Select Committee on Environmental Audit Minutes of Evidence


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 240-250)

19 NOVEMBER 2003

SIR BEN GILL, MS ELIZABETH HOGBEN AND MR BOB FIDDAMAN

  Q240  Mr Thomas: In your evidence you say that you want to ensure that the growing of GM crops in the UK identifies closely with public opinion and delivers a meaningful choice for consumers. There is public accountability there. Could you tell us a bit about the nature of the contracts between the biotech companies and the farmers on these farm-scale evaluations?

  Mr Fiddaman: Yes. As you well know, the company changed its name twice throughout the four years that I was involved because they bought each other out or whatever else happened. The contract that I had was on the basis that they took a good average yield value because the separation distance varied with the total crop that I was growing under GM and non-GM. I actually also took part in one of the Varietal Association trials which, as you are probably aware, has a greater separation distance recommended, and that was in the second year of the trials. They took all that product away. Obviously I was compensated for it in that sense and I was guaranteed an income but the actual costs of growing the crop were mine. I used my machinery, my labour and all the inputs were mine, except for the GM seed and the GM spray, which were totally under research control, and those were supplied by the company. They took back any surplus there was at the end of the season.

  Q241  Mr Thomas: Did the contract tell you how to manage the crop?

  Mr Fiddaman: The contract did not tell me how to manage the crop. I was expected to manage it in a similar way to the conventional crop in the sense of general activity, because I was still growing the conventional crop for my own benefit in the area that was not affected by the trial and therefore I was putting normal inputs into it. The answer is that I was driven by that process.

  Q242  Mr Thomas: So the conventional crop was outside the contract you had with the biotech company, is that right?

  Mr Fiddaman: The contract was that I would provide a site; half the field would be used for GM and then there would be a separation distance, and they would compensate me for the area of cropping that I would not be able to sell, which was the whole of the GM and that area of the non-GM that was affected by the separation distance.

  Q243  Mr Thomas: Is the Union as a whole satisfied with the way your sites were chosen? You have already mentioned that they might have reflected more on the crop management side, that those were managed for environmental purposes. Do you believe that they delivered the right range of crop growing of the three crops that would reflect the commercial growing of the crops in this country at the moment?

  Sir Ben Gill: There is no indication that I have from the dialogue I have had with those involved with the growing of crops and with others to suggest that there is a skew in the results because of the selection of the farms. The only concern I had about the ability to select farms was the abuse and threats, threats of life, threats of damage to some of my members, indeed physical attacks that took place that prevented some of my members taking part in the trials.

  Q244  Mr Thomas: Who made the final decision as to whether a farm was in or out of the trials? Presumably more people expressed an interest than actually took part?

  Mr Fiddaman: The Steering committee.

  Q245  Mr Thomas: Not yourselves. You were a sort of clearing house, if you like.

  Sir Ben Gill: We were asked to provide names, we helped to provide names and they went in to the Steering committee.

  Q246  Mr Chaytor: Just going back to the question of yield and the 10% premium that you broadly identify, thinking back over the whole debate about the merits or otherwise of GM, from your point of view and that of your colleagues, as far as you can assess it, do you think that a 10% premium would be sufficient to merit the full commercialisation of GM crops given the uncertainties about the longer-term consequences and the effect on bio-diversity?

  Mr Fiddaman: I think if you associate that with the management of a crop it is certainly easier as far as GM is concerned. As always it is to do with the price of seed and there is inevitably a price to pay for technology, but that would have been at a level that would have been no worse than the best hybrids.

  Sir Ben Gill: I think I should make it clear that at no time would we ever consider the commercialisation of any crop until it has been passed through all the appropriate safety mechanisms.

  Chairman: I think that is understood by the Committee.

  Q247  Mr Chaytor: There is a difference between the safety mechanisms and bio-diversity impact, is there not?

  Sir Ben Gill: I would put the two together. We have to look at any farming practice. Whatever we do as farmers there is an interaction with bio-diversity because we are seeking to change what would happen if it were not there with what we do to produce food or to create the landscape, and that applies to planting trees and everything else. We have to recognise that but you must take a holistic approach.

  Q248  Joan Walley: Do I assume it was an oil-seed rape you grew in trials on your farm?

  Mr Fiddaman: Yes.

  Q249  Joan Walley: Was your response to the exchange earlier on that you could not grow anything but GM crops for the next 15 years on that area?

  Mr Fiddaman: On the standards that are proposed by the EU of 0.9% I can deliver that within four years. The basis on which that trial was done was as if no control was done by the farmer during the following crops to reduce the potential seed level going back into the soil, that is not normal farming practice. We do that every year. I do that every year with conventional rape. We have gone from hear rape, which is industrial oil-seed rape, which is poisonous to animals and humans, it is now grown conventionality in agriculture and yet there is no difficulty in growing conventional rape after a normal break period in crop rotation and going back again because the levels of admixture there might be are well below the necessary level that is required for admixture levels proposed by the EU.

  Q250  Chairman: We have been beaten by the clock today. As I said to the previous witnesses I have no doubt the Committee will have further questions for you. 4 If you are content we will submit those in[18]

writing and we look forward to hearing from you. 5 I am grateful to you for coming along. I am sorry it has been such a short session.

  Sir Ben Gill: Thank you.[19]





18   Please see supplementary memorandum, Ev X Back

19   Please see supplementary memorandum below, Ev x. Back


 
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