Weidemann and Mr
Snooke will want to establish the same
conditions that exist in Canada and the
United States: cross-pollination with
GMOs does not constitute contamina-
tion of an organic crop. Not ever, not
under any circumstances. Full stop.
If its an organic crop for food, cross-
pollination makes no difference
because GMOs were not used by the
organic farmer. Advantage GMO farm-
ers.
If its an organic seed crop as in
Jackson County the defenders of sci-
ence-based farming need to stress the
long-held principle that its the organic
seed growers responsibility to ensure
his crop does not cross-pollinate, not
his neighbours'. Advantage GMO
farmers.
Just because organic activists con-
cocted a marketing system that
excludes GMOs, it does not follow that
we should play along by granting them
what theyve wanted all along.
Establishing an allowable limit on
GMO content in non-GMO organic
food a threshold will only give con-
sumers the impression that something
is indeed wrong with GMOs, precisely
what organic activists claim.
Organic activists can describe the
horrific things they believe will happen
if an organic crop cross-pollinates with
GMOs increased cancer rates,
autism, you name it.
But its all just so much cultural driv-
el in the end, not based on peer review
or even a single replicable experiment.
And by failing to respond to such
flawed thinking when its applied out-
side the organic sector, we lend cre-
dence to it, along with every organic
activists idiosyncratic view of how they
believe farming should be practised.
The world is watching. Its time for
Australia to stop playing along with
organic zealots.
*Mischa Popoff is a former organic
farmer and USDA-contract organic
inspector. He is the author of, Is it
Organic?, and is the author of
numerous articles in defence of
genetic engineering.
Mischa Popoff.
WEEKLY NEWS
4
Farm Weekly Thursday, July 3, 2014
Says MISCHA POPOFF*
DONT fall for the biggest piece
of Kabuki Theatre (posturing) ever
staged by organic activists.
Yes, Michael Baxter prevailed (in
a recent WA court case defending
his right to grow GM canola) and
will not pay damages to Steven
Marsh based on Marshs claim that
Mr Baxter contaminated his
organic fields with genetically-
modified organisms (GMOs).
But, in his Judgment Summary,
Justice Kenneth Martin left the
door wide open to a litany of
future claims.
Part of his summary reads: GM
canola only posed a risk of trans-
ferring genetic material if a canola
seed germinated in the Eagle Rest
soil? and then later cross-fertilised
through its pollen being
exchanged with another compati-
ble species...
As is plain to see, what saved Mr
Baxter is that canola would never
pollinate the cereal crop Mr Marsh
was growing.
So anti-GMO organic activists
will simply find a different case.
And, rest assured, they will - their
very existence depends on it.
An organic cotton or canola
crop will do. So will broccoli,
Brussels sprouts, cabbage or cauli-
flower, all of which are in the same
brassica family as canola.
These vegetables have been kept
separate from each other and from
canola over the decades by seed
growers.
But an activist organic seed
grower could use any of these
crops as the basis for another
GMO contamination case.
It was, after all, organic sugar-
beet seed production at the centre
of the recent ban on GMOs in
Jackson County, Oregon, in the
United States.
Finally there are GMO soy-
beans, corn, potatoes and sugar
beets crops already approved but
not-yet in use in Australia.
Until May 28 (Justice Martins
ruling), there was no such thing as
contamination by GMOs of any
of these crops when grown organi-
cally in Australia, mirroring the
state of affairs in the United States
and Canada, where organic farm-
ers are only prevented from using
GMOs, the same as theyre pre-
vented from using synthetic herbi-
cides.
And, just as organic farmers do
not face decertification when their
crop comes into contact with her-
bicides from a neighbouring field,
they likewise have never faced
decertification for coming into
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