The End For GM Crops In Britain

The End For GM Crops In Britain
Final British Trial Confirms Threat To Wildlife
By Steve Connor, Michael McCarthy and Colin Brown
The Independent - UK
3-22-5

Yet another nail was hammered into the coffin of the GM food industry
in Britain yesterday when the final trial of a four-year series of experiments
found, once more, that genetically modified crops can be harmful to wildlife.

The study was the fourth in a series that has, in effect, sealed the fate of
GM in the UK - at least in the foreseeable future. They showed the
ultra-powerful weedkillers that the crops are engineered to tolerate would
bring about further damage to a countryside already devastated by intensive
farming.

Only one of the four farm-scale trials, which have gone on for nearly five
years, showed that growing GM crops might be less harmful to birds,
flowers and insects than the non-GM equivalent - and even that was
attacked as flawed, because the weedkiller the particular conventional
crop required was so destructive it was about to be banned by the EU.

Even so, a year ago the Government gave a licence for that crop - a
maize known as Chardon LL, created by the German chemical group
Bayer - to be grown in Britain, thus officially opening the way for the
GM era in Britain, to loud protests from environmentalists.

However, only three weeks later Bayer withdrew its application,
suggesting the regulatory climate would be too inhibiting. That followed
the withdrawal from Europe of the world leader in GM crops, the
American biotech giant Monsanto, which also seemed to have tired of
the struggle.

Since then, the GM industry in Britain has withered on the vine, despite
the fact that some members of the Government, and Tony Blair in
particular, were privately great supporters of it from the outset. Official
policy is portrayed as being neutral and based simply on scientific advice.

But yesterday's results make it even less likely that other big agribusiness
firms will want to come forward and go through the extensive testing
process - and public opposition - that bringing a GM crop to market in
Britain would involve.

Last night, the Conservatives spotted a political opportunity from the
latest test results and, this morning, the shadow Environment Secretary,
Tim Yeo, will pledge to prevent any commercial planting of GM crops
until science showed it would be safe for people and the environment,
and there was a liability regime in place to deal with any cross-contamination.

Observers saw that as yet another Tory attempt to win over Middle
England voters in the pre-election campaign.

The fourth and final mass experiment involving GM crops has found that
they caused significant harm to wild flowers, butterflies, bees and probably
songbirds. Results of the farm-scale trial of winter-sown oilseed rape raised
further doubts about whether GM crops can ever be grown in Britain without
causing further damage to the nation's wildlife.

Although the experiment did not look directly at the catastrophic demise
of farmland birds over the past 50 years, ornithologists said the results
suggested that growing GM oilseed rape would almost certainly exacerbate
the problem.

David Gibbons, the head of conservation at the Royal Society for the
Protection of Birds, said the herbicides used to spray GM rape killed
broad-leaved wild flowers such as chickweed and fat hen which are
important to the diet of songbirds such as skylarks, tree sparrows and
bullfinches.

"For most farmland birds, broad-leaved weeds are a particularly important
part of their diet. There are a few birds that will take grass seeds but, by
and large, it would be hard to see how the loss of broad-leaved weeds
would be beneficial to them," Dr Gibbons said. "Broad-leaved weeds are
particularly important to farmland birds and the widespread cultivation of
this crop, in this way, would damage hopes of reversing their decline."

The trial of winter oilseed rape involved planting conventional and GM
forms of the crop in adjacent plots at 65 sites across Britain. Scientists
then carefully monitored wild flowers, grasses, seeds, bees, butterflies
and other invertebrates. Over the course of the three-year experiment,
the scientists counted a million weeds, two million insects and made
7,000 field trips. Although they found similar overall numbers of weeds
in the two types of crop, broad-leaved weeds such as chickweed were
far fewer in the GM plots. The scientists counted fewer bees and
butterflies in the GM plots compared to plots of conventional oilseed rape.

Les Firbank, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Lancaster, who
led the study, said that there was about one-third fewer seeds from
broad-leaved flowers in the GM plots compared to fields with
conventional oilseed rape.

"These differences were still present two years after the crop had
been sown ... So we've got a significant biological difference that
is carrying on from season to season," he said.

GM oilseed rape is genetically designed to be resistant to a weedkiller
that would kill the non-GM crop. It means that farmers are free to use
broader-spectrum herbicides.

The three previous farm-scale trials into crops investigated spring-sown
oilseed rape, maize and beet. These showed that growing GM rape and
GM beet did more harm to wildlife than their conventional counterparts.

"All of the evidence that we've got from the farm-scale evaluations points
out that differences between the treatments are due to the herbicides. It's
the nature of the chemicals and the timing at which the farming is done,"
Dr Firbank said.

Christopher Pollock, chairman of the scientific steering committee that
oversaw the farm-scale trials, said: "What's good for the farmer is not
always good for the natural populations of weeds, insects, birds and
butterflies that share that space."

Farm-scale trials of GM crops are unique to Britain and represent the
first time that scientists have evaluated the environmental impact of a
new farming practice before it has been introduced, Professor Pollock
said. Results of the latest trial are published in Proceedings of the Royal
Society B.

The Four Tests

Test 1: Spring-sown oilseed rape, October 2003

Nationwide tests found that biotech oilseed rape sown in the spring
could be more harmful to many groups of wildlife than their
conventional equivalent. There were fewer butterflies among modified
crops, due to there being less weeds. Verdict: GM fails.

Test 2: Sugar beet, October 2003

The GM crop was found to be potentially more harmful to its
environment than crops that were unmodified. Bees and butterflies
were recorded more frequently around conventional crops, due
to greater numbers of weeds. Verdict: GM fails.

Test 3: Maize, October 2003

The production of biotech maize was shown to be kinder to other
plants and animals compared to conventional crops. More weeds
grew around the biotech maize crops, attracting more butterflies,
bees and weed seeds. Verdict: GM passes, but critics brand study
as flawed.

Test 4: Winter-sown oilseed rape, March 2005

Tests showed that fields sown with the biotech crop had fewer
broad-leaved weeds growing in them. This impacted on the numbers
of bees and butterflies, which feed on such weeds. Verdict: GM fails.

HALF A CENTURY OF DEBATE

1953: James Watson and Francis Crick unravel double-helix form
of DNA, making biotechnology a possibility.

1983: Kary Mullis, a scientist and surfer from California, discovers
the polymerase chain-reaction which allows tiny pieces of DNA to
be replicated rapidly. Shortly after, US patents to produce GM
plants are awarded to companies. US Environment Protection
Agency approves release of first GM crop: virus-resistant tobacco.

1987: Potato becomes first GM plant introduced to UK.

1994: Flavr Savr tomato is approved by US Food and Drug
Administration, paving way for more GM products.

1997: Public find Monsanto GM soya is used, unlabelled, in
processed UK food.

June 1998:The Prince of Wales stokes debate by saying he will
neither eat GM produce nor serve it to his family or friends.

July 1998: English Nature, the Government's wildlife advisory body,
calls for a moratorium on planting of GM crops while trials are
conducted into effects on wildlife of their weedkillers.

February 1999:Michael Meacher, the environment minister,
persuades GM companies to agree to a moratorium until farm-scale
weedkiller trials are done.

Spring 2000: Farm-scale trials of GM crops begin.

October 2003: Preliminary results find that two of three GM crops
are believed to damage the environment.

March 2004:Cabinet members approve qualified planting of first UK
GM crop.