Agmates

Australia’s leading GM Crop commentator David Tribe [aka GMO Pundit] writes:

Voters in WA are being offered to make a choice about GM crop technology.

But if Labour still retains power after the election, choice about GM technology will be out of reach for WA farmers…

The current choice for voters is between the WA Labor policy of banning genetic modification of crops, which closes off options for crop innovation, and the Liberal’s policy which allows for farmer choice, and also opens up a future with profitable new cropping possibilities such as insect-protected cotton on the Ord River.

A good example of how Premier Alan Carpenter’s [pictured] GM ban stymies innovation is its entrenchment of WA canola grower dependence on atrazine herbicide.

Atrazine herbicide is currently banned in Europe, and is a marketing disadvantage when selling canola into that market.

The acceptable daily intake of atrazine is sixty-fold lower than that for the safer alternative glyphosate.

Labor’s GM ban prevents replacement of WA’s current widely used atrazine tolerant (TT) canola varieties with environmentally superior and better performing GM varieties that allow glyphosate to replace atrazine..

Labor’s Premier Alan Carpenter’s campaign slogan is Vision, Stability and Leadership.

Stability of sorts — more of the same — but precious little vision when it comes to capturing cost-savings and new market opportunities for farmers.

It’s a strange vision that seeks to promote the state a clean and green by locking farmers into using atrazine if they want to get good canola yields. Its tunnel vision that locks’s out viable cotton growing on the Ord.

To get away with this charade, Carpenter is hoodwinking city voters into thinking he’s protecting them from GM vegetables and fruits appearing in the supermarkets. He’s announced a million dollars of spending to test food products for content of GM components (undermining in the process the existing Food Standards Australia and New Zealand as the national food regulator), and posing for photos while making announcements in front of fields of radish.

There are no GM fresh vegetables being marketed in Australia.

Fortunately both the WAFarmers Federation and the Pastoralists and Graziers Association are standing up to protect farmer’s choice on this matter. And WA Liberal’s Colin Barnett is supporting trials of GM cotton and canola.

The big issue of the current global food crisis, and the part that modern crop science is playing in providing better food security has been getting a good run in the general media lately.

Lets hope that WA voters have been tuning into these serious big picture messages, and also that more voters (especially those in city electorates) realise that farmers deserve the right to make their choices about what they plant and don’t plant.

Decisions about how to make farms more profitable and sustainable have to be taken away from politicians like Carpenter.

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Have Your Say!

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John Mikkelsen (pictured) in his weekly column for the Gladstone Observer writes:

I’M a great believer in the old adage, charity begins at home.

Yes, there are other countries doing it tough and if people, churches and charities want to donate their hard-earned dollars to help educate and feed starving kids in Africa or any other third world country, that’s great. Those kids deserve it and Mrs Mikko and I will put our hands up to help too whenever we can.

But I do object when our governments dole out millions for political rather than humanitarian reasons to countries such as Indonesia.

A sizeable segment of that country’s population seems to think the only good Australian is a dead one as evidenced by the Bali bombings - and a large percentage of our generous government handouts seems to go to military build-up rather than the poverty stricken living on the pickings from rubbish tips.

Makes one wonder about priorities; sometimes even the churches seem to lose sight of what is happening right here in Australia.

Take last week’s issue of Agmates Rural News - an on-line free weekly newsletter which provides an excellent mouthpiece for our struggling rural community and allied industries.

The publication points out that 37 religious leaders meeting in Sydney - including Christians, Muslims and Jews - were calling on the Federal Government to aid countries in the Pacific affected by climate change.

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“Churches preach faith. It seems that faith now extends to the certainties of climate change, although not one of them is a scientist, and even when a huge proportion of the scientific community don’t believe,”

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Agmates states.

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“The president of the Australian Federation of Islamic Councils, Ikebal Patel, says Australia has a moral responsibility to act because it is the biggest polluter in the region.

In the Pacific there are people who live from day to day, from hand to mouth, and any effects of our climate change on them is really a responsibility that we should seriously look at and make sure that we do support them,” the Islamic leader is quoted as saying.

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Which prompted the following response from “Mick”, one of Agmates’ subscribers:

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“Yes, in our neck of the Pacific those ‘who live from hand to mouth’ are called pensioners, farmers and truck drivers … we have hundreds of thousands of ‘em. Sorry these religious Top 40 are not praying for them, only preying on them … at least on their money to go to Samoa and Tonga … Climate’s been changing every year - it’s called the weather…”

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Anyone who doesn’t believe our farmers are doing it tough must still believe in the tooth fairy and the effectiveness of bodies such as the ACCC to achieve justice for them and ordinary consumers like you and me.

