01 August 2004

NCF profile: Julie Newman

Due to the interest in the personal side of the NCF members, this is the first in a series of personal profiles of key Network of Concerned Farmers members:

Member profile: Julie Newman

I have looked back at why I have dedicated years to researching GM crops and fighting for legislative protection for farmers. The reason I have accepted such personal sacrifice and adversity is because I see GM crops as the biggest threat to our industry we have ever faced and I have a genuine hatred for farmers being lied to. What has spurred me on in this debate is the constant frustration at the lack of truth and transparency in the drive for these crops and the lack of fairness in preparing management plans.

I strongly support the words of Dr. Mae-Wan Ho, Director of the Institute of Science in Society: "There is no "anti-GM brigade". There are ordinary citizens angry at the lies they've been told, and the undemocratic way in which GM crops are foisted on them."

I am an ordinary citizen and like many others I aim to expose the lies we’ve been told and to change the undemocratic way in which GM crops were intended to be foisted on us.

History: Perhaps if my grandfather had won his campaign to prevent ryegrass coming into Western Australia, farmers would not need to rely so much on chemicals and chemical companies. Then again, if he had won, my father-in-law would have been able to continue to grow crops and would not have diversified to growing and grading clover seed for stock and my husband would have inherited part of the family farm rather than our seed grading factory. Of course, if there was no need to kill ryegrass, we would not have started our contract crop spraying business in 1979 when ryegrass-killing chemicals enabled farmers in this area to grow crops again.

My father campaigned successfully against Monsanto when they tried to implement "dumping duties" on glyphosate which helped prevent farmers paying the same exorbitant chemical prices that Monsanto thrived on before their popular glyphosate patent expired in 2000.

I am now following in the footsteps of my family to combine a fight against increased dependence on chemical companies such as Monsanto and a fight against risking the long term economic viability of our industry. Farmers can't afford to be complacent.

We built Newmans Seed Works up to be one of the largest seed works in the state and we annually grade enough farmer- saved seed to plant over a million acres/year (over 500,000 ha). We built our spraying service up to average over 100,000 acres/year before selling it in 1997. From 1981, we gradually purchased farmland to build up to our present holding of 8,000ha (and a recent signed contract for a further 4,000ha) and we use all the latest in farming equipment and new technology. We have not got to this position by being foolish and have worked too hard to see GM crops threaten the viability of our industry.

Originally pro-GM: Around 5 years ago now, I was discussing GM crops with a learned farmer friend Doug Clarke after his return from a recent trip to Canada. He was adamant we had to do something about trying to stop GM crops coming into Australia while I was tending to take the role of opposition to his suggestion and repeated the rhetoric of the pro-GM campaign. He kindly suggested I should do my homework and I took up the challenge preparing to arm myself with enough information to give a more informed pro-GM stance for our next chat.

Research: As I knew little about GM crops, I spent hours every night for weeks researching GM crops on the internet. I soon realised the risks and soon realised that someone had to do something about the threat of GM food crops.

I was enthralled at the complexity and diversity of the debate and my interest in GM research became more and more dominating. Research soon took more time than a full time job would have entailed. It was one of those situations where you find the more you know the more you know you don’t know. It took some time to get a whole overview picture and to be able to narrow the debate to what was critical to farmers but I could not find all of the pieces of the jigsaw. There was not enough information easily available and I could not find a website that covered the range of farmer issues that would affect conventional farmers.

Our Seed Works business was involved in an audit breach where our local research station had bought in some lupins to be graded and were not aware GM lupins had grown on the land 2 years before. The seconds had been integrated with others and distributed state wide and therefore not traceable and not recallable. We realised that not only farmers but our seed cleaning business too would be faced with unmanageable problems if we introduced GM crops.

I was prepared to do something about GM crops as I now viewed it as the biggest threat to our industry we had ever faced. My passion was fuelled by an intense dislike at farmers being lied to.

Public: I tried to share the results of my research in the form of letters to the editor, as an opponent at pro-GM talks, writing letters to industry leaders and politicians, participating on internet debate and making submissions. I was appalled at the lack of knowledge from those that claimed to be experts in the field and lack of concern displayed in the replies. I was also appalled at the vehement attacks by the pro-GM activists which included having a few late night threatening phonecalls. This made me more determined to prove I was right and more suspicious that I was uncovering issues they did not want uncovered.

Breakthrough: Rural papers printed a story Australia wide when I was threatening to sue our good neighbours if they grew GM crops and contaminated our crops. Our neighbours agreed that this was fair and they would sue us under the same circumstances. I based this claim on our experience of the same law that we as contract crop sprayers had been involved in where we risked being sued for spraydrift damage.

