Blair Government Approves Britain's First Transgenic Crop

LONDON, UK, March 10, 2004 - The British government has brought Europe a littler closer to ending its five year moratorium on genetically modified (GM) crop and food approvals by backing commercial growing of a transgenic maize variety, the first approval for a genetically modified crop in Britain.

The new variety, Chardon LL, is an herbicide tolerant forage maize proposed by Aventis Crop Science UK Limited. Also called Aventis T25, it is expected to take another year for the variety to be added to the UK national seeds list. The earliest time this variety could be sown in the UK would be spring 2005.

Britain will then become only the third EU country after Spain and France to have one or more genetically modified crops fully approved for commercial growing.

Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, announced the approval and outlined the Blair Government's new policy on GM crops in Parliament Tuesday.

Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Margaret Beckett (Photo courtesy DEFRA)

The government will take what Beckett called "a precautionary and evidence based approach," and will make "the protection of human health and the environment the top priority."

In coming to its decision, the government reviewed reports from a public debate on the issue, a science review and cost and benefit study, the results of the Farm Scale Evaluation trials, and a report by the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission on co-existence of transgenic, traditional and organic crops, and liability issues.

"We recognize that people have legitimate concerns about GM crops which need to be addressed," Beckett told Parliament. The government intends to address these concerns by mandatory labeling of genetically modified food products to provide choice for consumers.

The government will consult on measures to facilitate the co-existence of GM and non-GM crops, and on options to provide compensation to non-GM farmers who suffer a financial loss through no fault of their own.

Beckett stressed that approval for the genetically modified maize was subject to crop management being in line with extensive field tests carried out to evaluate relative biodiversity impacts of three types of genetically modified and comparable conventional crops.

She said the government would oppose commercial cultivation anywhere in the EU of the other two crops examined in the field trials - genetically modified beet and oilseed rape.

The biotechnology industry gave a cautious welcome to the new policy. Britain's main doctors' association said it now believes genetically modified foods are not unsafe to eat.

Environmental groups and organic farmers accused the government of "ignoring science, parliament and public concerns."

A conventional field of maize, or corn, growing in England (Photo by Ian Britton courtesy FreeFoto)

The report, from the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), reviews the official four year long trials of genetically modified crops, and says that commercial growing of the genetically modified maize should not go ahead.

The trials, which ended last year, compared the wildlife impacts of the herbicide regimes used on conventional and GM crops. But the results of the trials - which concluded that growing GM maize was less damaging than its conventional counterpart - are now widely regarded as being fatally flawed.

The Environment Audit Committee describes the scope of the Farm Scale Evaluations as "very narrow" and says the results "cannot be regarded as adequate grounds for a decision to be taken in favor of commercialization."

"We are concerned that the GMHT forage maize trials were based on an unsatisfactory, indeed invalid, comparison. It is vital that the Government permit no commercial planting of GMHT forage maize until that crop is thoroughly re-trialled against a non-GM equivalent grown without the use of atrazine."

The weedkiller, atrazine, used on conventional maize crops in the trials will be banned by the European Union from 2006 because it has harmful effects on human health and the environment. There is no data comparing the wildlife impacts of growing GM maize with conventional maize sprayed with a replacement herbicide for atrazine.

The committee also insisted "that the issue of liability be settled before any GM crops are allowed to be commercially grown in the UK through primary legislation" ensuring that "liability should lie with the industry and not with farmers."

Greg Barker MP, a member of the EAC, has introduced a Private Members Bill which would tackle the issue of liability and genetically modified crops. The GM Bill would introduce separation distances and times between genetically modified crops and other crops and a strict liability code and liability funds to ensure that if organic or conventional crops are contaminated by genetically modified organisms, those affected can be reimbursed for their losses by the biotech industry. It will be debated in Parliament on March 26.

{ENDS Environment Daily contributed to this report.}