Nice post. It’s also nice to see reason and logic in a discussion!

I can’t see how Australian canola oil (a low erucic acid rapeseed oil as Dacks says) can help hunger very much either unless the oil is used for Australian food aid. Hungry people need calories from oil. Does Australia donate oil to the poor and hungry?

Cotton in India is quite a different issue. Farmers plant cotton because it is a high-paying cash crop relative to the other crops they grow. They can sell it and make so much more money that they can buy food for their families and have money left over. There a some good economic analysis papers published on this. It amazes me that the economics work this way but they do and that’s why Indian farmers switch to cotton. Perhaps this is telling us the their food crops were being badly undervalued in the first place.

2. Can’t really see how Roundup Ready “canola” planted in AU helps with global famines. Nor do the GM cotton crops currently planted in India. It would be nice if Monsanto created seeds that solved world hunger problems, but I haven’t seen any evidence so far.

It turns out that mandatory labeling of GM foods like Michael seems to advocate denies freedom of choice and runs up costs. It’s not just the label. Crops must be segregated and ingredients and foods repeatedly tested. This adds 10–25% to the cost of these foods. Mandatory GM labeling means that we all pay this extra cost whether we care or not. It also means that stores will stock only GM free foods because they make more profit on those and because they don’t want to carry two kinds of everything (GM and Non-GM) which ends up denying consumers choice. I’ll say that again, Mandatory GM labeling = no choice. Michael believes in choice so I think he’ll agree. Voluntary labeling insures choice.

Mandatory GM labeling isn’t about consumer choice anyway. It’s a political tactic imposed by those who oppose GM crops. They hope that the cost and barriers that are created by mandatory labeling will bar them from the market place. Their efforts are financed by the food industry, the organic growers, and retailers who all profit from selling GM free food.

The underlying fundamental fact is that consumers have been deliberately lied to about what GM foods are and what the real risks are (next to none). Many have formed negative perceptions. This is part of the anti-GM strategy. There can be no meaningful freedom of choice in a sea of lies. Let’s fix that first as Luke Weston has so eloquently tried to do and then we can give people real choices.

Your reasoning is indeed why some farmers oppose GM crops — not because they don’t like genetically modified crops but because they can get a premium price for their ‘GM Free’ certified crops.

Several canola farmers out our way are mightily pissed at their neighbours since they introduced Monsanto’s RoundupReady variant. They’ve lost several European markets.

One more amongst these voluntarily irrational choices may be: ‘no laboratory recombinant genetically modified’ foods, (whatever that may mean to the consumer).
This is as irrational as ‘not eating dog’ muscle, (pedants are invited to stay shtumm for the while about the hazards of consuming carnivore livers).
Do GM advocates eat dog?

No, this is not about ‘health/safety’ at all, but about consumer choice, even if that IS irrational!
GM free islands, for instance, are able to sell their produce at a premium, to those ‘irrational’ folk, just as are current producers who choose to make Kosher food.
You do not complain about that, I take it?
Why not? Why complain against the irrationality of objecting to GM food, yet remain silent on the irrationality of objecting to non-Halal food?

I have yet to hear one universal GM advocate answer that question coherently.

But: and here is the crucial difference as far as producers are concerned;
it is several magnitudes easier to keep Kosher or Halal production isolated from contamination, vs. GM.
Even if the customer preference is both arbitrary & irrational, (and I am sure that it is both), it exists.
And it might be taken advantage of.*
For massive financial gain.
If we can keep say, a productive isolated region “GM” free, whatever that means to the consumers.
Tasmania comes to mind as a perfect candidate.

Please think about why you do not object vociferously to Kosher producers, nor Halal producers, but reserve mild scorn for anti-GM producers…
To not do so, would not be skeptical.
Skepticism includes not just being skeptical of external views, but also of one’s own prejudices and assumptions.

Simply ‘raising consciousness’ again.

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* Urk! Did I just a sentence end a proposition with?
Yoda proud would be.