This story worked as a real wake-up call to influential decision makers as it was clear that some non-GM farmers were not going to remain complacent. It seemed to present a change from the supposedly acceptable status where non-GM growers would be victims, to the threatening position to the industry where the GM growing customers could endure some hardship. It also turned the debate from organics to conventional farmers as the debate had only been centred around adverse impact to just a very few organic growers. It created quite an uproar and I had an overwhelming number of calls of support and the usual response from pro-GM activists.

Network of Concerned Farmers: I became more vocal and had several radio interviews which usually resulted in receiving phonecalls from farmers Australia wide with similar concerns.

We decided to form the Network of Concerned Farmers (see NCF history here).

Tour 1: At first I was reluctant to be public supporting the tour of Percy Schmeisser because of my involvement in WAFarmers Federation (I am now vice president of the Grains Council). I was under the impression that the farm lobby groups were addressing concerns so I wrote to the person considered the national voice for the farm lobby groups pointing out that there were serious problems with contamination, liability, insurance etc and asked what was being done to address them. I was appalled after receiving a rude, condescending reply from Hugh Roberts claiming "facts" that I knew were not true. I will always remember his words "What do you mean contamination, contamination with what?!"

I immediately contacted the group and said I was not only "in" but I would do everything possible to promote our concerns to try to get farm lobby groups to listen. While I take time to evaluate a stance, once I make my commitment I will not back down until I complete my task.

My first role was being part of the organising team for Percy Schmeisser’s touring team in WA. I joined Percy to speak at some meetings held in Perth and I hosted and chaired the well attended farmer meeting at York and was involved in answering questions at the end of the debate. Andrea Hammond was a great contributor to organising this event and Michael Eyres and I helped. Michael was faced with the difficult position of having his family pro-GM while he was strongly anti-GM which opened my eyes to the family divisions that were occurring over this contentious issue.

Percy Schmeisser's tour was exceptionally succesful in bringing attention to the patent law and the risk of contamination and corporate control.

Website: George Kailis, a reputed businessman had become a good friend as we often shared information over the GM issue. Soon after the WA meeting, George invited a few interested parties to meet in WA to share our information and when I asked how much information he wanted, he asked me to "bring what you’ve got". He was shocked that it needed all of us several trips to carry my expander files, boxes and books in to the meeting room and he suggested a website to store this amount of information. Soon after I was told that a couple of farmers had set up a website skeleton for me and I did not realise until recently that it was George Kailis that arranged and funded the site for which I am extremely grateful.

I am the sole person responsible for putting information on our website and am proud to say that it has become internationally acclaimed. I have tried to create the website I needed to find when I first started research. Currently I have about 1,500 referenced articles on my website and it has taken many years to gather this information to share.

My newsletters with updated news and current issues are extremely popular although I experience problems with the local server timing out once numbers went beyond 500.

I took on the role of National spokesperson, website manager and the person responsible for preparing and sending press releases and submissions. I donate my time and the debate has cost me considerably (see funding article here). I have spent more time on the GM debate than I would have needed in order to obtain a degree with honours.

Media: Media was excellent and without them, there would be no debate and no political pressure. We were advised that sometimes rural media was reluctant to cover an issue because their hands were tied as Monsanto and Bayer Cropscience were major advertisers in rural media. For every story regarding concerns of GM crops, the GM companies would protest and insist on a run of pro-GM articles. Some editors refused to even do a story on GM crops or foods as there was too much backlash if they did.

Strategy:  I have based my strategy on this GM debate around the same strategy I use for training horses. The principle is that you do not wait until your horse has done the wrong thing and then kick them as this achieves little more than aggression and defiance. I worked on pre-empting where the debate would head and tried to block the paths the pro-GM industry needed in order to get there, while offering a less confrontational fairer solution as an alternative. This took far more time but I felt it would be more effective.

However, this was not a fair debate and often it did not matter what happened, the GM industry were on a preset path and correct procedure and protocol could and was being ignored. Our Federal government had obviously made a commitment to allow self management without restriction.

Networking with other farmers helped maintain the strength and determination to continue.

Juliet McFarlane and I tended to take the lead in any wider Network strategy involved and were regularly in touch. Geoffrey Carracher has recently become more involved in strategy, particularly for Victoria. We were constantly frustrated by the processes that led to our industry being denied risk management.

We discussed what the GM industry were doing and what we needed in place to ensure farmers were protected. The difficulty was finding how we could achieve this when the GM industry were allowed to prepare their own rules for introduction. We soon realised that the only way that we could reverse the process was to ensure States called a total ban under their power to assess economics and farmer protection could be integrated in any legislated exemption from the bans.

