Paul Brown
Date: The Guardian Weekly 20-4-0226, page 11
The Government is to go ahead with genetically modified crops despite what it acknowledges is considerable public resistance, according to Cabinet committee papers leaked last week.The minutes of the discussion - which was held earlier this month and involved senior cabinet ministers - disclose the Government's final decision to give the green light to the first crop of GM maize in Britain. An announcement is expected to be made to the House of Commons next month. The papers make clear the Government's recognition that public opinion is generally resistant to GM crops. "The public was unlikely to be receptive," the discussion notes. However, the Government is equally clear in its view that a ban on the crops would be "the easy way out" and would be "an irrational way for the Government to proceed" in the light of its desire to back and encourage UK science. The leaked documents also reveal that the Government has not given up hope of swinging the public round in favour of the crops. "Opposition might eventually be worn down by solid, authoritative scientific argument." The Government's chief scientist, David King, and the chairman of the Food Standard's Agency, John Krebs, both in favour of GM, were at the meeting and agreed to make statements supporting the Government on the day of the announcement. Other pro-GM scientists will be recruited to push forward the message. In a concession to the Welsh assembly view that it wanted no GM crops in Wales the Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, suggested that the Government could offer advice on the establishment of voluntary GM-free zones. The possible compromise will also be of interest to the more than 40 regions that have made moves to declare themselves GM-free. The first crop to be grown will be the Bayer maize that did well in three-year crop trials, being less damaging to the environment than conventional maize doused with powerful herbicides. A Defra spokesman, William Mach, denied that the Government had made up its mind on GM crops. "There's going to be no announcement next week. Ministers are still discussing the policy statement and haven't reached a final decision yet," he said.
Britain's sugar industry is conducting a last-ditch lobbying campaign to prevent Brussels from removing its virtual monopoly in the European market. The Trade and Industry Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, has described the situation in which European consumers support European farmers by paying three times world prices for sugar as "scandalous". But privately Whitehall officials fear that Britain's efforts to get the developing world greater access to Europe may be derailed by an alliance between beet growers, the sugar processing industry and the small group of poor countries currently allowed a tiny slice of the EU market.
For more on Blair, see Blair's Pro GM BIAS / Sainsbury's Patent lie
Paul Brown
Date: The Guardian Weekly 20-4-0304, page 9
Genetically modified crops cannot be planted in Britain for at least another year, and maybe not even then, the environment minister, Elliot Morley, said last week.The delay is because it will take months to sort out proper separation distances between crops, and a liability regime for the contamination of conventional or organic crops. A Commons statement by the Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, that the Government is to go ahead with the first commercially grown GM crop, has been delayed after the leak last month of Cabinet subcommittee minutes. Details of plans to recruit MPs and scientists to put a gloss on the announcement embarrassed ministers, who have decided that another public consultation exercise is required before the policy on commercial growing can be implemented. Mr Morley met the Conservative MP Gregory Barker, who has cross-party support for a private member's bill on GM that is being introduced later this month. It would create a strict regime for planting and compensation for farmers whose crops or livelihoods are damaged by GM crops. Mr Morley told him that the Government would not support his bill, although the minister agreed with parts of it. Mr Morley said that the bill was "out of sync" with government plans for a wide-ranging public consultation on the separation distances between GM and other crops, compensation funds for farmers, and on who would pay any damages. Although the issue of distances between crops might be relatively easy to resolve, the question of compensation if all goes wrong, and who pays for it, remains intractable. Paul Rylott, head of Bioscience at Bayer CropScience, the company that markets fodder maize, the first GM crop likely to be grown commercially in Britain, said biotech companies would under no circumstances pay for a compensation fund. They had not been asked to do so elsewhere and did not intend to start in Britain. Sue Mayer, of the campaigning group GeneWatch, said: "Liability, if all goes wrong, is the key issue. It should not be left to the taxpayer to foot the bill." Ministers now aim to have firm proposals for separation distances and a liability regime in place at the end of this year. | Scientists investigating a spate of illnesses among people living near GM maize fields in the Philippines believe that the crop may have triggered fevers, respiratory illnesses and skin reactions. The scientific director of the Norwegian Institute of Gene Ecology, Terje Traavik, was asked to investigate. Blood tests showed that inhabitants of a village in northern Mindanao had developed antibodies to the maize's inbuilt pesticide.
