|
|
 |
 |
 |
| Tuesday, 10 August 2004 |
 |
|
 |
Features | |
| News Business Features Editorial Security Politics World Letters Sports Obituaries
|
A happy ending to G.M. maize farce by Claire Robinson Just weeks after the UK government approved Bayer's genetically modified (GM) maize, the corporation withdrew its application, complaining that the conditions imposed were too stringent. The following article exposes the PR campaign that was integral to the approval of what would have been the United Kingdom's first GM crop, and pays tribute to the continuing grassroots opposition to GM crops. In what has been described as a 'massive blow to the GM lobby', gene giant Bayer withdrew its GM maize from commercialisation just weeks after the Tony Blair government said it intended to give it the first go-ahead for a GM crop in the UK. Bayer announced that its GM maize variety Chardon LL had been left 'economically non-viable' because of conditions Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, imposed when she gave it limited approval. Bayer's decision to withdraw the crop from the UK and other European markets means GM crops are unlikely to be grown in the UK until at least 2008. However, organics lobby the Soil Association accused Bayer of being deceitful when it put the whole blame for its withdrawal of GM maize on the UK government's regulatory hurdles. Policy director Peter Melchett said Bayer has simply been caught out by its own inaccurate hype. Biotech companies have always claimed that GM crops need less chemical sprays. In the three-year farm-scale trials, Bayer's GM maize was grown using one weed-killing spray. But Soil Association research in the US and Canada had already shown that GM maize grown commercially needed at least two weed-killers. Indeed, biotech companies in America are even selling branded mixtures of weed-killing sprays to farmers growing their GM crops, so they can hardly deny that several sprays are often needed. 'Unfortunately for Bayer, the British Government took them at their word, and said that their GM maize could only be grown using one weed-killer. Based on experience in North America, Bayer knows that it won't work in practice,' Melchett said. 'In these circumstances, it's really not surprising that Bayer have withdrawn the GM maize, effectively ending the prospect of any GM crops being grown in the UK for the foreseeable future.' Bayer shares slipped 1.9% after the news was announced. The campaigners' victory was the more extraordinary because it represented a complete reversal of fortune for the biotech industry, which appeared to have triumphed when the UK government gave the go-ahead for commercial growing of GM maize on 9 March. The UK government gave its go-ahead to GM maize without a debate in Parliament, in the teeth of overwhelming public opposition and of a critical report from the House of Commons' all-party Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) saying such a move was unjustified. The members of the EAC unanimously agreed that the GM maize trials were 'unsatisfactory, indeed invalid'. They urged the government to carry out further tests on GM maize, by comparing it to less intensive forms of farming like organic agriculture (a comparison the industry refused to contemplate from the start of the FSE programme). But the government had made its decision to approve the commercial growing of GM maize the day before the EAC announced its opposition. The EAC's report pointed out that the scope of the farm scale evaluations (FSEs) was very narrow and hence the results could not be regarded as adequate grounds for a decision in favour of commercialisation. Furthermore, the issue of liability should be settled before any GM crops are allowed to be commercially grown in the UK. The government should not permit commercial planting of GM maize until that crop was thoroughly re-trialled against a non-GM equivalent grown without the use of atrazine, the herbicide used on the non-GM crop in the FSEs, which has now been banned because it is so toxic. The EAC report also said problems with GM crops evident in North America have not been taken seriously enough. In spite of all these valid objections, Environment Minister Elliott Morley immediately rejected the panel's calls for more safety testing of GM crops. Bogus comparison a political fig leaf In what was clearly a carefully contrived operation to upstage the EAC report on the day of its publication, a paper was rushed online to the journal Nature claiming to show that even with the ban on atrazine, the GM maize would still be marginally better for wildlife. This statistical miracle was performed by a group led by Prof Joe Perry of Rothamsted Research Station, also a member of Scientists for Labour and a supporter of Prime Minister Tony Blair. Because only four fields had not been sprayed with atrazine-type chemicals (triazines), the paper drew largely on data from fields which had been sprayed with the banned chemical in order to make predictions about what would happen in fields where such a chemical