I regularly communicate with others to keep the Network up to date with what we are doing and to keep them abreast with the latest updates in the debate.

Government: In 2003, Chrissy Sharpe chaired a WA government standing committee looking at the GM issues and legislation and was very understanding at my first verbal government hearing. This committee took my issues very seriously and reported the unfairness to non-GM growers. This gave me confidence to continue visiting politicians Australia wide on a regular basis to explain our concerns and to influence legislation in each state.

I regularly perused both State and Federal Hansards to follow the debate at a political level and was originally appalled at the lack of awareness of the key issues in the debate. Politicians have little time to investigate every issue as thoroughly as we had on this individual issue so I tried to summarise key issues and key responses to pro-GM comments. I spent considerable time writing to individual politicians to keep them up with the issues and refer them to our website. Earlier in the debate I wrote to almost every politician with a brief summary of the debate and more recently I wrote to almost every Senator exposing the major misleading claims. I was rewarded over time as the quality of the debate improved in most parliaments.

Over the time, we have met with many excellent politicians and advisers who have been extremely invaluable in this issue. I found our WA state Minister for Agriculture, Kim Chance extremely helpful, particularly in explaining the complexities of working within the legislation. Senator John Cherry in particular has been outstanding for his work and quality of debate he has achieved at Senate level.

While State governments were more receptive, it appeared that the Federal Government had promised America and the GM industry they would accept GM crops to Australia under similar conditions to America to "level the playing field". It has been said that our government finds President Bush far more important than the Australian bush and ignoring farmers concerns seemed to be part of a trade deal. The earlier committment by our Federal Government had led to massive investments in to biotechnology facilities at universities and research centres (both GM and non-GM) by the biotech companies.

Consumer debate: When I started this debate, I was a little dubious about accepting there was a health problem with GM foods but as more evidence came to hand it became obvious that there was very little health testing and it was done by the GM industry themselves. I was a nurse by profession so found medical reports interesting. I was appalled to learn of the fate of Arpad Puztai, a scientist that was commissioned to prove GM foods were safe but was sacked when he went public only 6 months into his 3 year contract with proof of serious problems with the health of the developing animals fed GM. It was difficult to believe he had been genuinely discredited as claimed when he was sacked after a donation of 140,000 pounds was given by Monsanto to the university involved. I found it understandable why GM food testing was mistrusted and I joined the consumers that wanted the right to avoid being fed GM foods and wanted proper long term health testing done.

OGTR: My first public debate with the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator was on a popular Sydney radio station before the NCF was formed. I pointed out the fact that the Federal legislation did not address economic risk or farm related issues, Sue Meek was adamant that several committees were addressing these problems. On checking, none of those committees mentioned had the power or the intention to address economics, markets or farm related problems.

I directed my attention to State legislations that did have the power to call GM-free zones based on economic grounds as States had authority over land use. The cost of establishing small GM-free zones would be extremely expensive for non-GM growers to maintain and impossible to control and it seemed that this was the intention of the legislation.

In the Federal legislative process it seemed the regulator Sue Meek with her associated pro-GM history and possibly with Federal government pressure, had no intention to deny the release of GM canola no matter what was revealed. It was frustrating to see the smoke and mirrors legislative process promising the public that the OGTR was addressing risk management issues when there was no independent or long term health testing and the definition of "environment" was so restricted it had little relevance. The OGTR seemed to be set up to deflect liability for problems away from the GM industry and on to taxpayers and farmers. Risk management seemed to be claiming some other committee would address specific issues when they were not. Contrary to what was expected by the public, although the OGTR claims to ensure health testing is adequate, no Australian federal regulatory body does health testing, they rely on data provided by the company themselves. No wonder consumers were reluctant to be guinea pigs.

Industry awareness: I was concerned that industry would not be prepared for GM introduction and would not realise the consequences until it was too late, so I progressively contacted each sector of industry to ensure they were well aware of the impact GM would have on their business. I also needed to know how farmers would be ultimately affected by the decisions of industries we relied on.

To get some industries to be more public was a little like extracting teeth which confirmed to us that there was a significant backlash against those that did not maintain a totally accepting neutral state. 

The Australian Wheat Board (AWB) had not made a public statement against GM but their submission to the South Australian government revealed that half of the export volume of our wheat was required to have no trace of GM canola present which was virtually impossible to achieve. Some executives within AWB were not impressed when I quoted their statement in public but I felt farmers and the public needed to know the real risks. AWB has been very influential in state decisions as farmers rely heavily on our wheat markets.

