Examination of Witnesses (Questions 440
- 459)
MONDAY 30 MARCH 2009
MR MONTY
DON, MR
PETER MELCHETT
AND MR
ROBIN MAYNARD
Q440 Lynne Jones:
You have to have a sense of direction, a roadmap, to move on from
there.
Mr Don: One of the things that
we need though, I am sure you are all aware, is that we are losing
a lot of the skills in agriculture and growing generally that
are still just there and they need to be actively reintroduced
through training, education and opportunities. Without those skills
you will not be able to respond.
Q441 Lynne Jones:
I am particularly interested as a scientist myself in research
and development. We have had a lot of evidence and I think you
would also agree that there is not enough investment in agricultural
research and you have also said that there has not been enough
in organic research. Two separate questions: the balance between
our existing research, which I think everyone agrees is probably
inadequate in terms of the amount of research that we are funding,
and the balance as between organic and non organic. Do you have
any A-rated research projects that have been turned down for funding?
You seem to be implying that there is somehow a downer on organic
research and there has been more of a push for a biotech type
research. Is there any evidence for that that projects that would
be A-rated on organic farming agriculture have been turned down?
Mr Melchett: I do not know whether
A-rated projects have been turned down or not and of course it
is not very often publicised. What is clear as people who are
interested in the results of research, we do not do our own research,
is that most of the useful research has been funded by the European
Union or is being done in America where there more diverse funding
flows into agricultural research. Most of the useful data is generated
through EU-funded projects, particularly most recently a big €70
million Quality Low Input Food project which involved about 30
or 40 research institutes all over Europe which was led by the
University of Newcastle, so led by the UK but involved researchers
from all over Europe and outside and is just coming to the end
of the five-year programme. On a practical basis when you look
at what farmers are doing, the new varieties for a lot of the
crops where we are short of suitable varieties in farming come
from European crop breeders. I am desperate to get a new weeder
for my farm to lift creeping thistle or couch grass that has been
designed in Denmark. They are all being imported into the UK.
It is just like wind turbines. All the wind turbines are being
imported from Denmark where they started a new industry based
on what the future was going to be and the UK is left importing
stuff and the same is happening in farming.
Q442 Lynne Jones:
There does seem to be a measure of agreement then that crop breeding
is important in terms of producing higher yields. It has been
in the past and it will be in the future. Why no GM?
Mr Maynard: We are not anti-biotechnology.
We are quite happy with marker assisted selection where you are
effectively using a genetic microscope to find the traits you
want and then transferring those through traditional breeding
without going down the route of transgenic crops. It is a myth
to say that organic farmers are anti-science or anti-biotechnology.
We have concerns about the GM transgenic crops which we do not
see any benefits from. We do not have a disagreement with you
on that.
Q443 Lynne Jones:
Why do you not see any benefit from them? You are trying to transfer
traits using conventional breeding. If you can have the same effect
using genetic modification, why not use it? Obviously nobody is
advocating any kind of genetic modification is acceptable, but
that is what research is about, is it not, to find the traits
that are going to be beneficial and not to use those that are
harmful?
Mr Melchett: The objection to
that particular technology has always been the levels of uncertainty
and risk inherent in introducing genes from outside of that particular
genome into it. We think what little evidence there is, and there
has not been enough research we feel, indicates that concerns
about risk have been well-founded.
Q444 Lynne Jones:
We have had genetically modified crops and you might argue that
some of them have had to have fossil fuel inputs into them, but
some have had less fossil fuel inputs. You may have environmental
problems in relation to monoculture just as you do with a conventional
crop. Can you give me any examples where, per se, GM crops
are harmful, both in terms of food safety or environmental impact?
Mr Melchett: First of all, I do
not think there is a GM crop that has been developed which does
not need the same levels of artificial fertiliser as conventionally
grown crops. No nitrogen fixing traits have been achieved and
many scientists say they will not be. There was a study published
last year—this could be a long discussion so I will try
and keep it short and I am happy to give you more evidence if
you would like it—which was funded by the Austrian Government
and carried out by two leading research institutes in Austria
which looked at the effects of GM maize on laboratory animals
(rats or mice) which did find sufficient grounds for concern for
the scientists involved to say that more research was urgently
needed.
Q445 Lynne Jones:
What journal was that published in?
Mr Melchett: I would have to give
you the reference.
Q446 Lynne Jones:
Most of the scare stories are usually not published in peer review
journals.
Mr Melchett: This was a study
published in a peer review journal done by the two leading research
institutes in Austria and funded by the Austrian Government.
