Consumers reject GM honey

20 September 2002

The British Beekeepers Association (BBKA) currently advises members to ensure that their hives are at least six miles from the nearest GM test sites to avoid GM contamination. The BBKA publishes details of trial sites on its web. Honey bees are often moved around the countryside to provide vital pollination services for fruit growers. The value of this service is put at £200 million. Last week the Scottish Beekeepers Association called for a moratorium on open air planting of GM crops.

This week's discovery of GM contaminated honey is not an isolated example that BBKA precautions are well founded.

In 1999, monitoring of pollen collection by honey bees near a GM farm scale trial in Oxfordshire found that bees had travelled nearly three miles (4.5km) to collect pollen from a crop of GM spring oilseed rape. In 2000, retail samples of honey purchased in England and Austria were found to contain GM pollen.

The latest survey results are similar to previous GM polls carried out by NOP for Friends of the Earth. In 1998, 58 per cent of consumers said "no" to GM material in supermarket food. In 2000, 63 per cent of consumers support GM-free animal feed for the production of dairy products, eggs and meat.

Friends of the Earth GM campaigner Pete Riley said: "These results clearly show that the public does not want GM material in their honey. Beekeepers must continue to maintain their precautions against GM contamination. But they must also tell the Government and biotech industry that plans to commercialise GM crops in the UK are a threat to honey producers and are totally unacceptable."

Roger Holby, a beekeeper from Gloucestershire, said: "The results of this poll confirm what most beekeepers already know. Consumers want their honey to be GM-free. Bee hives are already moved six miles from any GM test sites to reduce the risk of contamination - and the beekeepers foot the bill for this. Why is it that the biotech companies, who cause the problem, escape scott-free? If GM seeds are commercialised customers will either have to accept GM contamination, or bee keepers in this country will be out of a job."

Get these updates first

If you would like these news updates to be emailed to you as soon as they come out, then join our real food mailing list.
Register Here

News