Geoffrey Lean and Severin Carrell report
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=498685 Date: 07 March 2004
It was supposed, in Blairspeak, to provide "closure" for the public debate over GM foods and to allow ministers and the nation to "move on". But this week's much-delayed announcement that the Government favours the first commercial planting of a modified crop in Britain is turning out to be another episode in its long GM nightmare. Instead of peacefully coasting towards the announcement - scheduled for Tuesday - ministers are spending the weekend desperately trying to rescue it amid objections from almost every quarter. They have had to scale it down to a less-than-enthusiastic endorsement of the crop. And if they are unable to overcome resistance from the Welsh and Scottish devolved governments, they may have to emasculate it further. Senior parliamentarians are furious that the Cabinet agreed to give the green light to the planting of GM maize as they were about to produce a report saying no decision should be taken until more research is carried out. Top civil servants are angry that Downing Street pre-empted the announcement with a leak of the decision on Thursday, in an apparent attempt to spike the parliamentarians' guns. The British Medical Association (BMA) is expected to issue a report this week reiterating concerns about the effects of GM food on health. A study on the environmental effects of growing the maize - which ministers plan to use to shore up their position - is under attack for being partially based on speculation. And research shows that two-thirds of US conventional crops are contaminated with modified genes. The leaders of nine organisations representing eight million Britons - including the National Trust and the Women's Institute - have written to the Prime Minister demanding that the decision be postponed. Environmentalists are mobilising to pull up any crops that are planted. And even the GM industry is privately unhappy that it has not fully got its way. However, the most serious threat to the Government's position is posed by the Welsh and Scottish administrations. Ministers desperately want them on board so that they can make a united announcement that, in principle, growing the maize is acceptable. Even more crucially, by law they have to have their assent before a definite go-ahead can be given to cultivating the GM crop commercially anywhere in Britain. Both devolved governments are far more sceptical about GM than Tony Blair and his Cabinet. Two weeks ago, Carwyn Jones, the Welsh environment minister, said that Wales took "the most restrictive approach possible within current UK and European legislation". This opposition has already held up an announcement for weeks. Ministers are puttingpressure on both administrations. As a result, they are expected to make new policy statements this week - but it is not yet clear that they will toe the Downing Street line. Already Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State for the Environment, is planning to give only muted backing in principle to the maize, saying that on the scientific advice available the Government can see no reason not to give it the go-ahead. But unless the Welsh and Scottish administrations can be brought into line she will be forced to weaken the announcement or to make one that applies only to England and Northern Ireland. Worse, there is no sign that the devolved administrations will agree to approve the planting of the maize, called Chardon LL, and Mrs Beckett is planning to stop short of giving it specific clearance. Instead, she will indicate a further delay by announcing a period of public consultation into the distances that it should be grown from conventional maize to minimise cross-pollination, and into who should compensate non-GM farmers when contamination occurs. She will also say that the maize will only be grown under tough new conditions that many believe will make it uneconomic. And she will make it clear that the Government wants the industry to meet the compensation bills - which GM companies reject. Because of all this, no GM maize will be grown this year. Ministers are considering spinning out the consultation process to prevent planting next year and avoid controversy in the run-up to a general election. That would postpone it to 2006, when EU approval for the maize runs out - meaning that it will have to be tested all over again. However, none of this will satisfy the Government's growing army of critics, which now includes the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee. As The Independent on Sunday reported last week, the committee said it would be "irresponsible" to approve growing the maize until another four years of tests had been carried out. Peter Ainsworth, the committee's chairman, is angry that the Cabinet leaked the Government's decision the day before the committee's report was published. He also attacked a paper published in Nature last week, which is expected to be cited by Mrs Beckett as evidence that GM maize does less harm to the environment than cultivating conventional crops. To add to ministers' troubles, the BMA is to report on the potential health risks of GM foods this week, and is expected to raise concerns that they could increase allergies and resistance to antibiotics. Once the genes spread, there's no stopping them Back in the autumn of 2000, the United States found to its horror that a GM maize not cleared as safe for human consumption was showing up in food products. Genes from