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Screener, so which is it? Organic agriculture needs protecting because it is only just got going or organic agriculture is the oldest form of farming there is and so presumably need no protection?

The oldest forms of agriculture stuggling to mount a comeback in time to help save the world from bad food habits and worse agricultural habits may need some protection from the marketing and lobbying power of the big agribusiness corps. In a similar way to NGO and governmental assistance in the protection of heritage seed resources.

I am not advocating a lift in adventitious presence standards for organic produce. Most organic certifying agencies don’t set an AP level and don’t test, so there is nothing to increase. Although the EU is going to set an upper limit of 0.9% to bring organic produce in line with other produce. I am just pointing out that agreeing on a demonstrable AP level would save a fair bit of angst and give the consumers of organic produce some certainty. It is in fact possible at present in the US to have a significant % of organic produce as GM, so long as GM was not used in growing the crop. As there is no mandated upper limit and virtually no testing, consumers will be none the wiser.

So consumers would gain some certainty by becoming none the wiser.... I believe it could happen. I just don't think it's a good thing.

I suspect some organic agencies are keen to have it both ways: they want to claim nil presence, but don’t want their members penalised if there is some AP of GM material.

Which makes sense to me, why should they be penalized when it is the GM production that is the problem?

And frankly, if the organic industry can’t sort itself out over this and move towards developing a workable plan, why should anybody expect GM growers to take any notice? The current situation seems to be that organic growers start off by demanding that GM crops be banned outright, then move to banned in their state, then move to banned in their district. They demand a nil tolerance with no mechanism for determining and enforcing such a tolerance and generally don’t even try to engage with GM growers to develop a workable solution until after all else has failed. I suggest that with this sort of behaviour it is no surprise growers of GM crops take such little notice.[/quote]

I suspect that there is another reason why GM growers aren't concerned about their impact on other farmers. I think it is easy to not look beyond the eternal hope of more cash returns as promised by Monsanto et al. Shortsightedness.