"I believe that normal people, sensible people, ought to stand up and speak up, and make these people [the Network of Concerned Farmers] disappear off the face of the earth, because they're destroying and damaging our industry." - agribusiness consultant, Bill Crabtree (item 3)
1.Victorian Secret Trial sites found
2.Could these be secret GM crops?
3.GM opponents accused of fear campaign
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1.Victorian Secret Trial sites found
Network of Concerned Farmers
http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/index.asp
The Network of Concerned Farmers have been looking for trial sites in Victoria that could possibly be the secret GM canola sites. We have taken photos from the air that identify sites that could be the GM sites conc erned.
(see photos *here: http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=1661)
(See high resolution photos * here: http://www.non-gm-farmers.com/news_details.asp?ID=1654)
As contamination will extend beyond the 400 metre notification zone, neighbour s are at risk of having crops contaminated without their knowledge and this could lead to economic risk in the future. Our purpose is to ensure that the neighbours in the area of these sites write to Bayer Cropscience requesting them to collect any of the ir unwanted GM plants that may be trespassing on their property.
To accept contamination means to accept liability for the consequences and this is the only way that we can ensure that liability is assigned to the GM company rather than those not wantin g to grow the crop.
Our Federal government has claimed industry can manage segregation issues and this is the only way that non-GM growers can refuse contamination and liability early enough to be effective.
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2.Could these be secret GM crops?
By Mel issa Marino
Regional affairs reporter
The Age, September 30, 2004
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/29/1096401648254.html?from=top5&oneclick=true
[image caption for a test plot of flowering canola (Oilseed rape): An aerial photo on the website ww w.non-gm-farmers.com of a suspected GM crop near Horsham.
A group of farmers believe they may have discovered the secret sites where genetically modified canola is being grown in Victoria.
The spokeswoman for the Network of Concerned Farmers, Julie Newm an, said it was possible the sites were among six identified by volunteers who chartered a plane across western Victoria yesterday.
Photographs of the sites were posted on the group's website yesterday. One was removed within hours when Ms Newman was adv ised in writing it was a non-GM site. Ms Newman said she wanted farmers to contact the network if crops pictured on the website were not genetically modified to help confirm where the secret GM sites were.
The network would face trespass charges if memb ers tried to test suspected crops on properties, she said.
Ms Newman said farms surrounding the suspected sites would be letterboxed, advising that they may have GM crops in their area. Included would be a letter they could send to Bayer CropScience aski ng them to remove any GM materials found on their properties.
Ms Newman said farmers needed to minimise the risk of their crops being contaminated by GM varieties. "The reason we're doing this is to notify the neighbours, for them to be able to manage the risk," she said.
Since the Federal Government had approved GM canola, the legal onus was on farmers to ensure their crops were GM-free she said. This could land farmers in trouble if they were trading as GM-free producers.
"If we accept contamination it means we accept liability," she said.
Ms Newman wrote to Bayer and the State Government yesterday advising that photos of the crop sites had been posted on its website. In the email she advised Bayer that farmers would be told to contact the compan y if they wished to be GM-free and to insist that the company collect any GM products that turned up on their properties.
Ms Newman said sites were identified because they complied with regulations governing the trials. These included a five-metre buffe r zone between GM and non-GM crops, and 50 metres of non-GM crops planted around trial sites. Neighbours had to be notified if trial sites were within 400 metres of GM cultivation zones, but canola seeds could travel further than that on the wind, Ms Newm an said.
The State Government has been under mounting pressure to disclose the location of the sites after criticism from local councils, anti-GM groups, the Greens, Trades Hall and an independent and a Labor MP.
A spokeswoman for Agriculture Minister B ob Cameron yesterday maintained it was inappropriate for the Government to release the location of the sites that have been growing since May and cover 24 hectares.
The Government would ask the Network of Concerned Farmers to be responsible and consider the impact releasing the information could have on farmers and their families who had agreed to grow GM canola for low-level research and development, she said.
A spokeswoman for Bayer refused to disclose the sites but said the company had been doing t rials in Victoria for the past eight years.
The trial were small scale innovation trials that did not present a risk to trade and were being closely monitored by the Department of Primary Industries, she said.
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3.GM opponents accused of fear campaign
Australian Broadcasting Corporation,
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/stories/s1210429.htm
The Network of Concerned Farmers has been accused of spreading fear about genetically modified crops, for its push to make trial sites public in Victoria.
The Network claims to have found the sites and published pictures on its website.
But Western Australian consultant Bill Crabtree says the group's actions are intimidating, and their policy backward.
"Julie Newman and the Network of Concerned Farmers are making muck and mystery, saying things, just grabbing and clutching at straws; it's just nonsense.
"They're just not a rational group and they're not speaking on behalf of farmers; and I believe that normal people, sensible people, ought to stand up and speak up, and make these people disappear off the face of the earth, because they're destroying and damaging our industry."
Bayer CropScience has strongly defended its sites, saying their location has never been a secret, and that they're the same small-scale research trials the company's been running for eight years.
Spokeswoman Susie O'Neill says they pose no risk to farming or human health.
"We would maintain that the DPI supervising our activities and the strict conditions would ensure that there is no risk to agricultural trade in Victoria.
"And so, the people, the neighbours, who are required to be informed, certainly are informed; and it's not a secret; the people who - a large number of farmers from the district and agronomists and farm adv isers - do in fact know where the trials are and have actually been to see them."
Meanwhile the Victorian Agriculture Minister Bob Cameron is warning the Network of Concerned Farmers to be careful about how much information it releases about where possible trials are being held.
He says naming exact locations could lead to activists disrupting legal trials and farming activities.
This is a transcript from the ABC National Rural News that is broadcast daily to all states on ABC Regional Radio's Country Hour and in the city on ABC News Radio