Starlink, a modified crop approved only for animals, which had been planted in only 0.4 per cent of US maize, had spread to food all over the country and got into the seed supply. Despite an immense campaign the authorities have still not been able to eliminate it. The episode shows how fast and pervasively genes from GM crops can spread, and how hard it is to eliminate them. And this sort of contamination has already occurred in the UK, even before any commercial growing has been approved. A year and a half ago, illegal oilseed rape was found to be growing in British GM trials. The oilseed contained a gene resistant to antibiotics, something that caused particular concern because of fears that people and animals that ate it could develop immunity to these essential drugs. Dangers to human health from such contamination will increase with the next planned generation of GM crops, which will be modified to produce medicines and industrial chemicals, essentially turning the plants into biological factories. If these genes got into the ordinary food supplies, they could damage the health of people who eat them. Contamination could also spell ruin for organic farmers, who rely on selling unmodified produce free of chemicals. Once the genes had spread - for example though pollen carried from nearby GM crops - they would no longer be able to sell their food as organic. In time, organic agriculture would become impossible and people would be unable to eat this food, which is growing in popularity. Contamination also threatens the environment. Genes from crops modified to resist pesticides have already spread to wild relatives, creating superweeds. And once the genes are out they cannot be recalled, but will go on spreading. Unlike most forms of pollution, genetic contamination is irreversible, as the Starlink experience has showed.
Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor Independent
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=498693 Date: 07 March 2004
More than two-thirds of conventional crops in the United States are now contaminated with genetically modified material - dooming organic agriculture and posing a severe future risk to health - a new report concludes. The report - which comes as ministers are on the verge of approving the planting of Britain's first GM crop, maize - concludes that traditional varieties of seed are "pervasively contaminated" by genetically engineered DNA. The US biotech industry says it is "not surprised" by the findings. Because of the contamination, the report says, farmers unwittingly plant billions of GM seeds a year, spreading genetic modification throughout US agriculture. This would be likely to lead to danger to health with the next generation of GM crops, bred to produce pharmaceuticals and industrial chemicals - delivering "drug-laced cornflakes" to the breakfast table. The report comes at the worst possible time for the Government, which is trying to overcome strong resistance from the Scottish and Welsh administrations to GM maize. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee drew attention to the problem in North America in a report published on Friday, and said the Government had not paid enough attention to it. The MPs concluded: "No decision to proceed with the commercial growing of GM crops [in Britain] should be made until thorough research into the experience with GM crops in North America has been completed and published". It would be "irresponsible" for ministers to give the green light to the maize without further tests. Peter Ainsworth, the committee chairman, accuses the Cabinet of "great discourtesy" to Parliament by making its decision on the maize last Thursday, the day before the report came out, and plans to raise the issue with the Speaker of the House. This week's statement by Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for the Environment, is expected to fall short of authorising immediate planting of the maize, and provide only a muted endorsement for the technology. She will make it clear that the Government wants the GM industry to compensate farmers whose crops are contaminated. This could make cultivation uncommercial. The US study will increase the pressure on her to be tough. Under the auspices of the green-tinged Union of Concerned Scientists, two separate independent laboratories tested supposedly non-GM seeds "representing a substantial proportion of the traditional seed supply" for maize, soya and oilseed rape, the three crops whose modified equivalents are grown widely in the United States. The test found that at "the most conservative expression", half the maize and soyabeans and 83 per cent of the oilseed rape were contaminated with GM genes - just eight years after the modified varieties were first cultivated on a large scale in the US. The degree of contamination is thought to be at a relatively low level of about 0.5 to 1 per cent. The reports says that "contamination ... is endemic to the system". It adds: "Heedlessly allowing the contamination of traditional plant varieties with genetically engineered sequences amounts to a huge wager on our ability to understand a complicated technology that manipulates life at the most elemental level." There could be "serious risks to health" if drugs and industrial chemicals from the next generation of GM crops got into food. Lisa Dry, of the US Biotechnology Industry Association, said that the industry was "not surprised by this report, knowing that pollen travels and commodity grains might co-mingle at various places".
