Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
17 MAY 2004
DR SUE
MAYER, DR
DOUG PARR
AND LORD
MELCHETT
Q1 Chairman: Welcome to the first of
two sessions on an inquiry into the GM planting regime. It is
fair to say that we have slightly changed our terms of reference,
but this does come at an opportune time, so we can look at where
the Government is, and obviously where those either in favour
of GM or against GM are in relation to what the Government is
saying. It would be very useful for us to start with a quick explanation,
although all three of you are very well known to us. Would you
make a short statement as to who you are and whom you are representing?
Dr Mayer: I am Dr Sue Mayer, the
Director of GeneWatch UK. We are a small not-for-profit policy
research group, and we monitor developments in genetic technologies
across the board, with a public interest to environmental welfare
to the animal protection perspective.
Dr Parr: I am Doug Parr, the Chief
Scientist at Greenpeace UK. Greenpeace is a fairly well known
environmental pressure group, direct action and so on. We have
been campaigning on GM for well over a decade.
Lord Melchett: I am Peter Melchett,
the Policy Director of the Soil Association, which is the main
organisation representing organic farmers, food manufacturers
and retailers and consumers of organic food in the UK. Our certification
subsidiary certifies about 80% of the organic food sold in this
country.
Q2 Chairman: The sub-text of this inquiry
is looking at the twin issues of co-existence and product liability,
so you will understand that we are going to spend most of our
time around that. It would be useful however to refer to the arguments
on the tolerance level of 0.9% that the Government has fixed.
I know that there are arguments about the reliability of that
figure, but it would be very useful to quickly have your views
on both the sense of that figure and whether it can be enforced
in a practical manner.
Dr Mayer: Our feeling is that
if you look at the environmental law in this area and the regulations
on genetically modified food and feed, the threshold set there
is for adventitious presence, and that is meant to be accidental
or technically unavoidable. Therefore, our feeling is, and the
correct interpretation of that is, that the aim should be to avoid
contamination, and if measures do not work we are going to allow
for accidental contamination up to 0.9% before it is labelled—that
that interpretation is the one which would meet with the aspirations
of the public when they think about non-GM food. Further, because
we believe that we will be going into largely unknown territory
when we are trying to manage co-existence, to start aiming for
the limit at the moment would not leave us with much room for
manoeuvre if it proves to be the case that the measures do not
work in practice. You can go the opposite way, if you find things
are working terribly well and you need less stringent rules; then
you can loosen them off. However, if we start too loose, we may
have contamination that we cannot then deal with. Our feeling
is that we should aim for 0.1%, effectively zero, and design a
system around that, particularly in the current climate of public
opinion across Europe.
Dr Parr: Greenpeace has a slight
difficulty with the conversation starting with thresholds because,
of course, our organisational stance is that we should not be
releasing GMOs to the environment at all. So this starting-point
of saying we should have a measurable threshold of 0.9% to some
extent is beginning from a point we would rather not be starting
from. Having said that, we very much echo the thrust of what Sue
said, in that there are a number of points along the chain at
which contamination with a GM stream of products could arise to
be 0.9% in the final product. If you were to start designing the
farming system in a managerial way, and that was what you were
aiming for, it could very easily prove to be difficult or impossible
to meet that and retract from that position after GM plantings.
We would see 0.9% to be an adventitious presence, something that
might creep in by accident, but not something that one should
be aiming for to start with. The aim should be to keep the streams
separate completely.
Q3 Chairman: You might like to come in
on the back of that, Peter. The Soil Association has taken advice
on the legalities of this. It would be useful for the sub-committee
for you to basically give us a run-down on what that legal advice
says.
Lord Melchett: First, I think
the use of the words "tolerance level" or "threshold"
is liable to be misleading. Under the EU labelling regulation,
which is where the 0.9% comes from, not from the British Government,
that is the point above which products have to be labelled as
GM, as long as the contamination has happened accidentally. Any
product that deliberately has got GM in it has to be labelled
as GM at any level; and that is clear from the EU labelling regulation.
This talk about thresholds or tolerance levels has misled a number
of people. I think the Agricultural Environment Biotechnology
Commission, which Sue was on, misled itself, or omitted to be
clear about this. I think Defra have misled themselves, and the
European Commission has got the legal position about the EU regulations
wrong. That is the first point. On labelling, for any deliberate
GM content the product must be labelled at any level. If it happens
accidentally, above 0.9%, we have to label it. Organic food is
defined by an EU regulation. There is a limit on GM in organic
food, and it is zero; and that is set by European law, not by
the British Government or by organisations like my own, the Soil
Association. We have taken leading barrister's advice on both
these issues, and we have communicated that to Defra. Elliott
Morley has responded and told us that basically Defra accepts
the Commission's position that 0.9% is a threshold, and because
it is in labelling regulations, for some reason it therefore should
be imported into an earlier regulation defining organic food and
farming. Our barrister says that that is wrong, and the European
Court would not agree with it.
