House of Commons - Agriculture - Minutes of Evidence

Select Committee on Agriculture Minutes of Evidence

APPENDIX 5

Memorandum submitted by Friends of the Earth (G 6)

1. FRIENDS OF THE EARTH

Friends of the Earth (FOE) exists to protect and improve the conditions for life on earth, now and for the future.

Friends of the Earth is one of the largest international environmental networks in the world:

— with over 50 groups across five continents;

— one of the UK's most influential national environmental pressure groups;

— a unique network of campaigning local groups, working in 225 communities throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Friends of the Earth have been campaigning for sustainable food and agriculture since the early 1980s. The current Campaign for Real Food was launched in May 1997 following increasing concern over the rapid introduction of genetically modified food and crops into the UK and in order to promote more sustainable food and agriculture for the UK.

We support the Five Year Freeze Campaign which is calling for a minimum five year moratorium on:

1. The growing of genetically engineered crops for any commercial purpose.

2. Imports of genetically engineered foods and farm crops.

3. The patenting of genetic resources for food and farm crops.

During the Five Year Freeze the following must be developed:

— a system which allows people to exercise their right to choose products free of genetic engineering;

— public involvement in decisions on the need for and the regulation of genetic engineering;

— prevention of genetic pollution of the environment;

— strict legal liability for adverse effects on people or the environment from the release and marketing of genetically modified organisms;

— independent assessment of the implications of patenting genetic resources;

— independent assessment of the social and economic impact of genetic engineering on farmers.

Friends of the Earth have contributed to government consultations on the regulatory framework, changes to the Seed Regulations and labelling of GM soya and maize food products. We have also submitted a response to the Food Standards Agency White Paper and draft Bill. FOE has also written to Ministers concerning the regulatory system for GM deliberate releases and risk assessments. FOE have also sought a judicial review of the Government's procedures for the conduct of National Seed List Trials in 1998 and the Provisional Seed Certification Scheme in 1999.

2. INTRODUCTION

On 17 April, Advanta Seeds UK told the Government that GM contaminated oilseed rape seed had been sold to farmers across the UK.[1] It claimed that the GM contamination happened in Canada, when pollen from a GM "Roundup" (glyphosate) resistant crop was blown onto conventional oilseed rape being grown for seed.[2] Advanta Seeds admitted that it sold GM contaminated seeds to the UK, Sweden, France and Germany. In a statement to the House of Commons, the Agriculture Minister Nick Brown stated that in the UK "9,000 hectares were sown with affected stocks last year and about 4,700 were sown this spring" and that "about 1 per cent" of this was GM.

After a drawn-out period, the Government finally issued advice for farmers on 27 May, notably that the contaminated crops could not be marketed in Europe. On 2 June Advanta eventually agreed to pay compensation to the affected farmers.

The reported separation distances used in Canada are 16 times greater than those used in the UK to separate conventional crops from GM varieties. FOE has always been critical of these and, more recently, of the outdoor testing of GM crops such as oilseed rape and maize. It is clear that such practices will contaminate non-GM crops and even honey supplies.

3. CONTAMINATED SEED

Advanta Seeds claim that its conventional oilseed rape variety "Hyola 38" was contaminated by pollen from GM oilseed rape resistant to the herbicide "Roundup". The GM oilseed rape was developed by Monsanto, and is a "GT 73" type. The UK Government has said that the rate of contamination was around 1 per cent, but a company selling Advanta's seed to Swedish farmers has stated that "parts of this year's imports from Canada of the same variety have been shown to contain some 2.6 per cent of Roundup resistant seed".[3] Until there is independent testing, it is not certain what the real rate of contamination in the UK actually is.

4. GOVERNMENT DELAYS

The Government knew about the contamination a month before the news was made available to farmers. If Ministers and Advanta had immediately made this knowledge public many farmers would have been able to avoid planting the contaminated seeds.

The UK contamination only became public after the Swedish Government made a statement on 17 May. The UK then gave an answer to a Parliamentary Question on that afternoon followed by a Minister's statement the following day.

It was not until 27 May that the Government finally issued advice to farmers that there was no marketing consent for this crop.

