1.Government Rejects Environmental Audit Committee Call for Tighter GM Controls – GM Freeze
2.Government rejects Environmental Audit recommendations on GM – GM Free Cymru
–-
–-
1.Government Rejects Environmental Audit Committee Call for Tighter GM Controls
GM Freeze, 12 September 2012

The Government response [1] to the Environmental Audit Committee's (EAC) Report on Sustainable Food [2] today rejected all of the Committee's recommendations for tighter regulation and scrutiny of GM food and crops including:

*"Additional conditionalities applied to GM crops beyond those which form part of the EU environmental risk assessment and authorisation procedure."
*"A new independent body should be established to research, evaluate and report on the potential impacts on the environment of GM crops, and their impacts on farming and on the global food system."

The Government claims to "strongly support" consumer choice, saying, "Defra will implement pragmatic and proportionate measures to segregate these from conventional and organic crops, so that choice can be exercised and economic interests appropriately protected," but provides no indication aa to how they think producers will be protected.

The Government wants to "Leave the normal operation of the market to determine whether or not an approved GM product gains acceptance" but without necessary protection from the problems GM crops cause, food and farming businesses producing non-GM products face technical and financial complications and potentially loss of their businesses altogether. Australia is experiencing significant GM contamination incidents involving oilseed rape, despite Government assurances there would be none, and farmers have been forced to go to court because of lack of clear liability legislation. [3]

Commenting Pete Riley of GM Freeze said:

"The Committee identified shortcoming in the present systems for overseeing the approval of GM crops, but the Government has rejected their sensible proposals to address them. The Government says it, 'Takes a science-led approach to GM,' but then ignores calls from the Parliament to examine the science.

"GM crops have promised much but performed abysmally to date. Yet GM continues to soak up public research money that should be spent on more promising technologies. Instead of throwing good money after bad, we should be learning from countries growing GM crops, where a predictable evolution of resistant weeds and insects is overwhelming GM technology and escalating the pesticides arms race. US farmers now struggle to control the spread of both superweeds and superbugs in their crops at considerable cost.

"The Government's response is full of holes, and GM Freeze is extremely concerned that despite claims to favour choice it fails to provide any assurance that non-GM farmers, growers and beekeepers will be protected from if their businesses are contaminated with GM traits. Biotech companies must be held strictly liable for any harm caused by their products, including contamination. Once again this crucial issue is being ignored. This will cut no ice with farmers, and the Government should make it perfectly clear that the right to farm without fear of GM contamination will be guaranteed because the biotech companies will be liable when things go wrong as they most assuredly will."

Calls to:
Pete Riley, GM Freeze 07903 341 065

Notes
1. Sustainable Food: Government Response to the Committee's Eleventh Report of Session 2010-12 – Environmental Audit Committee
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenvaud/567/56704.htm
2. House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 30 April 2012, Sustainable Food: Eleventh Report of Session 2010 12
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201012/cmselect/cmenvaud/879/87902.htm
3. ABC News, 6 July 2012. GM canola contamination leads to court showdown 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-06/organic-certification-row-to-head-to-wa-court/4114336
–-
–-
2.Government rejects Environmental Audit Recommendations on GM
GM Free Cymru, 13 September 2012 

NGOs concerned about the health and environmental impacts of GM crops and foods have reacted angrily to the Government's rejection of a number of recommendations made in a 2012 Environmental Audit Committee Report.

In a broad-based assessment of Sustainable Food, the Committee took a very nuanced look at GM crops and foods and the place that they might take in a future Food Strategy.  

1.  Committee members accepted that there is currently a high level of public antipathy directed towards GM technology, and also accepted that there is no benefit either to the environment or to producers from growing GM crops. They suggested that there should be transparent GM product labelling in the event that GM crops are grown in the UK, but also accepted that there is currently no demand from any quarter for GM products on supermarket shelves. On that basis they suggested with reference to GM:  "the Government should not license its commercial use in the UK nor promote its use overseas."