Q4 Chairman: Is this likely to be tested
in the courts?
Lord Melchett: Unless the position
that Defra adopts—either they have some miraculous legal
argument they have not yet revealed to us, or they accept the
legal advice we have—yes, it will have to be decided by
the European Court. The European Commission cannot give legal
advice about its own advice; it has to be the Court.
Q5 Paddy Tipping: Are you saying there
should be no threshold level on the farm and that the 0.9% arises
because of transport/storage/processing issues?
Lord Melchett: No, that is not
what I am saying. I am saying that both for organic and non-organic,
if you are selling a product to the consumer, to the public, which
is not GM, you should aim for zero. You should not aim for anything
more than that, and to do so seems to us to be a fraud on the
public. If, by accident, you get more than 0.9% GM at any stage
anywhere, then under European law you have to label it as GM.
For organic you should have no GM; that is European law.
Q6 Paddy Tipping: You are all agreed
that when it comes to organic, there should be no tolerance level
at all.
Dr Mayer: It is quite clear that
that is what the organic movement wants. It is my understanding
that it is what the consumers of organic foods expect it to be.
Lord Melchett: It is a legal requirement;
it is not what we want or you want. Our advice is that it is already
the law. The European Commission and the Council of Ministers
could change that law: there is provision in the regulation for
the law to be changed, and to allow a threshold of GM and organic.
But the Council of Ministers and the European Commission have
not chosen to do that. It is not us deciding it, it is the law.
Q7 Paddy Tipping: There are two issues,
are there not? There is the issue that Doug raised earlier on,
"we are against it full-stop", which is an understandable
position; and there is the question of the law; but there is a
third position, which is that there could be some accidental contamination.
If you are using the same transport vehicles, however well you
clear them out, or the same storage—all this is conceivable
and there could be some cross-contamination there. With those
kinds of practical issues, is 0.9% acceptable?
Dr Mayer: It is set in law in
terms of the labelling threshold now, so that is one thing that
we have to live with. It is another question about whether people
feel that that should be the case, and we argued unsuccessfully
that it was unlikely that people would think that should be the
case; but I am talking from the position we find ourselves in
at the moment.
Lord Melchett: From an organic
perspective, one of the major motivators for people to buy organic
food is to avoid GM, so the idea that you might have nearly one
in a hundred mouthfuls of organic food with GM is a bit ridiculous,
frankly.
Dr Mayer: It is worth remembering
on this point that there is a very large non-GM conventional market,
which works at the moment to 0.1%, and it seems to make sense
from the point of view of that sector as well, and in its interests
if we are designing for what is a very healthy sector of the market
at the moment, a co-existence scheme—that their interests
should also form an important part of any scheme that emerges
as well, so it is not just organic. It is important that there
is this other big sector too that we need to take cognisance of,
which is trying to work to that now in response to their customers.
Q8 Joan Ruddock: People who choose to
buy organic and eat organic are often buying products that are
coming from other European countries, where conceivably there
will be GM planting when we do not have GM planting, so it is
very significant what the EU does. Is there any suggestion that
the Commission, which has the powers, might move away from the
zero tolerance at the moment, that you have no GM in organic,
because that would make a huge difference to consumers?
Chairman: As the Americans have done.
Lord Melchett: There is no sign
of that, and no preliminary discussions in the Commission, as
I understand it, are taking place with a view to doing that. I
suspect that is because it would be impossible to get political
agreement in the European Union to change the current position;
and it would be disastrous from a marketing point of view. Organic
food is sold; it costs more to produce; people buy it because
they trust it, and one of the things they trust organic farmers,
food manufacturers and retailers to deliver is an absence of GM
down to the detectable level, down to 0.1%. It would be stupid
when you have one bit of the food market, which is growing and
which has high levels of consumer trust, simply to try and destroy
it by European diktat. I do not think that would be popular in
any European country.
Q9 Diana Organ: You have talked about
it being the law, and what is acceptable and what is not acceptable
in contamination. Have any of you been involved with any kind
of inquiry or research into contamination that might occur through
transport or processing, for instance, certain warehousing or
mills that might hold soya? Have you done any work on looking
at products that are saying, "this is not GM" but actually
they are found to have contamination that is above the level and
has not been labelled?
Lord Melchett: Certainly our certification
subsidiary has, yes, because we have an obligation to certify
products as organic, which means they should not contain GM. We
test both for pesticide residues and now GM. About 18 months ago
we found some GM in organic soya and organic maize. Two or three
samples were contaminated altogether. It was one of the things
that led us to get legal advice about what was the legal position
under European law. That is why we are fairly confident that European
law prohibits this. One of the batches of soya appeared to have
been imported from Italy, but whether that is where it was grown,
or whether it came from North America, I do not know. We are now
working with feed mills that handle organic animal feed to come
up with a protocol and a system of due diligence and testing which
will allow them to provide what the organic market demands, which
is animal feed with no GM in it down to the level of detection.