John Gray
Date: March 2.99 The Guardian Weekly , Page 12
THE Blair government's defence of genetically modified food marks a watershed in its history. Over the past few weeks it has had to confront an inconvenient truth. The global free market has become a political liability. In what is likely to be a pattern in British politics over the coming years, the initiative now lies with parties and pressure groups that voice the public's reasonable fears about the costs and risks of global capitalism.
Over the past month the imperatives of global markets have been on a collision course with public opinion. British consumers do not want GM food and it is proving impossible to persuade them that they do. Only last week the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that GM food advertising by the biotechnology giant Monsanto was misleading. However, the finding is not likely to have much effect on the long-term future of such products in Britain.The public believes that scientific knowledge of the effects of GM food is in its infancy. Rightly, it suspects that little is known of its risks to human health and next to nothing about its effects on the environment. There is a deep-seated public view that, given these limitations, it is better to be safe than sorry. Pooh-poohing the risks of GM food has proved to be self-defeating. The British electorate is notably resistant to the combination of wide-eyed techno-utopianism and stock market-fuelled greed that, together with incessant lobbying by the genetic-industrial complex, has effectively stifled debate on genetic engineering in the United States. It is unwilling to defer to the authority of politicians who tell them they are ignorant, hysterical and blind to undreamt-of prospects of progress. This is something even the benighted Tories have understood. Wiser than its leaders, the public cleaves instinctively to the precautionary principle which says that we should avoid catastrophic risks, however small or incalculable they may be, wherever we can. It is especially unwilling to incur such risks for the sake of a product for which it knows there is little, if any, real demand. It cannot shake the suspicion that what GM food really promises is a stream of profits for the companies that produce it.
What the public has yet to understand is that there is not a great deal that the Blair government, or any other administration, can do about GM food. Like nearly every other country, Britain has signed up to international agreements on free trade. These treaties have had the effect of putting issues such as the import of these products beyond the reach of democratically elected national governments. Of course, that is what they were meant to do. The treaties that led up to the establishment of the World Trade Organisation were drafted and negotiated at a time when neo-liberalism was regarded not as a rather cranky political doctrine but as a body of unchallengeable truths. The WTO is an embodiment of the neo-liberal tenet that "free trade" should be insulated from any possibility of democratic accountability. There is little doubt that it will view the action of any national government in preventing the sale of GM food as an interference with free trade. In the best of circumstances, the problems surrounding new genetic technologies would be difficult. Under the current regime of global laissez-faire, they are practically insoluble. Even a ban on GM foods in Britain would not protect people from all the risks that are incurred in producing them. If, despite threats of legal action from biotech companies, some national governments succeed in prohibiting the sale of their products, the companies will simply relocate elsewhere. In the present, semi-anarchic global regime, they will easily find other countries that are more compliant. There they can proceed with the manufacture of GM crops, creating dangers to the environment not only in the countries in which the crops are produced but wherever their effects extend. Today that could be almost anywhere. On this crucial issue the Government cannot respond to the anxieties of the electorate. Like governments elsewhere, it is boxed in by a framework for the world economy constructed in the neo-liberal period. To be sure, there is nothing eternal about the current organisation of global capitalism. It, too, will pass -- perhaps quite soon. But what will have been its cost in needless human suffering? And how much irreversible damage will have been done to the environment?
For more on Blair, see Blair's Pro GM BIAS / Sainsbury's Patent lie
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