would not be used! The chairman of the EAC dismissed the paper as 'neither robust nor particularly credible science', while the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said in a letter to The Times, 'A recent paper published in Nature confirms that there are too few data to provide a clear answer on GM maize... the jury is still out.' Two of the scientists who provided this political fig leaf have research contracts with Bayer. The other authors claim to have 'no competing financial interests' but, in reality, almost all work for public institutes with financial ties to the industry. How the BMA report was fixed One striking headline after the announcement of the GM maize commercialisation ran: 'Doctors 100% behind GM decision'. The article reported, 'In an apparent U-turn over its policy to GM foods, the British Medical Association [BMA] said there was no reason not to go ahead with commercial planting of GM maize.' Sir David Carter, chairman of the BMA's Board of Science, had reportedly said it was necessary to 'move away from the hysteria that has so often been associated with GM foods'. Asked if he would be 100% behind a decision to allow GM maize, Sir David said: 'I would say so.' The timing of the press conference and Sir David's remarks could not have been more helpful to the government. Yet, Sir David's remarks were not only out of line with the BMA's much more cautiously worded report and press release, which called for more extensive testing of GM products, they were a million miles away from what the BMA last said on the issue. In November 2002, in its submission on GM crop trials to the Scottish Parliament's health committee, the BMA said that 'insufficient care' had been taken over public health and that the grounds for concern were 'serious enough' to justify an immediate end to GM trials. But one national newspaper questioned the BMA's apparent turnaround. The Daily Mail quickly reported that Sir David, who personally initiated the review of the BMA's position on GM, is part of a controversial pro-GM lobby group. This is Sense about Science (chairman: Lord Taverne) whose staff are part of the far-right 'LM" network which campaigns against restrictions on GM crops and reproductive cloning. Sir David sits on the lobby group's advisory council along with GM proponents like Sir Peter Lachmann (alleged in the Guardian newspaper to have threatened the editor of The Lancet over the publication of Dr Arpad Pusztai's paper that found ill effects in GM-fed rats), Derek Burke, Vivian Moses (part of the industry-funded lobby group CropGen), Roger Turner (chairman of the GM-industry body SCIMAC), Michael Wilson (consultant for Lord Sainsbury's biotech investment firm Diatech), and Phil Dale (of the part-industry-funded John Innes Centre). Victory for democracy This shameless series of spin orchestrated by a government in league with industry makes clear that far from putting 'regulatory hurdles' in the way of GM commercialisation as Bayer claims, the government was hell-bent on smoothing the path to a biotech future. But finally, neither government nor industry was able to withstand the strength of public opposition. Dr Brian John of the Welsh campaign group GM Free Cymru said: 'The real reason for the Bayer climb-down is that grassroots campaigners have attacked the science, the liability issue, the herbicide issue, the practicalities of co-existence, and the corruption of the whole GM enterprise with persistence and sophistication. No company can afford to operate in a climate of such unremitting hostility for too long.' One of the first UK campaigners, Jim Thomas of ETC Group, formerly of Greenpeace, stressed the magnitude of the victory, which stretches far beyond Bayer's decision: 'At the end of 1996 we were reckoned to be barely a year away from widespread cultivation of GM crops all across the UK countryside... Some of the world's most powerful companies and one of the world's most powerful governments had remained steadfastly determined to get GM crops grown commercially in the UK throughout the intervening eight years. 'It is raw, direct popular opposition that has nonetheless removed GM from all human foods sold in the UK; removed GM from most poultry and pig feed; reduced the number of GM field trials from over 300 locations per year to currently zero...' Campaigners were touched to receive a special message of thanks from a Native American seed guardian, Lilia Firefly, whose words remind us that while we have claimed a great national victory, the international struggle against GM continues: 'As a Tawo Seed Carrier of sacred plants, please accept my humble and grateful thank you for all your personal sacrifices. To quote the Mahatma, "This world has enough for everyone's need but not enough for one man's greed." Here in Turtle Island [Native American term for North America] we continue to resist being the guinea pigs of Monsanto and their ilk. We need your prayers.' - Third World Network Features |
|
News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
Produced by Lake House |
