Examination of witness (Questions 280
- 306)
TUESDAY 7 DECEMBER 1999
MR PETER
RILEY
280. If we followed your approach to this we
might not have the motor car now?
(Mr Riley) I think it would have gone down a different
development route, put it that way.
281. You have called for a five-year freeze.
Why five years?
(Mr Riley) It is a minimum of five years. That is
our baseline.
282. Why five?
(Mr Riley) Because that seemed to us to give enough
time to achieve the things we wanted to achieve which is to have
a thorough review of where we were in terms of whether we needed
GM crops in this country and needed the imports, and again to
address some of the scientific uncertainties as we saw them. If
at the end of that period there were still uncertainties the freeze
could be extended.
Mr Todd: It is a bit like the statement by one
political party that we should not join the euro in this Parliament
or the next. It is a defined limit on time but not based on an
analysis—
Chairman: I think that is a contentious comment!
I will explain the logic of our position on the euro at a later
date!
Mr Todd
283. When you set a precise time limit such
as that, it does not have a clear relationship to a set of tasks
which might be completed within that time or an evaluation of
what may have happened at the end of that time. I have always
been puzzled as to how the five years came about.
(Mr Riley) We could have said six, we could have said
seven.
Mr Todd: That is exactly my point.
Chairman
284. It is the highest figure that alliterated.
(Mr Riley) Yes, it ran off the tongue nicely.
Mr Todd
285. So it is a slogan rather than a meaningful
statement.
(Mr Riley) It is a statement that we were going far
too fast for this technology and we needed to have a complete
break from it and reassess.
286. Someone said five years ago, "That
sounds a good statement to make. We will go for that." Okay.
What does "freeze" mean?
(Mr Riley) We would not want to see any commercial
growing of GM crops in the United Kingdom in the period of the
freeze.
287. That is largely being complied with. There
is no commercial growing of GM crops and the Government has already
indicated a variety of steps that will have to be taken before
it ever gets to that. It may not have produced a five-year figure
but by your own admission five years is a bit of a random statement.
So the outcome on that one is broadly as you would have wished.
(Mr Riley) It depends whether you think commercial
growing is going on or not really.
288. Let's define that one then.
(Mr Riley) The Government has made no commitment to
block any of the regulatory pathways required for a GM crop before
it gets to market and we know that, for instance, Agrevo's fodder
maize, which last summer took part in farm-scale trials, has already
got a part C marketing consent through the EU and the United Kingdom's
opinion, when they were asked by the EU, was that it presented
no risk to human health or the UK environment which is rather
strange when you consider we are now testing it in large fields
to see whether it has an impact on bio-diversity. You have to
question the whole voluntary agreement as to what exactly it means.
289. It is not being commercially exploited
in this country at the present time?
(Mr Riley) It is not being sold in this country at
this time but within one or two years it is possible it could
be before the farm-size trials are completed.
290. So your definition of what "commercial"
is would include farm-scale trials by the sound of it?
(Mr Riley) Indeed, and any other testing that is commercially
orientated. You have to remember that the vast majority of the
test sites in the United Kingdom have been entirely driven by
commercial interests, not by environmental study.
291. So your definition of "commercial"
is not that the crop may be sold commercially as most people would
see the definition of "commercial" as being, but commercial
in the sense that the long-term intent of that particular activity
is to sell it commercially? Regardless of what you do with that
crop, that is your definition of "commercial", is it?
(Mr Riley) Yes.
292. So the freeze would be on any testing of
any kind of GM material?
(Mr Riley) Outdoor testing.
293. Outdoor testing, so indoor laboratory testing
is okay?
(Mr Riley) Yes.
294. Right, okay. Why? How are we going to find
out answers on these technologies if we are not able to test in
an outdoor environment?
(Mr Riley) I think the problem there is that we cannot
contain these crops within the field where they are being grown
because—
295. As we have heard in the earlier evidence.
(Mr Riley) As we have heard, and our view is that
the escape of genes in pollen into the wider environment and into
other people's crops means that it is very difficult to conceive
of a system of growing these crops in the UK where we are not
going to run into either economic problems with cross-pollination
or long-term environmental problems. The long-term environmental
problems through cross-pollination of wild species are quite difficult
to call.
Chairman: This is not exactly central to our
inquiry this afternoon.
Mr Todd: I will let it lie there.
Chairman: Very interesting. Mr Marsden?
Mr Marsden
296. Mr Riley, in your memorandum you state
that the "segregation of GM foods is essential for the establishment
of a reliable labelling system in which the public have confidence."
Do you feel segregation is the same as identity preservation?
(Mr Riley) I think there is some confusion over the
two terms. Traditionally, identity preservation has been used
to describe the process whereby specialist crops have been tracked
into a specialist market. One thinks of soya going into the Japanese
tofu market for instance where they want a particular type of
bean. That is identity preservation, but in the case of GM and
non-GM soya where they are both serving the same market, segregation
of the crops from the field, and indeed when it is growing, is
essential to achieve an accurate labelling system otherwise we
will just get a huge mess with cross-contamination at various
points along the chain.