I encouraged each industry to identify their issues and encouraged them to be public if they were faced with unmanageable problems. These included how liability for segregation and market rejection would be managed and market research to ensure that their markets would accept contamination to some degree and if so, how much.

I found major players in the supply chain were not very responsive to my requests and in some cases were downright rude and condescending. I heard from many people, particularly scientists that were told they were instructed to never speak up against GM crops publicly as they must either support them or remain silent.

Some industries were claiming they could cope because they would or had introduced contractual clauses that effectively required farmers to sign to guarantee they were not delivering any trace of GM products and that farmers would indemnify the companies involved if they caused any contamination.

Industry was planning to deflect liability solely to the non-GM farmers that did not want the product.

I investigated reaction from insurance companies and then explained issues to the banking sector. It appeared that if non-GM growers were sued for signing contractual guarantees, we could be liable for millions of dollars to decontaminate the supply chain and recall the product. As this was not insurable, banks appeared unlikely to loan money to those wishing to market as non-GM. Our only legal defence was to sue the GM grower which in turn would have the same negative impact as insurance would not cover them for this liability and banks would be therefore reluctant to loan money to a high risk sector that may have uninsurable liabilities.

Exposing liability problems: The first public exposure of the liability problem was when I attended a televised debate for ABC Landline. It was difficult getting a word in against the pro-GM team but I tried to make it clear that non-GM farmers would not accept liability for a product we did not want and asked why we should be expected to accept contamination when we could be sued for it.

Juliet and I joined our first joint phone conference on liability in 2002 following my submission to the Federal Government regarding the impractical Federal "Biotechnology Strategy for Agriculture, Food and Fibre" paper. This paper explained that once GM crops were released, quarantine would be unable to verify a GM-free status and it would be up to farmers to provide proof of their GM-free status. After much probing, the Federal Ministry for Agriculture (AFFA) presented a liability paper that confirmed our concerns that it would be extremely difficult to deflect liability away from those farmers not wishing to grow GM crops if we were to personally guarantee a GM-free status.

GTGC: As a farmer, one of my main issues was that coexistence of GM and non-GM was not possible and the role of supposedly ensuring coexistence was possible was through the "industry" prepared coexistence principles prepared by the Gene Technology Grains Committee. Farmers were represented on this committee by what I considered extremely pro-GM farm lobby representatives while many other members were extremely pro-GM with a vested interest in the technology. The GTGC principles only looked at how GM canola would travel throughout the supply chain and yet their aims were to allow coexistence of GM and non-GM canola.

I fought very hard in WAFarmers Federation to expose the lack of fairness in the GTGC process of preparing coexistence plans and it was difficult to ensure our representatives were aware of the consequences. It was very difficult to even have a fair hearing at grains council meetings and I was told by other members of other farm lobby groups that they were experiencing the same problem with the GM issue.

I attended one of the Gene Technology Grains Council meetings as an observer to ensure our representatives were accountable but I was the only observer asked to leave, despite promising total silence and complete confidentiality. I was allowed to stay to listen to a pro-GM presentation by a Canadian farmer funded by Monsanto.

Despite WA Farmers Federation claiming they had not "signed off" on the coexistence principles, it was announced in Senate by a Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries official that the GTGC principles have been "signed and formalised" which was incorrect.

The resolution passed by the GTGC concluded: "This is an acknowledgment that phase one is complete in as much as the public consultation process on the Stewardship Principles has concluded and outstanding issues have been referred to the Canola Reference Group for future management."

The reality was that there were no practical GTGC on-farm segregation principles and they had not been signed off by farmer representatives, much less approved by the whole industry. The GTGC has only referred management problems to another committee, which had not yet met much less resolved the outstanding problems.

The GTGC plans did not even have a buffer zone restriction for GM crops. By not having plans or restrictions, there was total reliance on crop management plans which were prepared by either Monsanto and Bayer Cropscience which made it clear it was up to the non-GM grower to keep GM out, not up to the GM industry to keep it in.

The GTGC was merely set up to ensure GM crops had priority throughout the existing supply chain and the intention was to make it impossible to market as GM-free which would remove the GM-free market opposition. Those that did not grow GM crops were also vulnerable to having an end-point-royalty and patent user fee deducted from their income if contamination was detected.

There was no risk management integrated in the coexistence protocols.

The resulting canola stewardship principles meant that the GTGC could not fulfill their aims to allow coexistence where nobody would be adversely impacted by others.