After months of study, that body has come up with Grocery Choice, a website that has cost anything from $10 to $15 million to set up, which compares monthly grocery prices around the nation.

Struggling mums with kids in tow, busy workers and aged pensioners who wouldn’t know the first thing about accessing websites will probably find the savings that offers are on par with the much hyped Fuel Watch if it ever gets up and running - bugger all.

But what has really riled the farmers is the ACCC report to the Federal Government which maintained farm gate prices for products such as eggs, milk and meat were rising at the same rate as supermarket prices.

Agmates says it appears the ACCC has fudged the starting points for measuring prices in each industry “to give the results it or the big supermarket duopoly’s wanted.

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“Economics best practices for testing data is to have a common start date to analyse from. Instead, the ACCC has beef pricing starting in 1998, milk in March 2002; both were low points in the farm gate commodity price cycle and the results show a favourable result for the supermarkets… Had the ACCC chosen the beef start year in 2001, it would show that beef producers are actually receiving less today for their cattle than they were seven years ago.

“What has happened to input costs and supermarket prices in the last seven years?”

….I find none of the above surprising. As someone once said, “There are lies, damn lies and statistics…”

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Meanwhile the silence is deafening following my recent challenge about fuel pricing - particularly diesel. At the time of writing one of Gladstone’s major supermarket “discount” outlets was still charging 175.9 cents a litre - eight to a whopping13 cents more than some independent sites which started dropping their prices a couple of weeks ago.

Now the ACCC is reportedly chasing companies making exaggerated claims about environmental performance in light of looming carbon taxes.

Go figure.

The Australian Governments proposed Emissions Trading Scheme is the greatest threat to viability of farming since we removed all trade protection from our Agricultural exports.

South Australian farmer John Michelmore writes:

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” I just calculated the typical carbon tax on a cow per annum. If this goes ahead and farmers can’t off-set their land use changes it could be the end of the beef industry in Australia.

We won’t be able to compete with any overseas country that doesn’t have a carbon control program.

Methane production per cow per day is 350 grams. Say methane is 20 times worse than carbon dioxide. That makes an equivalent carbon dioxide emission of 7kg per day.

At $40 per tonne CO2 carbon levy that’s $102 per cow per year. Even at $15 per tonne that’s $38 per year.

If a cow lives for say 10 years that’s somewhere between $380 and $1020 per head. If you sell your steers at 9 months thats up to $76.50 each. You can see why agriculture has been left out at this stage.“

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Have your Say! What madness is at work when governments are trying to develop the technology to tax farmers on their animals flatulence?

South Australian Farmer John Michelmore (pictured) writes:

The impact of methane on global warming and the sources of methane have now attracted the general medias attention.

Cattle have been singled as responsible for a large proportion of methane emissions world wide, and now results in the call for a reduction in the worlds cattle herd.

It appears probable that emissions permits (taxation) are under consideration for Australian livestock producing methane in their digestive tracts.

This series of articles on methane attempts to explain the science behind methane in the atmosphere and whether a tax on methane emissions in Australia will have any impact on global warming.

It is imperative that Australians understand global warming and the potential risks to our economy from an ill conceived emissions trading scheme based on inconclusive science and unlikely to be adopted by other major methane emitters.

Australia’s methane emissions barely rate as a percentage of global emissions. Therefore reducing Australia’s methane emissions will have insignificant impact on our climate unless the major emitters also reduce methane emissions; assuming we can actually control atmospheric methane.

Can we as Australian’s afford to be the first to set an example and take the economic consequences of an emissions trading scheme probably not adopted by the major methane producers; India, China, Europe, Africa and the United States?

We still haven’t learnt from our Free Trade experiences of the past, where our manufacturing industries have been decimated by free trade that no other country adopted. How are China, Africa and India expected to control their methane emissions when farmers are at most subsistence, and have little choice about their food production methods?

Methane is produced and consumed by a number of pathways in the world environment. Production occurs naturally from a number of sources and also results from human activities (called anthropogenic methane).

The overriding question is whether an economic accounting system is valid for methane, and what actual level of methane production can be related to human activities.

The current level of methane in the atmosphere (1750 parts per billion) accounts for about 20% of the “heating factor” created by the gases that could result in global warming. There has been an increase in methane in the atmosphere since the industrial revolution from a peak historical level of about 750 parts per billion.

There is no doubt the incidence of solar radiation on the earth, and the resultant increase in temperature can drive both carbon dioxide and methane level increases in the atmosphere. However the reverse also applies and no theory really adequately explains current levels of methane and carbon dioxide levels because of the complex scientific issues involved.

