GM firms final surrender in Britain

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GM firms final surrender in Britain

" GM WATCH " <info

 

Sun, 21 Nov 2004 10:29:32 GMT

 

 

GM firms final surrender in Britain

http://www.gmwatch.org

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Last week Bayer said it would not even try to carry out trials in

Britain until the Government took strong measures to stop protesters

pulling

up the plants. And ministers now believe that there is no market for

the crops, so they would not be grown even if approval were granted.

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GM firms finally give up on planting in Britain

By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor

Independent on Sunday, 21 November 2004

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=585086

 

Industry has dropped its last attempts to get GM seeds approved for

growing in Britain, in a final surrender of its dream to spread modified

crops rapidly across the country.

 

Bayer CropScience has withdrawn the only two remaining applications for

government permission for the seeds - a winter and a spring oilseed

rape, both modified to tolerate one of the firm's herbicides. Supporters

of the technology say this will put back their commercial use in Britain

for years. Environmentalists cite it as one more indication that they

are never likely to be grown here.

 

The withdrawal of the applications marks a sharp contrast to the

situation when The Independent on Sunday began its campaign over genetic

modification nearly six years ago. At that time, 53 different GM seeds

were

awaiting approval, and widespread cultivation was assumed to be only a

year away.

 

The Government had put all its weight behind the technology, aiming to

make Britain its " European hub " , and Tony Blair privately dismissed

opposition as a " flash in the pan " .

 

But rising public concern forced the Government to introduce a

moratorium while tests were carried out on the effects on the

environment of

growing GM crops. The trials - the results of which were reported last

year - found that the way GM beet and spring oilseed rape were cultivated

damaged wildlife more than the growing of conventional crops (the

results for winter oilseed rape are due to be published shortly).

 

The trials appeared to clear GM maize, but the IoS revealed that the

verdict was invalid because a pesticide central to the clearance was

about to be banned. The Government still gave approval for the maize

to be

grown - the only one given to a GM crop in Britain. But shortly

afterwards, Bayer announced it would not proceed, saying that the

controls on

how the maize would be cultivated were too strict.

 

GM advocates presented this as a temporary setback, arguing that new

varieties could be grown as early as 2006. Now, however, industry,

ministers and environmentalists agree that the abandonment of the last

applications means it will be the end of this decade, at the earliest ,

before any GM crops can be grown.

 

Any new application will now have to go through a long process to be

approved. First, it will have to be passed by the European Union, an

unlikely prospect as it has a moratorium on GM crops. Even if that hurdle

were surmounted, the crop would have to go through two years of trials

in Britain, and then get government approval - a process that will be

fought by protesters.

 

Last week Bayer said it would not even try to carry out trials in

Britain until the Government took strong measures to stop protesters

pulling

up the plants. And ministers now believe that there is no market for

the crops, so they would not be grown even if approval were granted.

 

Yesterday, Pete Riley, director of the anti-GM campaign Five Year

Freeze, said: " This development makes it even less likely that modified

crops will ever be grown in Britain. The Government should now abandon

its

doomed obsession with GM crops and put together a coherent strategy to

put the whole of UK farming on a sustainable basis. "

 

 

 

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