THE Safe Food Foundation is fighting to uphold the rights of organic and conventional farmers to be free of genetically modified (GM) crops.
The Safe Food Foundation is an organic lead organisation partnering with Friends of the Earth Australia.
Last week the organisation declared it would be helping to raise funds for WA organic farmer, Steve Marsh, to reclaim lost income; alleged after his organic certification was revoked due to GM "contamination" late last year.
Safe Food is led by director, and longstanding organic industry representative, Scott Kinnear.
Mr Kinnear says the Foundation has taken on the co-ordination of fundraising as a major project in support of Mr Marsh and "the right of farmers everywhere to grow GM-free foods".
He is also fighting for the rights of consumers.
"This equates to upholding the consumer's right to eat GM-free," he said.
"This does not mean eating - or producing - to an adventitious presence of up to 0.9 percent (current industry standard for GM tolerance).
"There is a growing body of evidence of harm, which supports the right to choose truly GM-free foods both as consumer and producer.
"I am not happy to have a 0.9pc dose of GM toxin circulating in my blood if I am forced to eat contaminated food."
Mr Kinnear says Canada is virtually all GM canola.
According to the Canola Council of Canada (CCC), herbicide-resistant GM canola was first introduced in 1995 and is grown on about 80 percent of the acres in western Canada.
"It is my understanding that the production of organic canola in Canada has virtually been discontinued since the advent of GM canola," Mr Kinnear said.
Mr Kinnear said it was "a terrible shame" that federal and State Governments had introduced legislation in Australia to allow GM planting with the presumption that common law would sort out any disputes between neighbours.
"In submission after submission, when I represented the organic industry while the laws and protocols were being developed, we pointed out that reliance upon common law is not the best way to sort out these GM disputes," he said.
"It is enormously costly and stressful to the parties involved."
Mr Kinnear said the National Association of Sustainable Agriculture Australia’s (NASAA) zero tolerance for GM canola - Mr Marsh’s organic certifying body - was practical, "to the level of detection adequately provided by credible laboratories".
"In addition they are simply being compliant with the national standard for export," he said.
An economic impact report from the CCC, released last month, said canola farming generated (CAN)$10.5 billion of economic activity per year in Canada - a combination of both direct and indirect economic activity.
Email a friend