There are numerous feed back loops that impact methane levels.

The question is whether the human race can control what is happening to our environment?

The overriding question is: - Does the Australian Government expect that we can influence the major human induced methane emissions in other countries by example, and in the process push the Australian economy further into recession?

Maybe Dr Brendan Nelson was correct in his idea to move in line with major green house gas emitters.

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Have Your say!

South Australian farmer John Michelmore writes:

It is blatantly obvious to many that carbon is not a pollutant, but an integral part of the environment.

Again the government has the cart before the horse. They sign to Kyoto protocol and embark on the introduction of a carbon trading scheme.

They then spend money on a community education scheme (9 million dollars by October) knowing that the majority of the population hasn’t a clue about the long term impact on Australia, when our competitors USA, China, Indonesia etc etc etc may well not introduce this tax burden to their economies.

The government also knows that there are serious questions in relation to the science behind the IPCC reports and the Guano Report (sorry for the spelling error). The reports are in the mainstream media almost daily if one cares to look.

For example David Evens who was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005 says of himself:

“I am the rocket scientist who wrote the carbon accounting model (FullCAM) that measures Australia’s compliance with the Kyoto Protocol, in the land use change and forestry sector.”

In this tremendous article in last Fridays Australian Newspaper David says:

It was great. We were working to save the planet. But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

“There is no evidence to support the idea that carbon emissions cause significant global warming. None. There is plenty of evidence that global warming has occurred, and theory suggests that carbon emissions should raise temperatures (though by how much is hotly disputed) but there are no observations by anyone that implicate carbon emissions as a significant cause of the recent global warming.”

An education scheme for the general public would include this, wouldn’t it?? Education is done as part of a decision making process, not after the fact.

Based on the governments ads I’ve seen, this is not education, its propaganda in its worst form.

Education is when the public is given both sides of the story and allowed to decide for themselves on whether man made carbon dioxide emissions are impacting the world climate.

Education is not, calling carbon a pollutant and blaming the poor state of the River Murray on climate change induced by our carbon dioxide emissions. The state of the River Murray is only a function of poor government in Australia, nothing else.

Australia adopting a carbon trading scheme will have NO impact on global climates because we as a population are insignificant in the world.

I only hope that the general public can see through the propaganda.

Sure I agree we need to look after the planet for our descendants; but economic suicide for Australia isn’t going to be at all helpful to our kids.

I just can’t believe that our government believe that Australia’s adoption of a carbon trading scheme will make any difference to what other sovereign countries do. In the meantime Australia and its population will go broke.

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Have Your say! Have you seen the Ads. I was offended the very first time. What do you think?

Agmates welcomes David Tribe, Land and Food Resources, University of Melbourne as our regular GM in Agriculture columnist.

Agmates strives to bring you totally independent news and comment and David is widely acknowledged as Australia’s leading commentator / blogger on Genetically Modified Crops (GM) - Visit Davids blog GMO Pundit - Here

Over to David (pictured below)

Keep the door open to drought tolerant crops

Recent media stories about wheat varieties giving up to 20% better yield performance when hit by drought are just the tip of the iceberg of a vast amount of modern plant science directed at understanding and better managing water stressed plants.

Yes, water stress, and plant responses to it are complicated topics.

And yes too, the idea of using modern genetic tricks to improve on nature as far as drought tolerance is concerned is a really big ask.

So why on earth should growers give any credence to these latest results, announced by Premier John Brumby and plant scientist German Spangenberg in Victoria just this last month?

Well for a start, the GM based insect protection trait Bt-protein already insulate US maize growers from drought damage. This practical experience of many US corn-growers with rootworm protected maize planted in the US for several seasons now is well documented. Root development and drought protection are intimately linked, worm damage to roots means, unsurprisingly, worse corn performance, and Bt stops that damage.

But many other benefits leading to drought protection have been obvious to the plant science community for since at least 1996, which was when Xu and colleagues reported good results from transformation of rice with HVA1 drought tolerance genes from barley.

There’s been a treasure trove of highly exciting plant science on the topic since them. By about 2004, plant scientists (e.g. Chaves and Oliviera) were saying that practical drought protection breakthroughs were almost certain.

It’s just taken about 5 years for scientific progress in the lab and greenhouse — to turn this basic science into field trials which are needed to demonstrate practical effectiveness of greenhouse discoveries in farming practice.

Perhaps the most exciting of these basic science discoveries some ten years back was identification of genetic switches controlling whole sets of genes, for instance genes turned on by water stress having a drought-responsive-element nicknamed by biologists DRE.