2.  The Committee further suggested that there was a need for reliable and unbiased information about GM  to be placed in the public domain, and that an independent body should be set up to "research, evaluate and report on the potential impacts on the environment of GM crops, and their impacts on farming and on the global food system."

3.  The Committee suggested that the Government should also ask such a body to look initially at "the co-existence of GM crops with conventional and organic farming regimes."

That indicated quite a subtle awareness of the key issues in the GM debate, and demonstrated that the Committee was taking its auditing brief rather seriously, by looking at the costs and benefits of GM – and concluding that there are considerable costs associated with it but hardly any benefits. One might have thought that in straightened times the Government would have accepted these measures as a means of holding down or reducing public expenditure on unnecessary and unpopular GM research and development.  But no.  In a statement including sections that might have been written by a copywriter from the Monsanto PR department, the Government has now rejected the Committee's recommendations out of hand.

The Government repeats its long-standing belief that "GM technology could deliver benefits" at some stage in the future, apparently oblivious to the fact that it has been around for a long time, and has signally failed to deliver any benefits thus far, apart from ease of cultivation in large-scale farming monocultures.  It goes on to say that it wants farmers to have choice, apparently oblivious to the fact that a farmer's choice of crops is inevitably reduced in all areas where GM has been adopted.  The Government then says it "takes a science-led approach to GM", while entirely disregarding the scores of scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals which demonstrate environmental and health damage associated with GM crop plantings.    Later in the response, there is a protestation that the Government supports consumer choice and GM product labelling – but again it fails to recognize that nobody actually wants to buy GM food.

In a section extolling the virtues of GM farming worldwide, the Government pretends that an EU Report on funded GM research projects represents the totality of scientific literature on the safety and efficacy of GM crops – which it patently does not.  It also says:  "The Commission also concluded that there was no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms."  That simply repeats a lie which has been repeated over and again within Europe and the UK.  There is in fact abundant scientific evidence of increased harm associated with GM plantings – and the Government knows it.

Finally the Government says, "There is no reason in principle why GM and non-GM crops should not coexist...." However, the Government knows full well that GM and non-GM plants have never coexisted successfully, without widespread GM contamination, anywhere in the world.  The industry knows that, the scientists know it, and the politicians know it too.  Experience shows that coexistence in real farming situations is impossible.

Commenting on these new developments, GM-Free Cymru spokesman Dr Brian John said:  "It is encouraging that Parliamentarians have realized that there is currently no case for the introduction of GM crops and foods into the UK, on grounds to do with costs and consumer attitudes.  They have also realized that there are severe shortcomings in the scientific assessment process that can only be addressed through independent scientific research and evaluation, thus joining the clamour from across Europe for the reform of EFSA and the national regulatory committees.  On the other hand we are amazed that the Government refuses to accept that GM technology is not needed and not wanted, and that it has indeed failed to deliver on all fronts.  It seems that DEFRA and Government ministers  want to continue with a tired and discredited pro-GM policy, and          to throw good money after bad.  That, it seems to us, is both disrespectful of the wishes of British consumers and voters,  and also reprehensible at a time when financial cuts are being made in so many sectors of the economy."

Contact: Dr Brian John, Tel 01239-820470

EXTRACT:

Sustainable Food: Government Response to the Committee's Eleventh Report of Session 2010-12 – Environmental Audit Committee

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmenvaud/567/56704.htm

IN RELATION TO GM CROPS..........

