Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Eleventh Report


1 Introduction

Before March 2004

1. Decisions about the planting of genetically modified (GM) crops are made within a framework set out in a European Directive.[1] Part C of the Directive deals with licensing crops for commercial marketing, which may include cultivation, or may extend only to importation and processing, across the European Union. Currently there are twelve crops with Part C product approval, including herbicide-tolerant strains of oilseed rape, maize and sugar beet.[2]

2. However, in order for a crop to be cultivated in the United Kingdom the Government must also give its consent. It must consider the safety of the crop, and also its environmental impact, particularly in respect of the use of pesticides and other chemicals.

3. The Government has therefore engaged in a lengthy process of testing and consultation about the cultivation of GM crops. That process has included the farm scale evaluation of four crops - spring-sown oilseed rape, beet, forage maize, and winter-sown oilseed rape - over a number of years since 2000.[3] It also included a process of public consultation, on which we have commented previously,[4] as well as economic and scientific studies.[5] The results of most of the farm scale evaluations, the public debate, and the economic and scientific studies were delivered to Government during 2003.

The Government's announcement

4. On 9 March 2004, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced that the Government would "agree in principle" to the cultivation of a GM herbicide-tolerant maize, Chardon LL.[6] However, it placed two conditions on its approval: that the crop must be cultivated in the way it had been in the field-scale evaluations; and that the consent holders (Bayer CropScience) should provide further scientific evidence if the existing European Union marketing consent was to be renewed in 2006. The Government also said that it would define a regime to permit the co-existence of GM and non-GM crops in advance of the first likely planting of the crop, in Spring 2005.[7]

5. On 31 March 2004 Bayer announced that it would not in fact try to cultivate Chardon LL on a commercial basis in the United Kingdom. It said that because details of the conditions to be applied to cultivation were not yet known there would be "yet another 'open-ended' period of delay. These uncertainties and undefined timelines will make this five-year old variety economically non-viable".[8] The Government confirmed that the decision made by Bayer meant that the commercial cultivation of GM crops had effectively been shelved "for the foreseeable future".[9]

Our inquiry

6. Before the Bayer announcement we had already said that we would set up a Sub-committee to undertake a short inquiry following the Government's decision and following the earlier inquiry by the Environmental Audit Committee.[10] We set out terms of reference (below) which dealt exclusively with GM maize.[11] Once Bayer's position became clear we decided to extend the scope of our inquiry to address the principle of the Government's decision, and thus to look at GM crops more generally. By that stage it was clear that the primary focuses of those submitting evidence were, in any event, issues of co-existence and liability more generally, rather than the specifics of GM herbicide-tolerant maize.
Our terms of reference

The Committee will inquire into the likely implications of the Government's recent decision to agree in principle to the commercial cultivation of GM herbicide-tolerant maize in the UK. In particular, it will consider:

  • in relation to co-existence, what physical separation will be required between GM and non-GM crops in order to guard against cross-contamination
  • if cross-contamination occurs, how liability will be established and responded to, who should be legally responsible and what the limits of that responsibility should be—and what role Government should play in determining these matters
  • what processes will be involved in determining how GM-free zones will be established at both a regional and local level and what role Government should play in this development
  • what changes to legislation will be required to allow GM crops to be grown
  • what will be the scope and scale of the 2006 re-licensing procedures.

7. We received 22 written memoranda. Our Sub-committee took oral evidence on two occasions in May 2004. Our first session included witnesses from environmental NGOs, farming, and the biotechnology sector. At our second session we took evidence from Professor Malcolm Grant, Chair of the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC), a group of scientists set up in 2000 by the Government to provide "independent, strategic advice on developments in biotechnology and their implications for agriculture and the environment".[12] We also heard from the Minister for Environment and Agri-Environment. We are most grateful to all those who gave evidence and thus assisted our inquiry.


1   Council Directive of 23 April 1990 on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms; Council Directive 90/220/EEC Back

2   See The legal framework for decision-making on the release and marketing of GMOs in the European Union, on the Gm pages of the Defra website, http://www.defra.gov.uk Back

3   More details of the farm scale evaluations can be found on the Defra website http://www.defra.gov.uk; and a history of the evaluations is contained in the Report of the Environmental Audit Committee, GM Foods - Evaluating the farm scale trials, HC (2003-04) 90-I, particularly paras.4 ff. Back

4   Conduct of the GM Public Debate, HC (2002-03) 1220 Back

5   Strategy Unit (2003) Field work: Weighing up the costs and benefits of GM crops, 11 July 2003; and GM Science Review Panel (2003) GM Science Review: First report, 21 July 2003 Back

6   A forage maize, developed and marketed by Bayer CropScience; see also HC Deb, 9 March 2004, col.1382 Back

7   HC Deb, 9 March 2004, col.1382 Back

8   Bayer CropScience discontinues further efforts to commercialise GM forage maize in the UK, Bayer Press Release, 31 March 2004; see http://www.bayercropscience.com Back

9   See Bayer deals blow to UK GM crops, on the BBC website, 31 March 2004 (http://www.bbc.co.uk); see also the evidence given to the Sub-committee by the Minister, at Q218 Back

10   GM Foods - Evaluating the Farm Scale Trials: the Government Response, HC (2003-04) 564 Back

11   See our press release, 11 March 2004 Back

12   For more information, go to the AEBC website: http://www.aebc.gov.uk Back


 
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