Note the interesting info about pollination distances with maize in item 2.
1.The gloves are off
2.Welsh taking time over GM decision
3.What Belgium said about why it rejected the GM oil seed rape application
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1.The gloves are off
Tuesday February 10, 2004
Letters, The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/letters/story/0,3604,1144487,00.html
The Welsh executive is objecting to GM crops in the UK (Wales blocks go-ahead for Britain's first GM crop, February 9). They aren't the only ones. To date, 2,200 people have signed the Green Gloves pledge to pull up GM crops, or support those who do, if they are commercialised - see www.greengloves.org. We have informed the government but it is ignoring the warning.
Andrew Wood, Oxford
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2.WAG taking time over GM decision
Feb 10 2004
Steve Dube, The Western Mail
THE Welsh Assembly Government has been revealed as being behind the decision yesterday to postpone a decision on whether to approve the first commercial planting of agenetically-modified crop in Britain.
Wales Countryside Minister Carwyn Jones denied a report that Wales and Scotland had combined to block a strain of GM maize called Chardon LL or T25, that appeared to be less environmentally destructive than conventional maize in the Government's three-year crop trials. But Mr Jones said, "We want to consider our position further.
"We are taking some time to decide our position so that we consider all the relevant environmental and legal factors." Mr Jones is thought to have argued against approving the crop in line with public opinion in Wales, where the FUW is part of an anti-GM alliance.
The alliance has raised concerns about GM contamination of conventional and organic crops and the lack of scientific evidence on whether GM food is safe to eat.
The United Kingdom Government is thought to have considered approving the crop in England alone but UK regulations on crop varieties require consent from all member countries.
The postponement is a blow to the Government, which broadly supports GM as a scientific advance that will leave British farmers at a disadvantage in the event of a UK ban.
The current moratorium of GM crops in Europe could be ended anyway as early as February 18 when the ban is reviewed by the European Parliament.
Meanwhile new evidence has emerged from the United States, the champion of GM food, on the extent of contamination by GM material of conventional or organic crops.
Organic farmer Victor Schrock, of Illinois, grew a variety of blue maize that cross pollinated normal yellow maize grown three miles from his holding.
Mr Schrock, who farms 1,600 acres organically, grew the open pollinated blue maize for the first time in 2003.
It produces distinctive blue kernels and Mr Schrock received calls from farmers three miles away worried that the blue kernels were so abundant and noticeable in their crops that they would have problems selling it. The group has passed the evidence to Carwyn Jones, who confirmed that he had received it yesterday.
"We thought that what amounts to an excellent field experiment, illustrating the distance over which cross contamination of neighbouring crops of maize can occur, would be very useful to Mr Jones when dealing with the imminent threat of commercialisation and drawing up co-existence regulations for GM maize in Wales," said Ian Panton of GM Free Cymru.
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3.What Belgium said about GM oil seed rape application
From: Jean Saunders <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.>
Sébastien has forwarded the link to the statement that the Belgian Competent Authority made as part of their assessment report of Bayers Liberty Link oil seed rape MS8xRF3. It is in English.
They provide three reasons for refusing to recommend Bayer's application to grow the GMO in Europe although they have allowed import for other uses. These are:
- effective and practicable measures minimizing the environmental risks associated with this GM lines are not been defined. Effectively the Belgian Biosafety Council considered that "presently, a number of the recommendations of the agricultural guidelines proposed by the notifier in order to limit the vertical gene flow are impracticable, hardly workable and hard to control in current agricultural practices (...):
- a loss of biodiversity due to the use of the associated herbicide was demonstrated in the Farmscale Evaluation trials realized in the UK and no measures compensating this loss were proposed by the notifier. Effectively the Belgian Biosafety Council observed that: "short term adverse effects on biodiversity of the GM crops and the associated herbicide were demonstrated in the FSE trials"
- the long distance dissemination of pollen, an intrinsic oil seed rape characteristic, will lead to a gene flow to the neighbouring oil seed rape fields [and related wild relatives), at a time where a coexistence regulation is not yet entered into force. Effectively the Belgian Biosafety Council considered that "such a gene flow can lead to the long-distance dissemination resulting in the potential fertilization of wild relatives currently present in European flora and the adventitious presence of GM material in neighbouring fields."
http://www.biosafety.be/TP/partC/StatementBE_C_BE_96_01.pdf"
La transmission de cet avis clôt la partie belge de l'évaluation du dossier.