ACROSS the world, websites abound with information, research and opinions about the issues facing our food industry, including farmers and consumers.

One I've been following lately has been especially interesting because it sought to ask women to identify the issues they felt should be raised by the Australian Women in Agriculture annual delegation to Federal MPs and their adviser in Canberra.

I've written about the AWiA before and declare my interest as a member.

I joined because I wanted to learn what women, for too long the hidden face of farming, thought.

Did their views differ to their farming partners, who are mostly male?

Did they overwhelmingly support the same sorts of policies as traditional farm lobby organisations, for example free trade, big farming and so on?

As it happens, the views of AWiA members shared on the AWiA forum vary widely but the standard of debate and ideas and opinions is wonderful and respectful.

One issue that sparked a flurry of traffic on the forum recently was genetic modification in farming.

It's not new that opinions vary widely on this.

There are continuing questions about the lack of independent research on this and the power that bio-ag companies exercise over this research.

We all know the issues and the questions - what's the risk for consumers, for the transfer of genes, the impact on nature's complexity and its irreversible impacts.

On the other hand the benefits of being able to grow genetically modified crops that are drought and salt tolerant for example has lots of appeal for some.

The debate, prompted by a suggestion from a city resident for the AWiA to take concerns about GM to Canberra, was going along swimmingly.

Yes, the AWiA should take the case that farmers should be allowed to grow GM to Canberra, one retorted.

Another from a farm said the government needed to understand that farmers could gain good returns and achieve excellent soil stewardship by working with nature, not with genetic modification.

Then a flower grower: "We all need choice in what we grow".

"GM would prompt a whole new set of problems Australia could ill afford," said another.

"It gives farmers more choice," said another.

And this: "Farmers and consumers should have choice but when that choice affects others it needs to be discussed. As lawyers say, 'the right to swing your arm ends at the tip of my nose'."

And so the debate went on.

Until it all got too much and someone said it should be sidelined, taken off the forum and put elsewhere where those who wanted could look it up and read it.

The traffic was clogging their email, they said.

Was it really? Or was it that they couldn't bear to read different opinions.

It made me wonder whether in the end that our biases might eventually have us logging on only to those websites where we hear and read the opinions and evidence we want to hear and read.

And that eventually we might all be holed up in our own silos of thought, comforted by the sound of what we hear.

Where might this lead us? And how will civilian life be as a result?