Friends of the Earth Cymru welcomes GM seed delay

Friends of the Earth Cymru has welcomed the decision by the National Assembly for Wales' Agriculture Committee to recommend that Agriculture Secretary Christine Gwyther refuse, for now, to approve genetically modified maize for commercial listing.

The Agriculture and Rural Development Committee was discussing a recommendation to put a GM fodder maize seed onto the National Seed List. This is the final regulatory hurdle that a seed variety has to clear before it can be commercially grown and placed on the market in the UK [1].

Committee Chair, Ieuan Wyn Jones, summed up that section of this morning's meeting:

"There is a clear view that, at this stage, the Agriculture Committee would advise Christine Gwyther not to list."

The committee agreed to request more information about scientific and legal aspects of the case, which will be discussed again at its next meeting on 15 March. The committee have asked the Assembly's legal advisers to respond to the advice that FOE Cymru has presented to the Committee members.

FOE Cymru have repeatedly raised concerns with the Assembly over the lack of scientific information available for the seed to be put on the market. Late last night the Agriculture Committee members were sent a legal briefing by FOE Cymru as well as a damning report on the risk assessments that the GM seed underwent.

The report [copy attached] claims that if Aventis had applied for Listing now [2] it would be rejected because the risk assessment does not consider :

effects on human health;
possible delayed effects on animal health;
indirect environmental effects due to changes in crop management, and
effects on the soil.

The UK Government and the EU have agreed that the legislation is not adequate enough to ensure safety. New regulations amending the old ones are so much better that they are already being used in principle. One such regulation [3] calls for 'the [seed] variety [to] be accepted only if all appropriate measures have been taken to avoid adverse effects on human health and the environment.' At the current time this has not been fulfilled.

Raoul Bhambral, FOE Cymru's GM Campaigner commented:

"We are delighted that the Assembly's Agriculture Committee has refused to be bounced on this issue. They recognised that the information was not enough for them to support the addition of this seed to the National List."

" This maize is intended for cattle yet there have been no safety assessments for animals eating GM feed. This 'missing link' in GMO legislation is quite serious and it's shocking to find that we don't seem to have learned from the last animal feed scare. "

"Given Christine Gwyther's and Tony Blair's recent comments it would be inconceivable for her to approve this product, now that her Committee and Prime Minister have expressed such serious reservations."

Notes

[1] A number of hurdles have to be cleared before a GM crop can be commercially grown. First it must obtain an EU marketing consent under GMO rules. It then has to get Novel Food approval and be put on the National Seed List (the GM T25 maize in question, and a number of other GM crops, already have or purport to have, the first two). In the case of herbicide-tolerant crops (which includes the Gm maize) permission to use the herbicide must also be given. However, these crops can still be grown without the herbicide being used. A company might well do this, for example to multiply its GM seed.

[2] Aventis' T25 maize was approved in 1998 using risk assessment processes no longer considered adequate either by the UK Government or the EU.

[3] Article 4.4 of EU Directive 70/457 (as amended).