Q447 Lynne Jones:
But humans have been eating this stuff for over a decade.
Mr Melchett: As a scientist you
will know what an appalling unscientific view it is to say just
because something has not happened which nobody has investigated
it cannot be so. Nobody has investigated the effects of eating
GM on human beings. There has not been a single peer review study
published which would justify any scientist saying this is not
harmful; not a single peer reviewed study.
Q448 Lynne Jones:
I cannot see how if I eat lecithin from GM soya it is any different
from lecithin from non GM soil.
Mr Melchett: One of the reasons
would be that when you make the transfer of the gene you affect
not just the insertion site but other sites in the DNA, but the
safety regimes in both North America and the EU do not require
the companies to investigate other insertion sites or the effects
on the DNA; they simply look at how the crop behaves when it is
growing and if it grows like other maize then it is treated as
if they are substantially equivalent and is cleared for animal/human
consumption but you do not know what effects it is having elsewhere
on the DNA and that is why long-term intergenerational animal
studies have always been something that people who are concerned
about this have asked for and why the Austrian study was published
last year was so significant.
Q449 Lynne Jones:
You obviously do not accept the general consensus that GM food
is safe then?
Mr Melchett: I do not accept that
there is a general consensus that GM food is safe. I would say
that outside people involved in the industry there is a general
scepticism that GM is safe, which is why, amongst many other reasons,
all the new GM crops in North America have been rejected, either
by consumers or by farmers and why they have not grown GM wheat,
which has been available for nearly eight years. American consumers
started to reject GM hormone milk along with the European Union
and the Canadian Government but not the American Government.
Q450 Lynne Jones:
There is some GM food that even I might object to. What I cannot
understand is if genetic biotechnology can actually improve the
yield, reduce the input, that you are against even trying to see
what we can do. When I was in Brazil I was told by Embrapa that
they do research into nitrogen fixation, for example, in sugar
cane. Other people have suggested that actually that would so
much weaken the plant, so I am not suggesting that it is going
to be, but at Rothamsted we had examples of their breeding flax
so that it has a higher proportion of omega-3 fatty acids, for
example. You are just rejecting all possibility from that kind
of research in terms of nutrition and possibly reduced fossil
fuel inputs?
Mr Don: I slightly reject the
assertion that this is a sort of Luddite stance that is refusing
to deal with progress. I am not a scientist so I will not try
and defend on science but I will report two things that I hear
again and again and they tend to be from young mothers who feel
that GM food, obviously with concern for their children when it
becomes more than just themselves, is just not properly explored.
They are not against it per se but there is a sense that
it is not something that has really been exhaustively explored
and, secondly, and this is a crucial factor, that it is in the
hands of private enterprise and it has been developed above all
else for shareholders and for profit and until such a time as
it is done and controlled by governments for the people as an
entirely profit-free exercise I do not think people will trust
it.
Q451 Lynne Jones:
In Cuba they do not have any private enterprise. They are investing
a lot in biotechnology.
Mr Don: I have been to Cuba and
I admire their system highly.
Q452 Lynne Jones:
I share some of those suspicions but there can be publicly funded
research and what I cannot understand is why the Soil Association
is just saying we will not touch it with a bargepole no matter
what the research throws up.
Mr Melchett: There are other examples.
The Soil Association originally wrote GM out of its standards,
that we would not accept GM, a considerable period ago. At the
time scientists said it was fine—this is going back 15 or
20 years—and scientists were saying then that there would
be enhanced nutrient crops in a few years time. They also said
that all food would be GM in a few years time, back in the early
1990s, and they said that there would be nitrogen fixing and drought
resistance a few years down the road. None of them have arrived.
I went to East Anglia University and met scientists who were saying
that when ICI was still the company doing the GM. The scientific
claims which you are now repeating were being made 15 or 20 years
ago and none of them have proved to be justified.
Q453 Lynne Jones:
There has to be the research to repeat those.
Mr Melchett: Or the scientists
who said that this is not possible, which many scientists have
said for 15 or 20 years, may be right. There are different scientific
opinions; we took one.
Q454 Lynne Jones:
I am saying that I think it is possible and I would not put a
timescale on it. Even if it was a long way ahead, why reject it
out of hand is my point? We had the National Institute for Agricultural
Botany talking about things like having perennial cereal crops
so we do not have to plough the crop, for example.