It is commercially possible.
Q10 Mr Jack: To follow on Diana's point,
in terms of materials coming from non-EU sources, what information
do you have about levels of contamination you are finding there
across the range of products coming in to the United Kingdom?
Lord Melchett: From an organic
point of view, we find that there are more exporters willing to
provide the ingredients for animal feed—and these are the
main products that are imported in the organic chain, soya and
maize—guaranteed down to 0.1%. Indeed, the Canadian Government
organised a trade mission to Europe recently and they were going
round a number of European countries offering GM soya, including
organic products, but the non-organic as well; and they could
offer it at 1%, 0.5% or 0.1%, and they had started growing soya
in areas of Canada that had not grown it before in order to compete
with American exporters who could not reach those levels of purity.
The market is responding pretty well to the demand in Europe,
I would say.
Dr Parr: All our evidence is somewhat
indirect since it results from dealing with supermarkets, but
the availability is less of an issue as compared to the cost trade-off
they are looking at for a specified level of purity. It is not
that it is impossible to obtain or that it can't be verified,
because supermarkets are obviously very keen to make sure that
what they are paying for is what they get; it is more a question
of the costs, which is subject to some robust discussion.
Q11 Patrick Hall: I would like to explore
a little more the zero level. The evidence that we have from the
Agricultural Biotechnology Council includes this statement: "It
is important to remember that zero tolerance cannot be achieved
in any agricultural situation, including non-GM and organic."[47]
It cites a definition of organic which means that there must be
more than 95% organic to be labelled as such; so that is not 100%
either. What are your comments on the technical ability to accurately
claim zero percentage? Is this achievable, whatever the law may
or may not say?
Dr Parr: I would start with the
comment I have just made, which is that in our dealings with supermarkets,
they are of course very keen to get what they pay for. They would
appear to have been able to source, to their own satisfaction
at any rate, very low percentages, around 0.1 or zero. My further
point would be that there is a certain level of unknown about
how easy it would be to do this if we were operating a GM planting
regime in this country, which in policy terms would emphasise
the need for a very precautionary approach to any planting taking
place in the first instance.
Dr Mayer: Undoubtedly, the larger
the areas of GM crops internationally the more difficult it would
be to source. That is undoubtedly the case. For example, if we
were to grow GM oilseed rape in Europe, that would seriously undermine
efforts to provide GM-free because it is an important substitute
for other GM oilseeds. There are issues like that. It is not wholly
a question of whether a system is working; it is to do with a
whole complex variety of different factors that would depend on
the status of the crops and where things are grown. As Doug has
said, in terms of Europe at the moment, the information available
leads you to believe that if you set those stringent limits, you
can work very closely to them for quite long periods of time—obviously
with some breakdowns on occasion because some accidental contamination
does seem to occur.
Lord Melchett: The trend in organic
standards, certainly in the Soil Association but also in Europe
generally and North America, is constantly to try and tighten
things up. For example, there has been a derogation allowing organic
farmers—and I farm myself—to use some non-organic
animal feed. That has been removed. There is a derogation allowing
the use of non-organic seed and that has been phased out. There
are some derogations which were to do with getting the system
started and practicalities; but the drive all the time is to remove
them so that it is 100% organic animal feed, 100% day-old chicks
being used to produce, organic chicken and so on. I agree with
my colleagues. Oilseed rape was really a huge potential threat
because of it crossing with weeds, and the difficulty with the
agricultural situation in this country of controlling that was
nightmarish. Overall, in the last few months, the international
situation seems to have eased. We have three states in Australia
with moratoria on GM, and they are all capable of growing the
sort of crops we have imported from North America in the past.
Canada has seen a niche developing in the market for exports of
GM-free (down to 0.1%) crops. At the moment, things are going
in the right direction, tentatively.
Q12 Diana Organ: You have made your view
quite clear about this, but you have talked a little about the
separation distances. What is your view of what would be sufficient
to prevent contamination? If you were to set a distance, what
would that be; and have you agreed it amongst yourselves?
Lord Melchett: It depends on the
crop. For oilseed rape, there is no separation distance, in my
view, because oilseed rape is a very ubiquitous volunteer plant.
In my part of Norfolk we had a very wet winter and we have got
oilseed rape plants growing along the sides of the roads everywhere
where a drainage channel has been cleared during the winter. It
is capable of crossing with weeds and therefore spreading all
over the country. GM grass would pose exactly the same threat;
it would basically be the end of any attempt to control things.
Wheat: we were very, very concerned about that, and so Monsanto's
decision to stop the introduction of GM wheat in North America
is extraordinarily welcome to the organic movement, there as well
as here.