297. You say that "isolation distances
between GM and non-GM crops must be large enough to ensure the
integrity of non-GM crops". Are you satisfied with the limit
used in SCIMAC guidelines?
(Mr Riley) No, we are not at all satisfied with those.
The ones set out for all the crops where they have currently listed
separation distances are nowhere near enough to prevent wind pollination
and they are certainly nowhere near sufficient to prevent bees
coming into the crop. You have to remember that oilseed rape is
an extremely favourite source of pollen for honey bees and also
fodder maze could be used as a source of pollen by bees late in
the summer, and research has shown that an individual honey bee
returning from an oilseed rape field can be covered about 60,000
grains of oilseed rape pollen and it will then rub shoulders with
its fellow workers and potentially a certain proportion of those
pollen grains will be transferred on to another oilseed rape field
in the vicinity which is potentially non-GM. At the moment we
are not at all convinced that we can operate GM farms in the United
Kingdom alongside conventional farming which is servicing the
GM-free market which, as you are aware, has grown enormously in
the last 12 months, and also the issue of organic farmers comes
in as well. In the case of oilseed rape, the issue is between
GM farming and conventional farming and those conventional farmers
who choose to be GM-free because they think they can sell their
products to companies that are selecting GM-free, then that is
going to cause real problems without much much much bigger separation
distances and we just do not think that is really going to be
workable in the United Kingdom countryside.
298. Where do you draw the line then? You heard
the previous evidence from Professor Gray and Dr Dale and you
have agreed that there is no such thing as 100 per cent risk free,
so what is acceptable? Are we saying that if one bee actually
allows a cross-pollination that is unacceptable?
(Mr Riley) It certainly would not be one bee because
thousands of bees would be getting to one field and bringing pollen
back and thousands of other bees would be going to another field
from the same hive, so there is potential for quite a large amount
of pollen to be shifted. We have to look to see what is happening
in the market. Only last week there was a conference[4]
where Heinz and other companies were talking confidently about
achieving 0.1 per cent as their threshold. With the technology
there is we can go right down to 0.001 if we want.
Chairman
299. Can I pick you up on that because we have
been told by many people that even the one per cent target the
European Commission set is optimistic in the extreme. So you do
not agree with that?
(Mr Riley) I am going on what I have been told by
major companies, that they are meeting—
300. You get very different answers from different
companies.
(Mr Riley) They are meeting their own standard of
0.1 per cent.
301. Those lower targets would be at quite a
cost to the consumer, would they not?
(Mr Riley) I do not think it need be a huge cost,
no. The evidence is if a company is buying soya from Brazil, for
instance, then the additional costs of GM-free (or detection limit
as we could call it) are not all that great and maybe less than
ten per cent, and if soya is only a minor constituent of a final
processed food then the impact on price is going to be very small
and even from America, DuPonts have quoted a 54 cent increase
per bushel going into Rotterdam which is a ten per cent increase
on the GM. In the end where the cost is borne will be decided
on who has the biggest sector of the cake. We could end up with
a GM commodity trade and a non-GM commodity trade and both working
alongside each other.
302. It is the economics of those issues that
are really essential to this inquiry.
(Mr Riley) Indeed.
303. You have made an interesting suggestion
in your evidence that there should be a levy paid for the segregation
and auditing of GM foods. This raised the question of who meets
the costs because it looks as if the non-GM consumer and producer
are going to bear the cost of introducing GM crops at present.
That levy idea is a novel idea. Who should be the collecting authority
for that levy?
(Mr Riley) I think I would have to say we have not
developed that idea very fully, but I think the levy should fall
upon the GM industry because it is that industry which has disrupted
the market.
304. Who would collect it?
(Mr Riley) The states where the crops were grown would
have to collect it because the obvious place to put the levy would
be on the seed before it goes into the ground.
305. It would require international agreement
to get to that kind of position?
(Mr Riley) I think it would.
306. The prospect of international agreement
is remote. Mind you, you have successfully sabotaged the one in
Seattle.
(Mr Riley) What we want is sustainable international
agreements, not unsustainable ones and that is why the WTO agreement
was unacceptable.
Chairman: Mr Riley, I am afraid I am going to
have to bring things to a conclusion, which I apologise for. Can
I express our deep gratitude to you for coming and giving evidence
in the last half an hour. If there are things which you think
on reflection, having heard the evidence of previous witnesses,
you wished you had said, or things that you had hoped to mention
to us today, please let us talk about them in written memoranda
and whatever else you can submit in writing at this stage. Thank
you very much indeed.
4 Note by Witness: Conference on identity preservation
and segregation held in London. Back
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