Fwd: Biotech controversy continues in the United Kingdom

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" News Update from The Campaign "

Biotech controversy continues in the United Kingdom

Wed, 8 Oct 2003 05:33:14 -0500

 

News Update From The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

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Dear News Update Subscribers,

 

The debate over genetically engineered foods continues to heat up in the

United Kingdom (UK) -- and the whole world is watching.

 

CROP TRIAL REPORTS

 

The crop trial reports from the UK Royal Society we mentioned in our

last News Update have still not been released. They may come out this

Friday or, more likely, on October 16th.

 

Leaks from people who have seen the reports indicate the Royal Society

will state that genetically engineered canola (oil seed rape) and sugar

beets are harmful to the environment and that biotech corn (maize) is

environmentally safe.

 

There are also reports that UK government ministers will recommend

banning canola from being grown and postponing sugar beets. Genetically

engineered corn may be approved for growing. But if an attempt to

actually plant commercial fields of biotech corn ever takes place in the

UK, it will likely touch off a huge amount of protests and acts of civil

disobedience.

 

The Royal Society reports should also cause fireworks in Canada where

they are growing millions of acres of genetically engineered canola. If

canola has been found through three years of crops trials to be harmful

to the environment in the UK, it stands to reason that the environment

in Canada is under assault from this widely grown crop.

 

NO INSURANCE FOR GE CROPS

 

The latest breaking news controversy in the UK involves the results of a

survey by the group Farm. They found that none of the top five main

British insurance underwriters will cover genetically engineered crops.

 

The lack of liability insurance has not stopped biotech crops from being

grown in the United States. But it could prove to be a major obstacle in

the United Kingdom.

 

In the United States, genetically engineered crops were rushed into the

agricultural system before anyone really looked closely at the potential

liability problems. However, in the UK, liability is likely to be much

more of an issue. Lack of insurance coverage may prevent these

controversial crops from being grow at all on a commercial basis.

 

Posted below are four articles. The first two articles deal with the

refusal of insurance companies to cover genetically engineered crops.

Articles three and four deal with the upcoming reports indicating that

genetically engineered canola and sugar beets are harmful to the

environment.

 

Craig Winters

Executive Director

The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods

 

The Campaign

PO Box 55699

Seattle, WA 98155

Tel: 425-771-4049

Fax: 603-825-5841

E-mail: label

Web Site: http://www.thecampaign.org

 

Mission Statement: " To create a national grassroots consumer campaign

for the purpose of lobbying Congress and the President to pass

legislation that will require the labeling of genetically engineered

foods in the United States. "

 

***************************************************************

 

Insurers 'would not cover' GM farmers

 

Guardian Unlimited (UK)

Sally Bolton and agencies

Tuesday October 7, 2003

 

The likelihood that genetically-modified crops will ever be farmed in

the UK was today greatly reduced after it emerged that farmers may not

be able to obtain insurance cover for the potential risks of GM farming.

 

A survey carried out by agricultural campaigning group Farm found that

none of the five main British insurance underwriters would be willing to

offer cover to farmers considering growing GM crops, or to non-GM

farmers seeking to protect their businesses from GM crop contamination.

 

All the companies surveyed said that they felt unable to insure farmers

against potentially huge compensation payouts if widespread fears about

GM food and farming proved to be realised.

 

They said that too little was known about the long-term effects on human

health and the environment of growing GM for them to be able to offer

any form of cover.

 

Some firms even compared the risks of GM to the Thalidomide scandal of

the 60s - in which £100m compensation was paid out when babies were born

with deformities resulting from the drug - and payouts caused by the use

of asbestos.

 

One company said: " Fifty years ago, insurers were writing policies for

asbestos without a care in the world - now they are facing claims of

hundreds of millions of pounds.

 

" The insurance industry has learned to be wary of new things, and there

is a real feeling that GM could come back and bite you in five years. "

 

The Farm survey found that opposition from the firms to insuring GM

crops was comparable to the public's hostility towards buying and eating

them.

 

Robin Maynard, Farm's national coordinator, said: " When insurers

quantify GM crops in the same category as thalidomide, asbestos and

terrorism, no thinking farmer should risk their business and public

reputation by taking on this unproven, unwanted and unnecessary

technology.

 

" Time and time again, farmers have borne the brunt of someone else's

mistakes or shortcuts - BSE, organophosphates, salmonella ... It's time

farmers got out of the firing line and let those seeking to force GM

crops into our fields and onto supermarket shelves take the flak.