Definitions illegal: An important part of these GTGC coexistence principles was that they were based around definitions that were illegal. Scott Kinnear (Biological Farmers of Australia) had arranged for legal advise and found that a positive label of "GM-free" or "Non-GM" meant no GM yet the coexistence principles were claiming contamination was acceptable. Coexistence could not be managed because contamination could not be avoided. The ACCC confirmed to us and the Federal government (AFFA) that farmers should avoid a positive label claim of GM-free or non-GM if contamination was present. This proved the coexistence principles were based around definitions that were illegal and that non-GM growers would be breaking the law if we tried to market as GM-free or non-GM. Despite claiming public consultation had occurred, submissions quoting the illegal definitions were ignored by the GTGC. They knew that coexistence would not be possible if contamination was not accepted.

Tour 2: I joined Scott Kinnear, Judy Carmen and Canadian farmer Bob Willock in the Networks second tour of Australia in March 2003. It was a whirlwind run of meetings, media and political visits across Queensland, NSW, Victoria, ACT and South Australia. After so many talks and media interviews, I felt I finally got over the worst of my nervousness at public speaking.

The response to the information given was extremely positive and the media were excellent and really picked up on the stories. Penny Townley did an excellent job of organising us and it was a very rewarding 10 days.

This trip made me realise just how many farmers support us and have very serious concerns. I also realised that the implications of GM release would divide communities as I was surprised at the anger towards those farmers planning to grow GM. Many farmers wanted to join the NCF to support us but did not want to be public but we were not taking memberships. Although reassuring, the intention of the NCF was that we were a group of farmers that were prepared to go public.

SBS filmed part of our tour and did an excellent documentary on some of the information we provided on the GTGC and Agrifood Awareness. This documentary was very influential in turning the tide as farmers were relying on Agrifood Awareness for supposed "unbiased" advise and yet the documentary revealed their bias and the reasons for it. They also revealed the bias of farm lobby groups such as the Victorian Farmers Federation.

Members meet: I met many of the Network members for the first time during this tour but had not yet met Juliet McFarlane as she was giving a presentation on the same day we were in her area. Juliet and I regularly discussed strategy and although we were in touch almost daily, we met for the first time at a meeting in Canberra organised and funded by Bayer Cropscience in June 2003.

This meeting was excellent because we debated experts trying to convince us that there was no problem when the evidence they gave themselves revealed there was. Pro-GM activists can not accept that farmers do not want to be forced to market on a consumer rejected market and both Bayer Cropscience and Monsanto refused to accept liability for the consequences.

I presented a letter to Bayer Cropscience at this meeting asking them to withdraw their license until they found someone to accept the liability for the product. I felt it was essential to lodge this at the meeting because Bayer Cropscience had held a meeting with the Harvesters Association earlier and had become public saying the harvesters were happy with the situation despite the harvesters association representatives saying they were far from happy. Interestingly, the media only reported the comments from Bayer Cropscience, not the Harvesters Association and we did not want a similar situation where farmers would be misled to believe we were happy just because we voiced our concerns without addressing them.

Other groups: We regularly contact other groups, both pro-GM and anti-GM to share our research and keep abreast of any changes in the debate coming from a different angle. Groups like Greenpeace, Genethics, GE-free Victoria, the Biological farmers and the organics industry need to be commended for their interest they have taken in the farming side of the debate and their work they have done on this debate. While we constantly find misleading information derived from the pro-GM activists, it is rare to find reputable anti-GM groups like these being misleading.

As a farmer, this in itself was something that amazed me because I could not believe these groups labelled "anti-GM activists" were so professional in their research when I had previously not taken these groups very seriously.

The Network of Concerned Farmers took a different angle than the more anti-GM activist position of others as we were supporting factual independent trials and risk management rather than total bans.

It was frustrating that it seemed to be accepted by all that the pro-GM industry could get away with constantly misleading the public but those representing an anti-GM side were accused of being misleading despite being able to verify claims.

National & State: I have fought this debate on a national level because it was obvious that if one state introduced GM crops, it would be impossible to police the borders to prevent GM crops entering the state. Part of my lobbying efforts was directed at seed companies that were faced with the impossible liability responsibility of growing GM-free crops. The seed industry accepted 0.5% contamination but legally there could not be GM present if exporting to a GM-free states as GM-free means legally no GM. It would be almost impossible to police borders.

While each state delegate had assumed responsibility for campaigning for legislative protection in their own state, I tried to be supportive where possible. This involved several trips to the East.

Juliet McFarlane often gives presentations around NSW presenting her concerns. Juliet  is a member of the NSW advisory committee where she is fighting against people that should be supporting her as some claim to represent farmers views or our industry concerns. I have joined Juliet visiting NSW politicians and it is very obvious she regularly keeps politicians informed of the issues.