Mr Melchett: The reason we reject
it is because of the inherent uncertainty and the inherent risk
and because it is at odds with the organic values just as we rejected,
at a time when all scientists said it was perfectly safe, the
feeding of cattle brains to other cattle. We were derided for
being Luddites when we said that we did not accept that because
we did not think it was natural. With the benefit of hindsight,
the scientists who were deriding us and calling us Luddites were
wrong and we were right. We think that studies like the Austrian
Government funded study are going to show that those who have
been concerned—many scientists, including in the US Government
agencies for the last two decades—about the safety and reliability
of this technology are likely to be proved right. That is why
we rejected it.
Q455 Lynne Jones:
You have to be concerned about any possible downsides and you
have to do the research. My point is that if the results of that
research can produce something which reduces fossil fuel inputs,
improves yields, then why reject it? It is not just about having
us self-sufficient here for our own needs. When we went to Rothamsted
they showed us a map of the world and where the most advantageous
areas were for agricultural production and it is places like Britain
and Europe. We have perhaps within the context of climate change
not just to consider "we're all right, Jack" but also
to consider our responsibilities towards other countries.
Mr Maynard: It is interesting
that UNEP & and UNCTAD, the United Nations Environment Programme
and the Conference on Training and Development, point to agroecological
methods and organic farming as most appropriate for farmers and
hungry people in the south, more so than the claims of the GM
industry which have yet to actually produce anything which would
benefit those people.
Q456 Lynne Jones:
What do you mean by "agroecological"?
Mr Maynard: There are a huge range
of techniques. Organic is defined in the UK and it is within an
EU regulation and so forth, but it is everything from intercropping
to the traditional varieties to rotations and here in the UK where
farmers, and not just organic farmers, are using rotations including
clover. It may be a lot more exciting for a laboratory or scientist
to look at GM as the coming thing, but there is plenty of work
to be done on improving existing techniques which are working
in delivering food to market and delivering value for money for
the farmers. It seems that those are overlooked. It is a bit like
nuclear was always much more exciting than wind turbines and I
never really quite understood why.
Q457 Chairman:
There is a very interesting point that comes out of this that
you have taken a principled stand against the technology and you
have produced some objective arguments from your position to say
that is not for us, and I can respect that, but equally in your
robust defence of an organic system being capable of dealing with
pests and diseases, you are actually asking the rest of us to
take that on trust on the grounds that the system is robust enough
based on experience to date that it will cope. In the same sense
that we do not know in the world of pests and diseases, for example,
blue tongue was an unknown factor here until two or three years
ago, but that has come along and there may be other things that
are coming along in which your system "might" be found
wanting. You might say: "Ah, but we can cope", but,
in the same sense that we have to trust that you can cope, the
same could be said about the safety argument on GM; in other words,
there is a mutual trust here.
Mr Melchett: No, Chairman. What
we have done on GM right the way through is talked to farmers
in places like Canada, the United States and Brazil more recently
where GM crops are grown and heard what they have said and what
their experience has been, so we knew very early on, for example,
that organic farmers in Canada could no longer grow oilseed rape
because the level of contamination from GM oilseed rape was such
that it had become impossible to grow the crop. That denial of
choice, which incidentally is why an American judge ruled the
introduction of Monsanto's GM alfalfa illegal, was one of the
things that influenced us. Another thing that has influenced us
is that we have heard the experiences of farmers using GM crops
to feed their animals and seeing their animals die; a very familiar
story from India. We have heard what has happened in Brazil to
people growing GM soya. This is actual experience where all of
the seed was GM, all of it needed Round Up and Monsanto tripled
the price of the spray.
Q458 Chairman:
I respect the fact that you have argued it on the basis of observation
to date. That is a perfectly respectable point to have an argument
from, but the world moves on and science may change. Just as you
have said to us: trust us, our system is robust. We believe we
have a model that can deal with the pests and diseases that we
know of at the moment because that is what we are dealing with,
but we have to accept that that is a robust and well-founded line
of argument for things that we do not know about.
Mr Don: With respect, and I sound
like a politician speaking now, the organic system is based upon
thousands of years of experience and trial and testing. New science,
things will change and whatever happens that we can be certain
of, is untried. What we are saying is that there is no evidence
that new science is going to solve the problems any better than
what we have and also some worries that it may cause harm.
Chairman: I could equally point and say
to you that the traditional system of many thousands of years
might not be able to cope.
Lynne Jones: It is not the traditional
system. We have had plant breeding techniques which if people
knew the detail they would not think that that is in any way natural.
It is not natural at all. It is human beings manipulating.
Q459 Chairman:
I do not want this to become an inquiry into GM. As I understand
it, F1 hybrids, which are an important part of the armoury of
the grower in putting together the strong traits of individual
varieties, it is a mechanical process of bringing them together.
Am I right?
Mr Don: Yes.
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