 

" If the government and their friends in the biotech companies dispute

the judgment of the professional insurers, perhaps they will offer

unlimited cover to the few farmers willing to risk growing GM crops? "

 

Farm, a new organisation representing working farmers, surveyed the five

companies - Agricultural Insurance Underwriters Agency, Rural Insurance

Group, BIB Underwriters Limited, Farm Web and NFU Mutual - a week ago.

 

BIB Underwriters said that it would refuse to give insurance of any

kind, including buildings insurance, to GM farmers amid fears that they

could be targets for environmental protesters.

 

The survey comes only days before the government's publication next week

of the findings of its three-year field-scale GM crop trials.

 

Margaret Beckett, the head of the department of environment, food and

rural affairs, will base her decision over whether to allow GM farming

on the results of the trials.

 

Mr Maynard said: " For both farmers and consumers, [the government] needs

to guarantee what the insurers clearly believe isn't possible - that GM

crops can be grown without contaminating the crops of the majority of

farmers who want to remain GM-free. "

 

A nationwide survey of public opinion, published last month, showed

overwhelming opposition to GM technology.

 

***************************************************************

 

No insurance cover for GM crops that 'could be like thalidomide'

 

Electronic Telegraph (UK)

By Robert Uhlig Farming Correspondent

(Filed: 08/10/2003)

 

The major agricultural insurance companies are refusing to insure

farmers who intend to grow genetically modified crops, according to a

survey that deals a further blow to Government hopes of approving at

least one crop for commercial cultivation next year.

 

The survey, conducted by working farmer members of Farm, a campaign

group, found insurance companies unwilling to take on the risk of

liability claims against farmers who grew GM crops.

 

Leading rural insurance underwriters told the farmers that they were

concerned that " GM could be like thalidomide - only after some time

would the full extent of the problems be seen " .

 

Some spoke of the potential of lawsuits akin to the big payouts for

asbestos-exposure victims.

 

" Fifty years ago, insurers were writing policies for asbestos without a

care in the world. Now they are facing claims of hundreds of millions of

pounds, " one underwriter told the farmers.

 

" The insurance industry has learned to be wary of new things, and there

is a real feeling that GM could come back and bite you in five years'

time. "

 

Rural insurers are so concerned at the scope for liability claims if the

Government approves GM crops that they are even refusing to insure

non-GM farmers against losses or liability due to contamination by GM

pollen.

 

The problem of how to grow GM crops and conventional varieties has

proved to be such a difficult issue to resolve that the Prime Minister's

advisers have repeatedly failed to reach a consensus.

 

The Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission, which advises

the Government, is expected to deliver a much-delayed report on

co-existence by the end of the month.

 

All the insurers surveyed felt that too little was known about the

long-term effects on human health and the environment to be able to

offer any form of cover for farmers growing GM crops.

 

Even NFU Mutual, the insurance arm of the National Farmers' Union, which

is in favour of GM crops, will not provide insurance for farmers wanting

to grow GM crops. A spokesman said the company believed the risks were

not fully understood and advised farmers to seek cover through the

biotechnology companies that own the patent to GM seeds.

 

Agricultural Insurance Underwriters Agency, which underwrites policies

for Norwich Union and Sun Alliance, said it had an exclusion clause for

liability arising from GM crops.

 

Rural Insurance Group, which underwrites Lloyds policies, puts GM crops

in the same bracket as acts of terrorism and excludes them from cover.

 

BIB Underwriters Limited, which underwrites AXA policies, said it would

turn down any policy that has any association with GM, including cover

for farm building and property insurance as well as public liability. A

spokesman said that aside from the problems of cross contamination, BIB

anticipated a risk of claims associated with arson or vandalism due to

anti-GM protesters.

 

Robin Maynard, the national co-ordinator of Farm, said: " When insurers

quantify GM crops in the same category as thalidomide, asbestos and

terrorism, no thinking farmer should risk their business and public

reputation by taking on this unproven, unwanted and unnecessary

technology. "

 

***************************************************************

 

Government prepares to back down over GM crops

 

The Independent (London)

Exclusive by Severin Carrell and Geoffrey Lean

05 October 2003

 

Ministers are ready to ban at least one of the three GM crops planned

for Britain, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. They are preparing a

compromise that would prohibit the growing of GM oilseed rape, the most

damaging of the crops to the environment, while approving GM maize,

which is thought to be the least hazardous, under strict conditions.

 

They are also expected to postpone the introduction of GM sugar beet,

whose cultivation has been found to endanger insects and other plants,

pending further research.

 

The plan is heavily influenced by the long-awaited results of the

Government's three-year programme of trials on GM crops, to be published

on 16 October.

