A GM-Free Britain - It's Now or Never

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Published: 08 January 2003

A GM-Free Britain - It's Now or Never

In this week's Source4Thought, Neil Verlander (Friends of the Earth press officer) highlights the fact that 2003 could see you lose your right to choose whether or not you want to avoid eating GM products forever.

Years of campaigning and debate are finally coming to a head.

Within the next 12 months or so, the Government will decide whether or not to allow genetically modified (GM) crops to be commercially grown in the UK.

If it decides in favour, it will inevitably lead to the widespread GM contamination of our food, crops and environment.

The uncontrolled spread of genetically modified organisms will be inevitable, if commercial planting is allowed, with potentially disastrous implications for organic farmers and others who wish to remain GM-free.

Earlier last year an EU report warned that, if GM crops are grown at the same rate as in the US, the background levels of GM pollen would mean that even farmers growing non-GM crops would need to label their crops as GM.

This would be particularly grim news for organic farmers who might lose their organic status.

Honey producers would also be affected. The Sunday Times recently reported that it had
found GM material in honey two miles away from the nearest GM trial site.

The environment is also under threat from GM pollution.

English Nature, the Government's wildlife adviser has warned that GM crops
could threaten wildlife such as farmland birds and, in Canada, GM oilseed rape weeds were discovered to be resistant to three different herbicides.

English Nature has, in its GM position statement said that:

Agencies, working through the JNCC, advocate using the precautionary principle where commercial releases are proposed, and consider that the release and use of GMOs is appropriate only when ……. the following criteria are satisfied:

Rigorous risk analysis is undertaken for potential releases of GMOs, including analysis of the risks to biodiversity of changes in husbandry, agricultural practices, soil processes and other land and water use, which may result from the adoption of GM technology.
Meaningful public consultations are undertaken within a timetable that is reasonable. Additionally, the JNCC recommends that public notice should be at least one month in advance of release.
Risks to the conservation of native biodiversity are shown by comprehensive analysis of evidence to be acceptably low.

(For the full list of criteria please see complete document - see "Further information" below))

Despite repeated reassurances from the biotech industry (and let's not forget that it is hardly in their interest to prove otherwise), health tests on GM food have not always been the most rigorous.

Indeed, they were slated as "inadequate" and "not of a standard that would be acceptable
for publication in a scientific journal", by expert witnesses during a public hearing into plans to grant a commercial licence to a type of GM maize in the UK.

Public opinion remains steadfastly opposed to this new technology, and food companies continue to avoid GM ingredients because they know that people won't buy them.

A campaign to persuade local authorities to declare themselves GM-free areas is gaining momentum.

Launched in October, Friends of the Earth's GM-free Britain campaign calls on local authorities to:
- Ensure that no GM crops are grown on land, which they control;
- Adopt a GM-free policy for all goods and services, for which the council is responsible.
  
  For example ensuring that school caterers provide GM-free food to schools - a measure many local authorities have already taken;
- Ask the Government to prevent GM crops being grown in their area.
  
  Under a new EU law, the Government is able to designate areas where GM crops cannot be grown, if requested to do so by a local authority.
The Government would probably like to allow GM crops to be commercially grown, but public opinion worries them - so they have tried to win people over with a series of PR exercises.

First up were the GM farm scale trials - the Government insisted that commercialisation would not be allowed until the results of these trials were known.

Critics of the trials pointed out that they wouldn't achieve very much because they only looked at the impacts on certain wildlife in an individual field over one year and not, for example, the cumulative risks of growing GM crops year after year over whole
regions.

The studies were not designed to study cross pollination but some monitoring of the oilseed rape Farm Scale Trials and other trials did take place.

And now Government-funded report on cross-pollination, released quietly on Christmas Eve, found significant contamination from oilseed rape. The report concluded: "if transgenic oilseed rape is grown on a large scale in the UK, the gene flow will occur between fields, farms and across landscape".

The researchers called for further research to get a clearer picture of gene flow between crops and across distances.

Yet the Government's review of all the science relating to GM crops is due to be completed before even the trials are complete.

And the Government's Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment has said that the levels of contamination through cross pollination were as expected, no further research is required.

The Government is also due to launch a Public Debate on GM crops but, once again, the suspicion is that this is more about presentation rather than a genuine open-minded dialogue.

Indeed one unnamed Government minister has already described the debate as "a PR
exercise".

Public input will be limited, it seems, to raising issues of concern.

The ultimate decision will be taken by the Government and the same set of people, who have been championing GM crops from the start.

Despite the Government's pro-GM leanings Friends of the Earth still hopes it will say NO to commercial GM crops.

There's:
- Little, if any, demand for the product,
- They threaten organic and non-GM farming,
- They will destroy consumer choice,
- Their long-term impacts are still unknown and they are deeply unpopular.
So what's the rush?

The Government has a crucial decision to make.

Will it respect the views of the people it represents and their environment, or will they
cave in to the interests of the biotech industry?

So write to your MP http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/alms.htm and also to tell Margaret Beckett that you don't want GM in your area and you want to live in a GM-Free Britain:
http://www.foe.co.uk/campaigns/real_food/press_for_change/gm_free_britain/email_beckett/

Further information
For more information on Friends of the Earth and the campaign for a GM-free Britain please see www.gmfreebritain.org

English Nature - GM Position statement:
http://www.english?nature.org.uk/news/statement.asp?Id=14&K=GM+crops&C=NNR%2C+LNR%2C+NA%2C+News%2C+State%2C+Press%2C+Events%2C+Pubs%2C+Maps%2C+UL&MS=1&CId=State