5. DOUBLE CONTAMINATION

When the story first broke on 17 May, Advanta informed FOE that the seeds were not only contaminated by Monsanto's GT73 but also by glufosinate-resistant oilseed rape produced by Aventis. Government officials confirmed on 27 June with FOE that they had known of this possibility from the start but that no public statements were made. The "double" contamination was also confirmed in an article in Farmers Weekly (23 June 2000). This revealed that scientific tests carried out by Reading Scientific Services Ltd on the Advanta seeds had discovered the presence of the Aventis gene. Personal communications with the scientists involved confirmed that the Aventis gene had been found and that they had failed to find the Monsanto gene.

The Aventis contamination has implications for the Government's farm-scale evaluations, as these use Aventis GM seeds and are looking at gene flow as well as biodiversity impacts. At least one of the farm-scale evaluations has used the contaminated seeds in the "non-GM" half of the trial.

This episode calls into question the Government's openness on this issue and emphasises the need for Government and Advanta to publish a full statement on what actually occurred.

6. ILLEGAL SEED

Before GM seed can be sold in the UK and Europe, it must have an EU wide marketing consent under the GM "Deliberate Release" Directive 90/220. There is no marketing consent for "GT73" GM oilseed rape varieties. In fact, it is not clear whether Monsanto have even made an application. Without a marketing consent, GM oilseed rape crops cannot be sold for food or industrial purposes, or fed to livestock.

The Agricultural Minister has stated that the genetic modification involved, known as "GT73", "is one that had previously been approved in the UK under our strict regulatory regime for food use". It is true that refined oil from GT73 GM oilseed rape has permission to be sold in the EU and that this was given on the basis of a report by the UK's Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes (ACNFP).

However, oil from GT73 oilseed rape was authorised under the EU's "fast track" procedure for GM foods which are considered to be "substantially equivalent" to normal foods.[4] The Italian government recently challenged the approval of GT73 oilseed rape oil, claiming that the oil is not actually the same as conventional oilseed rape oil. In fact, they claim that the approval, based on the UK report, is "unlawful".[5]

7. NO RISK?

The Government has stated that there is "no risk to public health or the environment".[6] But there seems to be little support for this statement. The Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) was not formally consulted before the Government made this statement, and nor was English Nature, the Government's wildlife advisor. In fact, rather than supporting the Government's position English Nature have called for all weeds produced from the GM contaminated crops to be destroyed.

In addition, ACRE has previously only considered the consequences of growing small experimental test sites of this type of GM oilseed rape. The current release is not on a small test site but over thousands of acres of the UK countryside.

The Agriculture Minister Nick Brown said in his statement to the House of Commons that "it should also be remembered that oil produced from the crop is indistinguishable from conventional rape oil: no modified DNA will be present". But the EU Scientific Committee on Food considered all the evidence on this issue last year, and concluded that "some refining processes used by industry today may ensure that DNA/protein are efficiently removed. There is no guarantee however that these processes are commonly applied".[7]

8. "STERILE" SEEDS

Agriculture Minister Nick Brown has stated that "We believe that there is no threat to the environment because the GM variety is sterile. It is difficult to see how it could cross-pollinate with other plants".

This GM variety is NOT sterile. In fact, the Government has stated that the GM plants will be "male sterile", which only means that they can't produce any pollen themselves. But the "female" part of these plants is fully functional—they are perfectly capable of producing seed if they are pollinated by other oilseed rape plants. The GM plants are mixed up in fields of normal oilseed rape, which produces masses of pollen. As a result, the GM seed produced will get into food and animal feed.

Investigations by FOE have found that the "sterility" claimed for these GM plants will break down in their offspring. A leading seed scientist specialising in seed production of oilseed rape has told FOE that, if Advanta's claims about these GM plants are correct, up to half of their offspring will be GM and resistant to the herbicide Roundup and up to one quarter of the total will be fully fertile.[8] These rogue plants will be able to produce pollen, which could contaminate crops, or spread to wild plants, as well as producing seeds.