 

Ministers were confident the tests would give all three crops the

all-clear, and were planning to give them all the immediate go-ahead.

 

Leaks suggest, as first reported in The Independent in August, that the

trials will show that growing GM oilseed rape and sugar beet harms weeds

and wildlife more than growing conventional crops.

 

As a result, Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for the Environment,

has indicated that she intends banning the failing crops, and giving

maize, which had favourable results in the trials, the all-clear.

 

The results are particularly devastating because they did not test the

greatest concern about GM crops: that their genes will escape, creating

superweeds and contaminating other crops. Instead they focused only on

the effects that a different use of herbicides on the modified plants

would have on insect and plant life. Environmentalists argue that GM

oilseed rape and sugar beet are even more dangerous and that GM maize

cannot be given the all-clear.

 

Michael Meacher, the former environment minister who originally ordered

the crop trials, said these risks meant allowing GM maize to be planted,

and failing to ban sugar beet, would be a " totally irrational and

improper conclusion " .

 

He added: " It's just politically convenient, allowing them to show that

they're being tough while securing their real objective to give the

go-ahead to these crops. "

 

The results come after a summer of setbacks for the Government's GM

plans. A Cabinet Office report concluded in July that it could detect no

benefits for consumers or the country. Days later a group led by the

Government's chief scientist, Sir David King, said it would be

impossible to grow modified crops without their genes escaping, raising

the possibility of future health risks.

 

An official public consultation last month involving nearly 40,000

people revealed a nine to one majority against the technology. Despite

this, ministers hope their new plan will square the circle by pleasing

Tony Blair, who wants to go ahead with the technology.

 

***************************************************************

 

Blair warned on GM crops 'harm'

 

Steve Dube, The Western Mail

Oct 4 2003

 

PRIME MINISTER Tony Blair has been urged to listen to public fears about

genetically modified food after reports that two of the three crops

grown experimentally in Britain are harmful to the environment.

 

According to The Guardian newspaper, scientists will tell the Government

next week that growing GM crops damages plant and insect life.

 

Papers to be published next Friday are said to show that GM oilseed rape

and sugar beet have more impact on the environment than non-GM crops and

should not be grown in the UK.

 

The Government has always insisted that any ban on what opponents have

labelled Frankenstein food must be based on scientific evidence and

Friends of the Earth director Tony Juniper said the findings appeared to

be a death blow for commercial GM crops in the UK.

 

" Two of the three crops are more harmful to the environment than

conventional varieties and scientists appear to have reservations about

the third, " said Mr Juniper, who described GM crops as unpopular,

unnecessary and a threat to food, farming and environment.

 

" The Prime Minister this week promised to listen to the public. It's

time he listened on this important issue and refused to allow GM crops

to be commercially grown in Britain, " said Mr Juniper.

 

The EU is also insisting that member states or regions only have the

right to ban the crops for sound environmental or health reasons, so the

studies will offer an important boost to the campaign to make Wales

GM-free.

 

The reports are said to show that GM oil seed rape and sugar beet both

damage plant and insect life.

 

The third trial crop of GM fodder maize, as grown at Sealand,

Flintshire, allows more weeds and insects to survive, although some

scientists remain unconvinced.

 

The trials were established four years ago by former environment

minister Michael Meacher who was sacked for his opposition to the new

technology.

 

The studies counted weed species and various types of spiders, ground

beetles, butterflies, moths and bees in fields of GM crops and the

adjacent conventional crop fields to see if there were any differences.

All the crops were treated with herbicides to kill weeds but the GM

crops were modified to survive special types of applications

manufactured by Monsanto and Bayer.

 

The papers accepted for publication on Friday by the Royal Society show

that there were far fewer weeds and insects in GM sugar beet and oil

seed rape.

 

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.

 

The reverse happened with the GM maize because 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 maize is particularly sensitive to competition from weeds and it is

thought that yields may be down.

 

Farmers in America found that glufosinate ammonium was not enough to

kill competitive weeds and a second herbicide was needed that caused

further damage to biodiversity.

 

The study results are another setback for the American-based

transnational companies that want to sell their seed and crops in Europe

following after last week's overwhelming rejection by the public of GM

in a study published by the independent GM steering board.

 

Environment Minister Elliot Morley said the Government would study the

results and carry out a detailed scientific evaluation.

 

" The Government is neither for nor against GM crops, " said Mr Morley.

 

Shadow Environment Secretary David Lidington said decisions about GM

crops had to be based on good science.

 

" The Government must not rush into approving GM varieties if scientific

evidence says that they are unsafe, " said Mr Lidington.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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