Geoffrey Carracher is often responding to outrageous claims by the Victorian Farmers Federation who insist farmers should be supporting GM crops rather than supporting protective legislation. I have joined Geoffrey on some of his presentations to government and the Victorian government appears well aware of the issues.

Felicity Martin has had several meetings with individuals within the South Australian parliament. When we attended meetings in SA during the tour, I joined some good hearings.

I have met with politicians in Queensland but although Queensland has not banned GM canola, it is not ideal conditions for canola and there is an understanding that GM canola is unsuitable for Queensland.

Exposing Scam: My research continued and I found some interesting facts and figures that revealed the supposed "benefits" for GM canola for Australian farmers was a scam. I started exposing misleading statements that were responsible for making farmers believe we could not afford to deny GM crops.

Outrageous and highly unlikely "dreams" were promoted instead of the reality of what was really being offered. For example, early in the debate it was claimed that with GM crops we could cross wheat with a legume such as lupins and have a nitrogen fixing wheat crop. Interviews with scientists made it clear that this was clearly impossible and highly unlikely to happen in this generation.

Monsanto’s mantra and advertising slogan "Imagine" was highly appropriate in the GM debate as there was more imagination than reality. For example, Monsanto claimed impressive yield increases up to 40% when all evidence showed decreased yields and even the best trials on their website showed yields were 17% below the national average.

Bayer Cropscience too were claiming increased yields when the only evidence I could find of yield comparisons showed similar yields to the older low yielding triazine tolerant varieties known for their yield penalty.

After lodging an ACCC claim on both companies I was told there was no case as there was no intention for "commercial" release but the ACCC did write to the companies involved. I have noticed both companies have declined from mentioning misleading yield benefits now and Monsanto’s trial data has been removed from their website.

There was also a misunderstanding that GM crops could withstand difficult conditions where evidence showed that GM crops performed far worse in adverse conditions. Interestingly adverse conditions was sited as the main reason Bayer Cropscience withdrew from the NSW trials.

The term "biotechnology" was deliberately and misleadingly being used instead of GM which misled farmers to believe all biotechnology would be banned if we do not accept the unwanted GM or recombinant DNA process. There was no effort to explain that the best of biotechnology was non-GM or to explain that not all biotechnology is GM or even to explain that the term "modification" does not mean modification but only referred to the new transgenic technique.

Scientists were pushing GM’s as there seemed to be a promise of corporate investment into research and development rather than the reliance on farmer levies and the government funding that was being threatened to be withdrawn. With the exceptional new research into non-GM biotechnology promising massive breakthroughs, corporate interest is attractive but the GM patent is far more profitable than the less controlling non-GM plant breeder rights. I was dismayed to learn scientists were being told they could not publicly say anything negative against GM crops.

Farmer representation: Like many other farmers in other farm organisations, I found it extremely difficult to voice my concerns through WAFarmers Federation Grains council as debate was suppressed. Agrifood Awareness (partially funded by Avcare that represents the GM industry) had been very influential in influencing farm leadership to believe concerns were not valid. I learnt to be more aggressive in ensuring our chairman was in order and that he allowed open debate. I was successful in getting many motions passed first through zone level and then through Grains Council level to ensure there was protection for non-GM growers in the coexistence principles. Rather than these motions being acted on, they were originally shelved until the annual policy day and then considered for inclusion in setting the annual policy which remained until the next annual policy review. Unfortunately, little or no action was being undertaken to ensure policy was actively pursuing risk management.

Motions: I learnt that a more active approach was needed and specific action motions should be used. I had almost unanimous support from my zone which was the strongest zone in the association and motions were passed despite objection from an influential individual who tried to prevent these motions being passed claiming policy was adequate despite policy not being active.

In accordance with the WAFarmers Federation policy, the following motions were passed at WAFarmers Federation Grains Council on 14^th October, 2003

When passed, there were real attempts from influential individuals to prevent these motions being acted on.

Senate: Through Senator John Cherry, these same motions were passed through Senate. In a bizarre twist, our Federal Minister for Agriculture, Mr Warren Truss tried to reverse our motions passed through Senate claiming that although these aims were consistent with WAFarmers Federation policy (confirmed by the president), they were not word for word in the WAFF policy (explained by our president). I helped Senator Cherry with specific details to add to his excellent speech in Senate resulting in repeal being denied. (see speech here)

To date, these motions have not been acted on by the Primary Industry Ministerial committee despite the harassing ordeal to pursue them at every avenue. Mr Truss (Chairman of PIMC) felt that it was for the industry to decide how they would manage these crops and the committee responsible (GTGC) was the very pro-GM committee we were trying to restructure.