These discoveries of switches and water stress signaling system and the genes controlling them have given breeders ways of orchestrating whole sets of genes that are needed for drought protection with a only small number of genetic changes. It this that’s enabled German Spangenberg and his co-workers in Vic-DPI to be successful with wheat in Victoria.

With coordinated orchestration of plant stress management, deliberate breeding for drought tolerance has at last became achievable in practice. That’s exactly why GM-technology detractors in Australia are in full-on denial mode about these breakthroughs.

And now Drought-tolerance genes have been trialed successfully in several crops, including both wheat and corn, they are worth paying serious attention to as a future farmer’s option. If the climate change-doomsayers are right, these events will a Godsend for Ozzie growers.

The whole GM debate up till now has not been simply about getting GM canola varieties on the market. It’s been about keeping the door open to the numerous technological flow-ons that can only occur if there is a clear path to market for seed-company innovators.

If the GM canola bans had continued in the Southern States, Ozzie farmers would have seen drought-tolerant crops years, if not decades, after their competitors in North and South America had been growing them in their paddocks and earning good dollars from them. Now they’ve at least got an even break, provided that the keep their local political reps informed of how they feel about grower freedom to choose the best technology for themselves.

Agmates readers can help each other by working hard to keeping the door open for grower choice. They need to keep on pushing and shoving to preserve farmer choice about which seeds they can sow, and what types of technology they can try out.

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Have your say! Leave a comment or ask David a question.

Our good mate Joel Gill Pickens Mississippi has sent us this:

David Getzendanner of Salem Oregon (Location) -

“This is how BIG we grow our fish in Oregon…HA! It was caught about 30 miles downriver from Salem where we live.”

This Sturgeon is Still alive, just worn out from the fight. They turned him loose after the photo.This Sturgeon was caught on the Willamette River just below Oregon City two weeks ago.

It weighed out at over 1,000 lbs (450kgs) and measured out at 11′ 1”. It was 56” around the girth and took over 6 and a half hours, and 4 dozen beers, for the 4 guys taking turns at reeling it in.

Any Sturgeon OVER about five feet has to be released unharmed and cannot be removed from the water. They are brood / breeding stock and probably older than most of us.

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Boats for Sale - Custom built or used.

Victorian cattle producer and horse breeder Jenny Bird (pictured) Writes:

Next time you think you had a bad day - remember there is always someone who has had a worse one!

These photo’s were sent to me by a friend in the USA.

A Pit-bull decided he would battle a Porcupine in back of his house in Southern California

But being both brave and stupid, he ultimately learned the hard way that he can’t always win ……. no matter how tough you are.

A vet sedated the dog, and then removed a total of 1,347 quills.

The dog survived, and hopefully learned a valuable lesson.

Now tell me you’ve had a bad day!!!

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Dogs For Sale

Eve Parry of Frankland River in Western Australia (Location) writes:

In my last article I wrote about the Australian native birds that frequent our garden at our home ‘Goondiwindi’.

Jim and I (pictured above) have identified and photographed over 35 species that we have seen in our one and a half acre patch of Australian paradise. This week we talk about the smaller birds and what it takes to attract these beaties.

Photo # 1 - Taking a bath

Smaller birds need other elements to attract them to the garden beds close to the house; water is important for drinking and bathing, especially during the summer months.

Photo # 2 - Feasting On Nectar. A New Holland Honey Eater

They will visit nectar-laden flowers all day.

Photo #3. Three, Two, One. Lift Off! A New Holland Honey Eater setting flight.

If you leave your camera trained on just one bird, the unexpected may happen.

Photo # 4 - A Male & Female Western Rosella.

Even the shy Western Rosella’s have learnt there is nothing to fear from the people who live here.

Photo # 5 - Mirror Mirror, a Port Lincoln Parrot.

Four and a half years ago, we had our garden open to the public in an effort to help raise funds for the building of a new community centre in Frankland River.

For extra interest, I made up a file with information about each bird species we had seen in our garden and we were amazed when the count went to over 35. Since then we have had even more species visit, though, many have been very difficult to photograph.

Photo # 6 - Well Hello There Beautiful, Muir’s Corellas.

The Muir’s Corella ‘Cacatua pastinator’ is confined to the far south-west of Western Australia near Lake Muir but each year as their numbers grow they take over more and more farm land during the summer months.

This population, which once numbered only 100 is now thought to contain around 10,000 individuals, so it may soon be removed from the rare and endangered list.

