Cameron Pallett

[parsley]

I googled cpallett on Agriville,I'd never heard of him before, or previously seen him on Agriville. I got curious. I wondered about his <p></p>
<p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pallett">(background)</a></strong></p>

Jeepers.

I called him this afternoon. He's the <p></p>
<p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong><a href="http://www.bseclassaction.ca/english/team.htm">(bse class action lawyer)</a></strong></p>

He deals with a lot of farmers. he's read Agriville for years! Pallet is very in tune with farming. pars

[parsley]

Cameron, I'll repost some of your comments on my blog, so that they will remain handy and don't dsiappear, sio don't sue me. Some of the AV threads could "pass" especially if a few of us get scrapping with scrappy language. lol <p class="EC_style8ptBK"><strong><a href="http://parsleysnotebook.blogspot.com/2010/02/bse-class-action-legal-counsel-cameron.html">(Cameron Pallet)</a></strong></p>

[cottonpicken]

if only we had a pool of money to pay some kick ass lawyers with.......

[bucket]

I would be very happy to use my checkoff money to the cause. Anyone else?

[boarderbloke]

does a class action attorney do the leg work to find out who is actually at fault, or do they pick up the case once fault has been established and litigate for damages on behalf of an interested group?
to me there seems to be another issue developing in that, the body governing cert seed growers is derelict by not investing the source of the problem or which cert seed growers are responsible for the loss of european sales and lower prices.
IMHO, cert seed growers who accepted Triffed onto their farm for tests or propagation, are responsible for this marketing catastrophe. They were, I'm sure, very willing to accept the profits from being the very first to grow the seed. The Triffid seed was either not dispossed of propely by all and dumped off into the elevator system or trickled into other flaxseed below the varietal mixture tolerance, OR the cleaning plants and fields that Triffid was grown on were not managed properly, hence, DERELICTION ! Certified seed growers that never accepted Triffid trials, and have been contaminated because of seed deals between another cert grower, have the most to lose here, and I would think they would be, or should be asking alot harder questions to the governing body than comercial growers, for fear of being included in a lawsuit.
IMO, cert seed growers who never accepted Triffid trials, are not responsible, and those growers that did, and are testing negative are not responsible either. (they cleaned there plant throughly and were responsible in rotating their crops to prevent contaminating other flax varieties.)
Comercial growers are pressing for answers, why aren't clean cert growers and the governing body of seed growers? THIS ISSUE IS NOT GOING AWAY, too much money in terms of losses are involed here. There are people involed here that need to speak up instead of standing in the shadows protecting those responsible, and they need to do so before they find themselves on the wrong side of the fence.(OR THE WRONG SIDE OF THE COURT AISLE) however you want to look at it!

[TOM4CWB]

Borderbloke,

This is primarily not a seed growers issue.

The flax GM contamination level being found is in most cases well below tolerances that have international application and acceptance.

Zero is a very difficult level to acheive... unless the rest button can be hit... and start everyone over after all volunteers have been grown out.

Is this possible?

Flax can be in the ground... for many years and volunteer. GM Selection can occur by using the very event that design selected for resistance.

If we are not getting many 'false' positives... then the likelyhood of removing this flax genetic event from western Canada is a very long way into the future! It will not be unlike removing wildoats from the weeds in our soils!

[parsley]

Registered seed growers who had bid on, and bought the actual seed, and then reproduced the seed, were supposed to deliver the seed to the crushing plant, in Manitoba, right?

boarderbloke type commercial growers could NOT access Triffid at that time. Select seed growers bought the patent.

I asked Pallett about the farmers' BSE lawsuit, and what it cost the farmers, (I'm practicing learning to add these days, gusty. I'm tenacious.)

Pallett took on the case because BSE identified cattle were knowingly put into the human consumption food system and somehow or another, as father of two young children, he wasn't all that fussy about the what was done.

He paid costs for several years out of his own pocket. This year, he did receive some money. I don't know how much. We got on to the topic of farmer suicide, with many BSE farmers killing themselves. Shot themselves.

It caused him pause at the time. And it caused me pause yesterday.

Food. Eating. Foodies.

Foodies get very pissy about anyone adding BSE to our hambuger.

Yes, I know some would swear they'd eat it every day if, for example, CFIA Phd scientists claimed 'don't worry, be happy.'. Science. Yes, well.

Phone Pallett and ask him about dollars if you want to know. He is very approachable. And use your own judgement, I can't even add. lol, Pars

[charliep]

Parsley

Are you saying the triffid event is a food safety issue that imperils consumers lives? Should I stop including flax in my morning bowl of porridge? Do the positive health benefits of CLA (congugated linoleic acid if I remember the acronym) out weigh the risk that a 1 in 10,000 seed tolerance present? Does eating meat from livestock fed flax meal or breathing linoil based paint present a health risk to consumers.

[cpallett]

charliep,

Let's be clear. Triffid is not a food safety issue in Canada any more than BSE is. Canadian beef and Canadian flax are the finest in the world. Period. Make no mistake about that. And please pass the muesli.

The issue with Triffid in the EU is politics. Agriculture politics in the guise of food safety politics. All scientists that I am aware of agree that there are no known food safety issues with Triffid. The EU, on the other hand, has requireed strict licensing protocols for GMOs since 1990. It appears they object to the very concept of us messing around in God's kitchen.

As far as beef goes, in Great Britain the ratio of diagnosed cases of BSE in cattle to diagnosed cases of vCJD in humans is approximately 1000:1. Given that there have been exactly 16 diagnosed cases of BSE in Canada since May 20, 2003, and we have strict processing protocols in place, BSE is very clearly NOT a food safety issue in Canada.

Parsley is referring to my personal outrage at the Feds for waiting until October 2003 to ban specified risk materials from baby food, some 14 years after the Brits did it. I have a very low sensitivity threshold for safety issues involving both the very young and the very old. This was the icing on the cake for me after uncovering more than ten years of ongoing (alleged) negligence and buffoonery leading to the closure of international borders to Canadian cattle and beef, which resulted in massive economic damage to 135,000 hard-working Canadian farm families. Not acceptable. Not now. Not ever.

On the conference call today, I noted that Barry Hall and the Flax Council of Canada expressed their concerns to the CFIA in the fall of 1997 that Triffid had the potential to disrupt the market (very prescient of them). However, Triffid was not deregistered until the spring of 2001 and the by then 200,000 bushels of Triffid seed ordered crushed, some three and one half years later. Do you consider that acceptable?

[charliep]

Can't argue with your last comment. Not sure who should have said no to commercializing triffid and at what point or for that matter why the genetic event wasn't put through the EU regulatory approval process to get it approved or at registered. Genetically engineered soybeans has flowed into the EU over the last 10 years unimpeded.

My objective is to keep emphasizing flax is a safe product.

Also there are no winners in this event. Will note the hundreds of thousands if not well into the millions of dollars that were invested in developing and commercializing triffid or to have the variety pulled was likely one of the areas that caused financial trouble for the seed company in question.

Learning from the triffid experience and from there developing clear policy around reseaching, developing and commercializing new breeding technology (which is far more than genetic engineering - some told me today this is old out dated technology) will be critical in the future - particularly if Canada is to stay competitive with other exporters who have better funded biotech breeding programs (including Europe by the way).