GM Crops Fail Key Trials Amid Environment Fear

by Paul Brown

Two out of three strains 'should not be grown'

Two of the three GM crops grown experimentally in Britain, oil seed rape and sugar beet, appear more harmful to the environment than conventional crops and should not be grown in the UK, scientists are expected to tell the government next week.

The Guardian has learned that the scientists conclude that growing these crops is damaging to plant and insect life.

The judgement will be a serious setback to the GM lobby in the UK and Europe. Re-opening the acrimonious debate about GM food.

The third crop, GM maize, allows the survival of more weeds and insects and might be recommended for approval, though some scientists still have reservations.

The results of the three years of field-scale trials - the largest scientific experiment of its type on GM crops undertaken anywhere in the world - will be published next Friday by the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The results have been a closely guarded secret for months, and will be studied by scientists, farmers, food companies and governments across the world.

The study will include eight peer-reviewed papers about the effect of growing GM crops, and accompanying herbicides, on the plants and animals living in the fields around. The papers compare the GM fields with conventional crops grown in adjacent fields.

The overwhelming public hostility in the UK to GM crops has not been shared by the scientists or the government but the results of the field scale-trials are expected to be a jolt to the enthusiasts. The Royal Society refused to publish a ninth paper produced by the scientific group.

The society's explanation was that the ninth paper was not a scientific document but a summary of findings and, in effect, a recommendation to the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment- the expert quango. The scientists involved will publish this summary at the same time as the other eight papers, concluding that two of the three crops should not be grown.

The trials were set up four years ago by the former Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, urged on by English Nature, the government's watchdog on the natural world, which feared that the UK's already declining farmland species might be further damaged by the introduction of GM crops.

A three-year moratorium on the commercial introduction of crops was negotiated with the GM companies and Monsanto, Syngenta and Bayer Bioscience while the experimental field trials took place. Despite repeated attacks by anti-GM protestors that destroyed many of the fields, the scientists decided they had enough results to be scientifically valid. Experts not involved in the trials had not expected definitive results, even though hundreds of fields were used.

The numbers of weed species and various types of spiders, ground beetles, butterflies, moths and bees in fields of GM crops and the adjacent conventional crop fields, were counted to see if they showed marked differences. All were treated with herbicides to kill weeds but the GM crops were modified to survive special types made by Monsanto and Bayer.

The papers accepted for publication by the Royal Society show that in GM sugar beet and oil-seed rape the weeds and insects were significantly less numerous. Spraying with the Monsanto herbicide glyphosate had taken a heavy toll in the beet fields and the Bayer product, glufosinate ammonium had wiped out many species in the rape fields.

For maize the reverse appears to be the case. The reason seems to be that maize fields are normally sprayed with atrazine, which kills weeds as they germinate, and is an even more savage killer than the Bayer product. But the result may be controversial because maize is particularly sensitive to competition from weeds and yields may be down. Farmers in America found glufosinate ammonium was not enough to kill competitive weeds and used a second herbicide further damaging biodiversity.

The political fall out from the trial results is potentially enormous. It would give the government every right to refuse permission outright for two of the three crops on environmental grounds. One of the two legally watertight reasons for such refusal is the environment, the other is health

GM maize, grown in the UK as a fodder crop may be given the green light under strict guidelines, as a concession to the GM companies and the US, where a trade war looms. The US is threatening to take the EU to the World Trade Organization if the moratorium on GM crops is continued.

The government has other minefields to negotiate before GM crops can be introduced. The Agricultural and Environment Biotechnology Commission is still wrestling with the vexed question of distances required between GM and conventional crops to avoid cross contamination, and compensation for injured farmers if all goes wrong.
The Guardian, 2nd October 2003

GM The Facts

By The Soil Association

What is GM?
Genetic modification (GM) involves the artificial insertion of a foreign gene into the genetic material of an organism in an essentially random way.

There are currently two main types of genetically modified crops, those engineered to be resistant to herbicides in order to kill weeds, and those engineered to produce toxins to kill pests.

GM crops were first grown in 1996 in the US. Three-quarters of the world's GM crops are now grown in the US and Canada. The main GM crop in the US is soya and maize and in Canada it is oilseed rape.

Breakthrough or uncontrollable nightmare?
GM agriculture has been heralded as a breakthrough for the world. Its advocates claim it yields higher crops, uses fewer herbicides and pesticides (and is therefore kinder to the environment), can provide a solution to world hunger, and can co-exist with non-GM crops.

Seeds of Doubt, a report published last September by the Soil Association, reports on the experiences of the only continent to have embraced the technology - North America. The evidence we set out suggests that, in reality, almost every benefit claimed for GM crops has not happened and many problems have occurred.