The Committee recommendation: 

Unless and until there is both clear public and political acceptance of GM, it is proven to be both beneficial to the environment and to producers, and evidence that demand for these products is based on understanding by consumers and transparent product labelling, the Government should not license its commercial use in the UK nor promote its use overseas. The Government must ensure that the public and Parliament is well informed on this issue. It should establish an independent body to research, evaluate and report on the potential impacts on the environment of GM crops, and their impacts on farming and on the global food system. An initial focus of such research should be on the scope for, and risks of, the co-existence of GM crops with conventional and organic farming regimes. (Paragraph 28)

The Government Response:

The Government recognises that GM technology could deliver benefits providing it is used responsibly, in particular as one of a range of tools to address the longer term challenges of global food security, climate change and the need for more sustainable agricultural production. The Government therefore supports farmers having access to developments in new technology, including GM, and being able to choose whether or not to adopt them. The Government takes a science-led approach to GM, and the protection of human health and the environment are our overriding priorities. We will only agree to the planting of GM crops, the release of other types of GM organism or the marketing of GM food or feed products if a robust risk assessment that has taken full account of the scientific evidence indicates that it is safe.

As far as licensing GM crops is concerned, decisions on the marketing of GM products, including seeds for cultivation, are taken at European Union (EU) level. Two types of GM seed have received EU authorisation and have been grown in certain Member States. However, they are not being sold in the UK because they are not relevant or suitable for our conditions. GM crops are not expected to be grown here commercially for some years at least, but in principle the Government is open to this possibility, providing it is undertaken safely and responsibly.

The Government does not agree with the Committee's recommendation that there should be additional conditionalities applied to GM crops beyond those which form part of the EU environmental risk assessment and authorisation procedure. The EU regime focuses on protecting human health and the environment, leaving the normal operation of the market to determine whether or not an approved GM product gains acceptance. The Government believes that this is the right approach, taking account of the need for regulation to be proportionate. Some GM crops in the research and commercial pipeline can potentially offer enhanced health or nutritional benefitshowever, requiring all GM crops to deliver, for example, additional environmental benefits as the recommendation implies could in itself become a barrier to such developments in the technology; developments that we can expect to be of significant interest to potential consumers.

To facilitate consumer choice, which the Government strongly supports, the EU has also adopted rules which require clear labelling of any food or feed products made from a GM organism. The Government will do its bit to foster an informed and balanced debate around GM issues and listen carefully to what people have to say, but everyone has a role to play in thisincluding scientists, farmers, consumers, civic society, media and the food industry. In relation to the use of GM overseas and in developing countries, the Government believes that they should have fair access to GM technology and make their own informed decisions regarding its use.

The Government does not agree that a new independent body should be established to research, evaluate and report on the potential impacts on the environment of GM crops, and their impacts on farming and on the global food system. There is a wide evidence base that already exists on this subject, as well as significant practical experience of GM cultivation globally. In 2011, it is reported that almost 16.7 million farmers around the world planted GM crops on 160 million hectaresover 11% of the world's arable land. The environmental impact of proposed GM crops is already robustly evaluated by independent scientists as part of the EU regulatory process. In 2010, the European Commission published a report entitled "A decade of EU-funded GMO research" which summarised the results of 50 research projects addressing primarily the safety of GMOs for the environment and for animal and human health. The findings of these projects confirmed that GMOs potentially provide opportunities to reduce malnutrition, especially in lesser developed countries, as well as to increase yields and assist towards the adaptation of agriculture to climate change providing there are strong safeguards in place to control any potential risks. The Commission also concluded that there was no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.

In terms of other impacts, the EU is setting up a Technical Bureau to examine the socio-economic implications of GM cultivation, and has a separate Technical Bureau which is producing detailed guidance on the coexistence of GM and non-GM crops. There is no reason in principle why GM and non-GM crops should not coexist and work has been undertaken previously to inform how coexistence arrangements might operate here. If and when GM crops are grown in England commercially, Defra will implement pragmatic and proportionate measures to segregate these from conventional and organic crops, so that choice can be exercised and economic interests appropriately protected. 

Sources:

Sustainable Food: Government Response to the Committee's Eleventh Report of Session 2010-12 – Environmental Audit Committee

House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, 30 April 2012, Sustainable Food: Eleventh Report of Session 2010 12