1.'Frankenstein food' crops could be here in two years
2.Advisers urge more emphasis on crop experiment benefits
NOTE: Another Science Media Centre event for which the Bill McKelvey event at the SMC, which the pro-GM Pollock was due to attend, was just the opening sweetener? See - http://www.lobbywatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7769
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1.'Frankenstein food' crops could be here in two years
By SEAN POULTER The Daily Mail, 4 May 2007 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=452534&in_page_id=1770
Genetically modified crops could be grown commercially in Britain within two years amid official efforts to water down policing of the controversial "Frankenstein food" technology.
Advisers to the Government claimed yesterday that the farming regulatory regime is unfairly weighted against the growing of GM crops.
ACRE - the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment - wants a lighter touch system that concentrates more on the claimed benefits of GM farming rather than any potential harm to the countryside and health.
It suggested GM crops could solve future food famines caused by climate change and population growth.
The committee, largely of scientists, also argued that GM crops could become the only effective alternative to using oil for producing plastics and other chemicals.
The chairman, Professor Chris Pollock, has been in the vanguard of efforts to overturn blanket consumer opposition to GM farming.
He believes that if GM crops with health benefits can be developed - such as wheat protein that protects against heart disease - the technology's negative image among consumers will be reversed.
However, GM critics such as Friends of the Earth dismissed the claimed benefits as "fantasy".
They said UK trials had found that GM farming practices disrupt the natural balance, threatening wild plants, insects and birds.
ACRE's proposed radical overhaul of the way new farming practices are regulated would involve watering down the policing of GM, while introducing an assessment regime for other new farming systems.
Professor Jules Pretty, the deputy chairman, predicted that the UK will get its first commercial production of GM crops within two to five years, probably oilseed rape or forage maize.
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2.Advisers urge more emphasis on crop experiment benefits
Ian Sample, science correspondent The Guardian, May 4 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,,2072182,00.html
British farmers are being denied access to the most promising agricultural advances because regulators place too much emphasis on the negative impacts they have on the environment, according to a government body.
Trials to assess the impact of new farming techniques and novel crops, such as genetically modified varieties, should balance any damaging environmental effects with the benefits they bring, a report yesterday by the advisory committee on releases to the environment said. The report was prompted by the government's field scale evaluations of herbicide-tolerant GM crops, which were completed in 2003. The evaluation concluded that conventional crops were among the best and worst for the environment, with GM crops falling in between.
The document is being considered by the environment secretary, David Miliband, ahead of discussions with the European Food Safety Authority in Brussels.
Under the proposals, novel crops and farming practices would be assessed for any detrimental effect on the environment, but these would be considered alongside the benefits they may also have on biodiversity, yields and soil quality. If the crops were judged to have an overall benefit, they would be approved for planting.
Chris Pollock, committee chairman, said the future sustainability of British farming would be in grave jeopardy if farmers were not permitted to adopt new technologies that were proven to increase yields or have other benefits. "If we are serious about sustainable agriculture, we have to be open to new technologies. This is the first shot in what I expect will be a long war."
Anti-GM campaigners voiced concerns that the report will see untested GM crops facing less scrutiny before being allowed on to the market. Claire Oxborrow, of Friends of the Earth, said: "It should absolutely not lead to a reduction in the rigorous application of legislation to test GM crops for their safe use."
The report follows a surge of interest in using genetic modification to create biofuel crops for green transport and plants that produce pharmaceutical compounds which allow farmers to turn their fields into vast drug production sites.
Julian Little, a spokesman for the GM crop industry, welcomed the plans, but said the way crops would be assessed under the new proposals might be too vague, and so open to political interference.