Legal: I regularly contacted lawyers looking at defences including possible cases against the OGTR, Monsanto and Bayer Cropscience, the GM growing farmers, and whoever was considered responsible for decisions that would lead to economic loss. Prices for possible lawsuits ranged up to over $300,000 which should not have been difficult to raise considering so many farmers would be economically disadvantaged. I preferred this to be the last resort as contamination and economic loss would be irreversible once released.

As mentioned, I presented a case to the ACCC to investigate false and misleading advertising and monopolistic behaviour but as no commercial release was expected, this was not pursued.

I felt it was important to warn companies that we were planning to take legal action against them so I contacted Mark Buckingham of Monsanto to let them know about a proposed class action against them. I also contacted the seed company that I was led to believe would be dealing with Monsanto to let them know that if they were planning to deal with Monsanto’s product and if they signed to accept liability, the legal action would be deflected away from Monsanto to the seed company concerned. I felt it was important that they were aware of the implications as we would prefer to take legal action against Monsanto or Bayer Cropscience rather than an Australian seed company.

I also thought it was fair that we let the non-GM seed companies know that despite the fact that the Seed Industry was allowing up to 0.5% contamination in seed, it was an offence to plant any GM seed in a GM-free zone. This resulted in at least one of the companies involved writing to State governments wanting some guidelines on their legal position and accepted tolerance levels in States.

Grains Council of Australia: While all state farm lobby policies were far more conservative, individual industry leaders appeared to be denying the need for risk management.  I realised that despite the farm lobby group policies wanting risk management, there was serious bias towards GM and towards preventing fair debate stemming from leadership. The 2004 GCA Annual conference, "Grains Week" was a classic example of how the GM debate was being mishandled. Presentations were in support of GM crops only, questions regarding concerns were ridiculed and suppressed and risk management was disregarded. One of the sponsors of this conference was Monsanto.

GCA seemed to be dictating Federal government pro-GM policies from the top down. WAFarmers Federation has since given their 6 months notice of their intention to resign membership from GCA after the call for the president’s (Keith Perrett) resignation was denied after unrest with the handling of the Iraq Wheat Debt issue.

It would be beneficial for all Australian farmers if we could make serious changes within GCA to ensure our national voice is a credible national voice for farmers, rather than an avenue for the Federal government to influence farm lobby policies and deny the policies derived from grassroots up from the organisations they claim to represent.

Change: There has since been a gradual change in the farm lobby groups where influential individuals are being challenged by others who have more facts regarding this debate. We hope this will continue.

Survey: The debate had become very polarised as there was a "for GM" and an "anti GM" side where neither seemed to be listening to the other. It appeared that while the industry was arguing and not progressing, the GM companies were progressing in pushing for coexistence trials with no risk management. I prepared a survey and launched it at the Newdegate Field Day in September 2004. This original survey revealed that both sides wanted the same risk management and I prepared a website survey to provide wider feedback.

Many farmers who filled out the survey were not aware of the issues and happy to take our brochures with them. Geoffrey and Chris Carracher flew over from Victoria for the Field Day and we were overwhelmed by the comments from supporting farmers.

My past role can be summarised as promoting awareness of the real issues in the GM debate and ensuring accountability for irresponsible decisions. I have fought to ensure the GM industry is responsible for the consequences of introduction of their product. I see my main role in the future is to focus more on forming alliances to join a class action against whoever is responsible for causing us market loss if GM crops are introduced irresponsibly.

Coincidences: Hardly a week would go by without some sort of bizarre coincidence occurring. Although I originally found it unbelievable, these "coincidences" became more accepted. I first noticed this when I was doing a story on markets and was feeling despondent as I had little on China but within minutes I had 3 emails from 3 different sources on China. It is certainly unusual that whenever I start researching a specific area I suddenly have information on that specific subject suddenly appearing from different sources.

Another example was when a summary of my presentation was given by CBH at the National Bulk Handlers meeting it was considered over-exaggerated. AWB arrived late and gave apologies as they had been involved trying to redirect a contaminated shipment of wheat. During the drought, a small amount of GM corn was imported for use as feed and yet despite claims of rigorous scrutiny it was said that at 3 of the 4 offloading sites, contamination was uncontrolled and caused problems. One of these was with an AWB wheat shipment. My presentation was taken far more seriously after that.

Experience: This debate has been a roller-coaster ride of excitement at finding new information to confirm our concerns, to frustration at every concern being ignored by people that are supposed to represent our industry and our industry concerns. I am certainly no longer naïve to how corrupt and misleading some respected decision making processes are.