Q13 Diana Organ: Let us talk more practically;
let us talk about maize, because the Government has made certain
decisions and maize is really at the moment the only one that
might be possible for planting in the UK. What would you want
as a separation distance, and do you have a problem with what
the Government's separation rate is?
Lord Melchett: Yes. Our advice
would be that the maize separation distance—and I do not
have the figure in my head—would have to be greater than
the Government has set. It depends quite a lot on topography and
other things. It is not a simple matter of taking a minimum distance.
Q14 Diana Organ: The Government is saying
200 metres, is it not?
Lord Melchett: The company has
pulled out of the maize market, so we are not so concerned about
it as we were.
Q15 Diana Organ: One company has pulled
out, but at the moment it is only maize that is being allowed
by the present Government, and if another company or that company
comes back having had a re-think, we have to think about the separation
distances and what you would find acceptable, because the Government
has put down 200 metres.
Dr Mayer: I understand they have
put down 130 for sweetcorn and 80 for fodder maize, and we would
not think they were adequate. The recent information from the
States, for example, suggests you need to be looking at something
more like 500 metres to start with. We would also emphasise in
this discussion that separation distances are only one part of
the co-existence regime, which will depend on the crop. Although
they are important to focus upon, they are not the only issue,
as we would see it.
Q16 Diana Organ: Can you tell us a little
more, because we were interested in what your package of measures
might involve, to stop contamination, not just separation distances
but other things?
Dr Mayer: It will depend from
crop to crop, so oilseed rape would be volunteer control, for
example, which would be crucial in long-term management. There
would be transport systems to stop the seed escaping. With sugar
beet, you would have to be sure that you did not have bolters
that were flowering, which would be an important part of it, and
also you would have to be careful about the transporting of sugar
beet. With maize, it would be important—in fact with all
of the crops—to have registers of where the crops were grown
so that past histories were known, and that people were informed
about past practice. Of course, we do not have the issue of volunteers
with maize, but you would want to know how the maize was handled
and where it went to—whether it stayed on the farm or left
the farm and so on. It is those packages of measures that you
would want to see, including a land register.
Q17 Diana Organ: You talked about using
volunteers, but for other crops who would you want to see monitoring
all of this, because it is a huge job?
Dr Mayer: I am sorry, when I spoke
about volunteers, I meant a situation where you have the seed
shed at harvest, and when they come up in the next crop they are
called volunteers.
Q18 Diana Organ: I was talking about
the monitoring of the separation, the transport, all of this.
Who would you want to see monitoring that this was put into place,
and done correctly?
Dr Mayer: You would have to firstly
have a whole system, which basically had a legally binding system
that farmers have to follow. Secondly, it would be backed up with
a liability regime, and as part of that it must have some kind
of inspectorate that would do some checking, in the same way that
other farm assurance schemes are audited at the moment. That may
not be perfect, but we would have to have an auditing system to
go with it.
Lord Melchett: We have a slightly
different view on that, partly because I just do not see any chance
of any Government going down that road of hundreds of inspectors
looking at lories with bits of oilseed rapeseed.
Q19 Diana Organ: It is bad enough dealing
with meat, is it not? If we are doing it for a wide variety of
crops—
Lord Melchett: We have seen in
recent years just how ineffective that can be in preventing disasters.
Our view was that the way to ensure compliance would be to put
the legal liability for any losses on the GM companies and have
them police their own products. They claim that they are able
to do this and that it has happened under previous agricultural
systems. Some of us have grave doubts about that, but nevertheless,
let us take them at their word; so if it is not going to cause
contamination and you can stop this happening in combine harvesters,
tractors and trailers, and all the rest of it, fine. If you are
wrong, you pay for any damage that is caused. On sugar beet, as
an ex sugar beet farmer, I know that some growers have claimed
it would be possible to stop sugar beet going to seed—that
is bolting. I just think that is nonsense. It is practically impossible
unless you did have literally an army of hundreds of individuals
going round checking the field. It is just not economic and is
miles away from the economic reality. On maize, we think you would
need about three kilometres to safeguard organic crops. That is
part of the package that Sue mentioned.
Dr Mayer: I agree with the liability
scheme as being one of the best ways of ensuring policing of the
crop, but under the Deliberate Release Directive there is a requirement
for monitoring post marketing of these crops. I think that there
will need to be an approved system, and there is no reason why
there cannot be one, and at some level some auditing of those
systems, because we could see a situation where they were not
followed. At GeneWatch we are also concerned about environmental
liability, not solely economic liability, but the systems that
are in place for co-existence will equally be important for protecting
the environment in certain ways, or could be important. There
will need to be systems independent usefully, not with volunteers
out massively checking; but at least there should be some auditing
to ensure procedures are in place and are actually working.
47 47 Ev 31 (para 2.7) Back
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