Fact! GM contaminates organic crops. In one province of Canada, Saskatchewan, GM contamination has wiped out the whole oilseed rape sector. GM and organic cannot co-exist.

Fact! GM does not increase yields. Reports from farmers of substantially reduced harvests have been substantiated by scientific studies. The US Government now admits that GM crops do not increase yields.

Fact! GM does not reduce herbicide use. GM 'volunteers' (plants that appear after harvest with built- in resistance to herbicides) have spread quickly. Farmers are spraying with more herbicides, sometimes reverting to older, more toxic chemicals in their efforts to control these.

Fact! Contamination of the whole food chain has occurred within a couple of years.

Facts! The recall of foods containing GM StarLink maize cost an estimated $1 billion and only happened after many people reported allergic reactions.

Fact! GM crops have destroyed trade. Within two years the US and Canada lost over $600 million a year of agricultural exports due to GM crops, making their farmers even more dependent on subsidies.

Health concerns
Though GMOs have been marketed for several years, scientific knowledge of the processes involved are actually at a very early stage. Very little is known about the side-effects of the inserted genes' random location, how gene function is controlled, and gene transfer into other micro-organisms such as the bacteria in the human gut. The British Medical Association has said the potential adverse effects have not been sufficiently investigated and strongly recommended caution. Why take the risk?

Can GM feed the world?
No! GM seeds are expensive, can reduce yields and are often dependent on specific chemicals. Small farmers will need loans to buy them (as they have done for chemicals) and debt and dependency on large agrochemical companies will continue. Poverty is considered a main cause of hunger. Oxfam and Christian Aid have both warned that GM crops could intensify poverty in the developing world.

What the papers say
The results, in a new government report, show - for the first time in Britain - that genes from GM crops are interbreeding on a large scale with conventional ones, and also with weeds. The report is so devastating to the government's case for GM crops that ministers last week sought to bury it by slipping the first information on it out on the DEFRA website on Christmas Eve, the one day of the year when no newspapers are being prepared.
The Independent on Sunday, 29th December 2002

British scientific researchers have demonstrated for the first time that genetically modified DNA material from the crops is finding its way into human gut bacteria, raising potentially serious health problems. Michael Antoniou, a senior lecturer in molecular genetics at King's College Medical School, London, last night said that the work was significant. "They have shown that this can happen even at very low levels after just one meal."
The Guardian, 17th July 2002

A new government funded review on the safety and usefulness of GM crops will ignore the results of Britain's chief scientist, Professor David King. It is being presented as independent, although the panel holds representatives from Monsanto and Syngenta.
Financial Times, 29th November 2002

Britain's top aid charities have told the prime minister that genetically modified foods will not solve world hunger, but may actually increase world poverty and malnutrition. The joint submission to the government's official debate on GM crops and foods is signed by the directors of Oxfam, Christian Aid, Save the Children, Cafod and Action Aid.
The Independent on Sunday, 11th November 2002

It's wicked when there is so much non GM food aid available. We have the means to assist, but we are playing politics over GM.
Michael Meacher, quoted in The Guardian, 4th December 2002

Soil Association response to the GM threat

In the coming months we plan to:

· Alert the entire organic sector to the dangers posed by GM agriculture.
· Print and distribute thousands more copies of our Seeds of Doubt report, which details the disastrous effects of commercial planning of GM crops in North America (see www.soilassociation.org for copy)
· Promote our second GM report which focuses on issues of GM cotton now being introduced in India. Biotechnology companies, facing stiff opposition in Europe, are targeting less well resourced countries in the hope that GMOs will spread irreversibly before public opinion has time to intervene.
· Organise a UK wide tour for North American farmers anxious to provide personal accounts of their experiences of GM crops. These views are only now starting to be heard in the US, and need to be heard by politicians and the public here too.
· Work directly with the government's strategy unit to highlight the economic consequences of GM crops in North America. We have been appointed to one of their advisory panels and have already provided input into a series of government consultations on GMOs. We must continue to get the facts to the decision makers.
· Challenge the legal position on liability so that the GM companies can be held responsible if an organic farmer loses a crop, or if a whole species gets wiped out. At the moment weaknesses in UK law mean there would be no legal redress.
· Co-ordinate a strong public awareness programme through regional meetings, press articles and radio and television interviews, and build our list of supporters prepared to write to the government expressing their concerns.

Widespread commercial planting of GM crops in this country may begin later this year and poses a direct threat to organic food and farming. If you are opposed to this, Please support the Soil Association today and make sure your voice is heard.

For more details contact Alissa Cook at action@soilassociation.org www.soilassociation.org