Highlights: After years of struggle, one special week in late March 2004 resulted in state after state announcing a moratorium or ban.

West Australia started the ball rolling and it was wonderful to hear the official news. I had been constantly in touch with Kim Chance’s office so was expecting it, but proud that our state government had been so very pro-active regarding concerns.

South Australia too had been very responsible in investigating the issues well and I was confident their report findings would instigate a ban, still the news was a relief. I had been a little concerned that I did not have time to respond to the parliamentary debate in SA as debate had not focussed on the main issues of concern in the months leading to the decision.

I viewed Victoria as the weak link in the moratoriums and knew that if large scale trials were grown, our seed would be contaminated as many states import non-GM seed from Victoria and NSW. I received an early call just before the Victorian government announced their decision to impose strict moratoriums. It was overwhelming news, I had not realised how much the debate had meant to me.

I had a phone call while returning from a GM forum in Jerramungup to the Grains Council of Australia conference "Grains Week". I parked on a hill on a most beautiful stretch of road with the moon lighting up the ghostgums on the side of the road. This was an early call saying it was likely that NSW would not be accepting the "large scale commercial coexistence trials". It was a very memorable moment to feel the weight of the debate lifting as the last state had seen the wisdom of denying commercial release trials. What a relief that it might be over for this year and more information will be available before the next year comes around. 

The next day at Grains Week I warned Keith Perrit (Grains Council of Australia president) that trials may be refused and asked that he try not to polarise farmers when he does his press release. I explained that the coexistence trials were no different to commercial release and there was no opportunity or intention to return to the GM-free status quo after the completion of the trial. I felt that if farmers knew that at no time did the "coexistence" trials check for contamination of non-GM crops, did not include the expected coexistence of GM and non-GM together and that the non-GM grower would be liable for contamination, all but the most pro-GM activists would have given support. While Keith was dismissive, GCA executive gave me a good blasting for telling Keith so soon after the completion of Grains Week and accused me of gloating. I should have expected it, the presentations at Grains Week were very biased and my concerns were ridiculed, ignored or misrepresented at question time. I have since invited industry leaders to an open debate but this has been ignored to date.

I was talking to a reluctant Monsanto representative at his sponsorship stall soon after when both of our phones rang at exactly the same time. It was the official news that NSW had called a stop on the coexistence trials.

How did I feel? I felt exhausted... and angry at our farm leaders for trying to go against their own policies and their own industry to deny risk management. I could not understand their incentive to risk the industry they claimed to represent.

My reward: Farmers would all be punished for our complacency if farmers like ourselves had not been so pro-active. At no time have I ever been paid to do what I do but some costs have been reimbursed by others too busy to participate. Like many others, I am prepared  to pay the price to stand up to multinationals for what we firmly believe is in the best interests of our industry.  We are certainly not being pro-active for personal reward other than knowing we are doing the right thing.

I am confident I have helped expose the lies and the undemocratic processes that have led to the plans to force GM crops on a reluctant population. I am also confident that the research and the work I have done has helped in the current state-wide bans based on economic risk. I hope that this will eventually result in adequate risk assessment and risk management plans based on economics and agronomics that will protect the future sustainability of farmers. If not, I will be taking on the challenge of organising legal action in the future as farmers must have an avenue to protect our livelihoods.

Since the bans months ago, hardly a week has gone by where I have not been vehemently attacked in the rural media by pro-GM activists so I can only interpret that reaction as success. I try not to be personal and avoid backing anyone in a corner where they can not retire with dignity but it is tempting when they scream "misleading" at fully referenced articles or "funded by Greenpeace" when I am not. I was even accused of receiving a press release from Victoria a day before I got it. I was accused of being deliberately misleading claiming I could not read a graph (this has since been followed up by a personal apology after the ABARE hard data was obtained showing I underestimated the problem, not overestimated it as claimed). The reaction from other farmers on these attacks has been great, very few believe the basis for the attacks but they understand the motive. This has encouraged farmers to look at our website where referenced information is available. We continue to have constant contact from other farmers supporting us.

Our debate is simple, we will not accept contamination with a product consumers do not want. If someone wants to try something different, others should not be expected to pay for it. Why should we?

The cost in both valuable time and expenses has been considerable but I see it as a good investment in our future. We have too much to lose if we remain complacent.

Julie Newman

P.O. Box 6, Newdegate, 6355. West Australia.

Network of Concerned Farmers

www.non-gm-farmers.com 

Ph 08 98711562

Email julie@non-gm-farmers.com

Latest update: 3.9.04