David DeCou wrote:
> The definition for contamination of crops by GMO's within
> Organic circles will have to be absolutely none detectable.
Steve Sprinkel wrote:
> On tolerances for contamination: I don't believe that there
> are any.
The easy way to handle this problem is just make the test insensitive. Most
people understand so little about statistics and probability that they won't
care. The easiest way to do that is to limit the number of kernels tested.
> Dr. Fagin claims that the actual crop, in visible quantities
> ( he suggested one cup of corn) would be the amount required
> to determine GMO contamination.
That will be sufficiently insensitive that plenty of corn will pass, but
enough positives will occur to maintain a viable testing industry.
David wrote:
> Most of us in organic circles have come to realize that we should
> not describe our products as pesticide-free because of inherent
> background pesticide levels now existent practically everywhere...
Same thing for GMO corn pollen. The problem with really stringent standards
(ie. big samples) is that so many batches will fail the test that "GMO-free"
grain will become very expensive. That might be good if you want to grow
"organic" corn in the Gobi desert.
Dale
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