Summary
The Government has announced in principle that it
will permit the commercial cultivation of GM crops in the United
Kingdom. However, the details of the regime which will allow GM
and non-GM and organic crops to co-exist, and of liability for
contamination or admixture, still have to be worked out. The Government
has said that it will launch a consultation to determine such
details.
The Government may hope that now that the decision
in principle has been made it will be easier to finalise the details
of a planting regime. But it should be under no such illusions:
it is apparent that the prospect of agreement is remote.
In this report we examine the areas in which consultation
should concentrate. These are primarily, at what level the threshold
for contamination or admixture of GM in non-GM or organic crops
should be set and how liability should be approached.
The Government will no doubt proceed with great caution.
There is no immediate prospect of commercial cultivation of GM
maize, so the Government is no longer under tight time constraints.
There is also no appetite at all amongst consumers for GM products,
so again there may not be pressure for rapid resolution of these
issues. But now that the Europe-wide moratorium on new GM food,
feed and crops has been lifted, it is important to establish co-existence
and liability regimes.
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