I love these cheeky birds but I am afraid they are not popular with the farming population; I guess if I were having my crops ruined, I wouldn’t find their antics cute either.

Photo # 7 - Morning Warm Up

However, from a photographers point of view, I can’t help but be delighted as I watch them do their morning warm up on the power lines near my home.

Photo # 8- Red Tailed, Black Cockatoo

Another rare and endangered bird that visits the tall trees at our front gate are a small group of Red Tailed, Black Cockatoos. The male birds have lustrous black plumage with eye-catching, bright red tail panels. The slightly smaller females are brownish-black with stunning yellow-orange tail stripes

Photo # 9 - Little Pied Cormorant.

Water birds abound along the beautiful Frankland River and that is where I will leave you this week.

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Click here to see all of Eve’s Australia Stunning photography

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Do you have some great photos of your part of Australia that you’d like to show the Agmates community?

If you do send us a message using the Contact Us link at the bottom of any page. We’ll then let you know how to do it.

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Join Eve online to say Hi or to leave her a message or your thoughts or ask a question. You do that by clicking on the word Comments

Michael Darby (Location) writes: (Opinion)

If there are legitimate goals of public policy beyond defending Australia from invaders and protecting the lives and property of Australians from criminals, then high on the list should be the removal of impediments to the production and distribution of large quantities of high-quality, inexpensive food; for sale to Australians and to the hungry people of the world.

Expensive fuel has an adverse impact at every stage. There is no moral justification for any tax of any kind on fuel used in agriculture.

Cartoons: supplied by Victorian Cattle Producer - Jenny Bird

It is acceptable for an excise to be levied on fuel used for road transportation, but only for repair, maintenance and construction of roads, and that statement should not imply approval of governmental performance of these activities.

The total investment by all levels of government in Australia in operating, maintaining and adding to the road networks is estimated by Austroads at A$6 billion per annum.

The total of fuel excise (presently for petrol 38.1 cents per litre, plus one eleventh of the bowser price as GST) is approaching $14bn per year. Which means the involuntary contribution by vehicle operators to consolidated revenue through excise is at least $7bn per year.

The Opposition is proposing a 5 cent per litre cut in fuel excise, described as worth a $1.8bn per year rebate to vehicle operators.

Extrapolating from ABS 2006 figures registered vehicles are likely to consume about 30 billion litres of petrol and 14 billion litres of diesel in calendar year 2008. If the respective pump prices average respectively $1.50 and $1.70 per year, for the calendar year GST on petrol will be around $4.1bn and GST on diesel will be around $2.2bn.

That makes an excise plus GST total exceeding $20bn ripped out of motorists, $14bn of which is an unearned windfall for Australian governments.

The Brendan Nelson proposal represents a very modest reduction of about 9% of the total impost or about 13% of the rip-off component. It is actually less than the increase in GST on fuel which will have accrued from recent price increases.

SHORT TERM RELIEF

Some genuine short-term relief will be afforded vehicle operators by trebling the Brendan Nelson offer.

There are of course anti-motoring, anti-transport organisations which delight in high fuel prices and which oppose any reduction in excise. They include The Greens and the Public Transport Users Association.

The Greens, the self-appointed priesthood of the global warming pseudo-religion, want to reduce the Earth’s capacity to support humanity, and expensive fuel is part of their strategy.

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LONGER TERM RELIEF

There are two aspects to long term relief for liquid fuel prices worldwide. The first is allowing the market place to provide appropriate substitution for liquid fuels.

It is bleedingly obvious that nuclear generation of inexpensive electricity offers major opportunities for accelerating the switching of tasks from liquid fuel to electricity. Those tasks include irrigation, cropping and many aspects of mining. The future of motor vehicles will shift progressively towards electric power, provided that nuclear energy is allowed to play its proper role.

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The second aspect is removal of artificial impediments to petro-carbon exploration. Bans on drilling in Alaska, in Antarctica and along a significant percentage of the Australian coast are simply ridiculous, a reflection of pseudo-religious extremism. Australia should set an example in both aspects.

The Australian Government should call immediately for expressions of interest for the establishment of nuclear reactors on Commonwealth land around the nation, and cancel all bans on drilling, onshore and offshore.

Setting aside all other considerations, if we do not act to reduce the fuel cost component of primary production, people will die. And in due course they will die in millions.
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You can read more of Michael Darby by visiting his web site.

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Quality Used 4×4’s, 4Wd’s, Utes & Wagons - Sale

Used Farm Machinery - Tractors, Implements Sale

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Have your Say!

What are you paying for Fuel in your part of Australia / The USA or where ever you are?