Oilseed rape seeds are easily dropped on the ground during harvest—research has found that as many as 10,000 oilseed rape seeds can be dropped per square metre.[9] Oilseed rape seeds can survive in the soil and later grow as volunteers in other crops. If they are dropped on to open ground or alongside roads, they can also survive and reproduce outside agricultural areas. [10]

How many GM seeds were dropped last year in fields and along roads? How many survived to grow as volunteers this year? How many GM seeds from this year's crop will be dropped around the UK countryside this autumn if these GM contaminated crops are not all destroyed? Advanta Seeds and the Government must take action to trace the fields where contaminated oilseed rape was grown in 1999, and control any GM volunteers that are growing in the fields or on roadsides.

9. PROTECTING UK CROPS AND HONEY

Advanta Seeds has claimed that the contamination of its seed occurred in Canada "Despite being produced to standards well in excess of regulatory requirements".[11] Seed crops in Canada must be at least 800 metres from any other oilseed rape. But in the UK, "certified seed" crops of oilseed rape only have to be 200 metres from other crops, including GM trials, and only 50 metres separate conventional and GM crops. Last year, the Chief Executive of the British Society of Plant Breeders admitted to the Agriculture Committee that UK "certified" oilseed rape seed can have impurities of up to 2 per cent due to cross pollination over the 200 metres separation distances currently used. [12]The fact is that the separation distances for GM crops in this country are clearly inadequate.

The Government has now started a review of separation distances for the GM crops. Whilst welcoming this move, FOE has written to the Agriculture Minister, Nick Brown MP, stating that a meaningful consultation is difficult if the full picture about the Advanta contamination is unknown. We have urged the Government to publish the report of the "MAFF seed expert" who "visited Canada to investigate the position".

When considering separation distances we also need to consider the impacts of GM pollen on other produce, most obviously honey. There is no doubt that honey will be contaminated by GM oilseed rape pollen. FOE monitored pollen movement in the air and by bees around a Farm Scale trial in 1999. GM pollen was found in the air 475 metres from a site, over nine times the SCIMAC separation distance for two oilseed rape crops. GM pollen was collected at bee hives 4.5 kilometres from the field. FOE has also found GM pollen in retail honey samples produced near GM oilseed test sites in England.

None of this is surprising—MAFF and DETR are well aware of the facts about how far viable pollen will travel but have chosen to ignore the economic impact that this might have in a country where the majority of farmers are required by the market to be "GM-free" (or at least to have no detectable GM content in their crops).

Research on cross-pollination has shown that it is not uncommon in oilseed, maize and beet over distance well beyond SCIMAC's separation distances. [13]The inevitability of cross pollination was also conceded in a report to MAFF by the John Innes Centre. [14]

The only practical safeguard for seed purity, non-GM farmers and beekeepers is to prohibit any outdoor GM planting of crops that produce viable pollen.

10. ACTION REQUIRED BY GOVERNMENT

FOE believes that the Government must take the following steps to ensure the safety of the UK environment and the livelihoods of those farmers affected by this contamination:

1. Mount a criminal investigation into how the Advanta contamination was allowed to occur.

2. Trace those farms where the contaminated crop was grown in 1999 and destroy any oilseed rape growing as volunteers in the field or along transport routes from the farms.

3. Publish all reports into the Advanta contamination.

4. Suspend the SCIMAC guidelines and halt the farm scale trials of GM crops pending a full review of separation distances around GM test sites.

5. Introduce strict liability on the biotechnology industry for harm caused by the release of GMOs into the environment and food chain.

11 July 2000

1 Nick Brown. Statement on GMOs in Conventional Crops, 18 May 2000. Back

2 "Technical Note by the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food on Male sterile hybridity". Back

3 Information from Swedish Board of Agriculture. Translation of order issued to the company Svaloff Weibull on 16 May,No 22-2728/00. Genetically Modified rape seed in spring oilseed rape. Back

4 Article 5 of the Novel Food Regulation 258/97 allows for notification of foods "derived from, but not containing, GMOs" which are "substantially equivalent" to conventional foods. Back

5 Italian Ministry of Health, Superior Health Council. Notes from General Meeting held on 16 December 1999. Back

6 Response to parliamentary question to the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food. 17 May 2000. Back

7 Opinion of the Scientific Committee on Food concerning the Scientific basis for determining whether food products, derived from genetically modified soya and from genetically modified maize, could be included in a list of food products which do not require labelling because they do not contain (detectable) traces of DNA or protein. 17 June 1999. Back

8 Personal Communication. Back