Published: 22 March 2006
Changing the way we grow crops
The wider environmental impacts of changes to the way that crops are grown are considered in two new reports.
The studies follow up the Farm Scale Evaluations (FSE) programme which examined the environmental effect of genetically modified herbicide-tolerant crops.
In one report the independent Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) considers the future development & regulation of new agricultural technology & practices.
In the other report, Defra puts the FSE results in the wider context of other GM crop trials that have been undertaken, both in the UK and abroad (In other words it tries to justify its support for GM despite the majority of the population being against their introduction).
The report also considers the broader changes that have taken place in UK arable farming over the past century, especially its intensification over the last 50 years and the associated decline in such species as farmland birds.
The Defra-funded review highlights various issues for consideration, including:
· The importance of maintaining biodiversity within arable fields, and the balance between effective weed control on the one hand and levels of biodiversity on the other.
· The need for agreed standards by which to judge the impact of GM crops or other changes in arable production on the farmed environment. (i.e. How can we fudge the issue of the dangers of growing GM crops?).
Environment Minister Elliot Morley said:
"Changes in farming practice have impacted on biodiversity, but it is clear that farmers are increasingly aware of the wider environmental effect of their work.
Environmental conditions linked to CAP payments as well as the strong take up of environmental stewardship schemes, with 1.7m hectares of English countryside under environmentally friendly management, will have a positive impact on farmland wildlife.
The GM trials gave a real insight into how weed control regimes, in both conventional and GM crops, can affect biodiversity within fields.
This raises a general question about the environmental impact of changes in arable farming.
This is an important topic and both of the reports will help us to consider it further, by putting the FSE results in the broader context of the long term changes that have already taken place in UK agriculture."
Other work is also in progress that directly addresses the wider point raised by the FSE results of the environmental impact of changes in crop production (whether conventional or GM).
Defra is funding a research project that aims to set out a detailed framework for assessing potential indirect effects on the farmland environment of novel crops or cultivation practices.
The outcome of this project will further contribute to Defra's policy thinking in this area.
The government's GM policy statement of 9 March 2004 explained that the FSEs raised far reaching questions about crop management & the environment.
It stated that:
“We have nothing like the influence over the growing and management of conventional crops that we have over GM, even though the effects may be just as far-reaching.
Further information
Biodiversity effects of management associated with GM cropping systems
Farm Scale Evaluations
Managing the Footprint of Agriculture: Towards a Comparative Assessment of Risks and Benefits of Novel Agricultural Systems will be available on Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) soon.
GM Nation website
PM’s Strategy Unit – GM Crops
Food Future
Friends of the Earth
Related articles:
A GM-Free Britain - It's Now or Never
Impact of GM on Seedbanks
Return of GM Crops?
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