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- Illegal GM contamination threat
- 2003
- 10 reasons supermarket mergers are bad for consumers, farmers and small businesses
- Asda spinach over pesticide levels
- Asda/Wal-Mart exploits planning loophole
- Biting back at GM crops
- Blair sacks Meacher
- Committee Stage for Recycling Bill
- Cornwall goes GM-free
- Credibility of GM public debate hangs by a thread
- Cumbria goes GM-free
- Deplorable attack on GM scientific critic
- Devon votes to go GM-free
- Dorset demands caution over GM crops
- EU commission calls for GM contamination of organic food to be allowed
- EU meets US over GM trade war
- Farmers and consumers must have a say in Wal-Mart takeover
- Fat cats fight over Safeway, consumers and farmers are real losers
- Fat-cat Tesco: putting on the pounds at farmers' expense
- Garden pesticides health warning
- GM activists make a pilgrimage for a GM-free Britain
- GM activists make a pilgrimage for a GM-free Britain
- GM beet research answers very few questions
- GM contamination - Government experts disagree
- GM jury challenges FSA policy on labelling
- GM public debate fiasco
- GM study highlights need for urgent rethink over GM crops
- GM trade war - who decides what we eat?
- GM trade war accelerates
- GM won't cure hunger in Africa
- GM-free food could be "impossible"
- Government agrees to delay GM debate
- Government failing to regulate supermarkets, says new report
- Government launches GM debate
- Government may ignore public opinion on GM crops
- Government must address GM debate chaos say groups
- Government must clarify role of GM debate
- Government opposes tough Euro GM rules
- Government report on economics of GM crops
- Government to publish GM science review
- Government urges MEPs to vote for GM food
- Government warns GM farmers over contamination threat
- Hundreds of pesticides banned
- Hundreds turn out for Waste lobby
- Illegal GM contamination threat
- Is Tesco spin on Safeway takeover a joke?
- Lake District National Park first to go GM-free
- Lake District National Park to host GM debate
- Local campaigners call for GM-free Britain election pledge
- MEPs back tougher GM labels
- Ministers try to stop GM food labels
- Morrisons take-over bad news for consumers
- MPs call for extension to GM national debate
- New analysis casts doubt on GM farm scale evaluations
- New maps reveal massive extent of GM pollution threat
- Pesticide review fails consumers and farmers
- Recycling Bill clears the Commons
- Safeway decision must wait for code review
- Sainsbury's: making life taste bitter for banana growers
- Scepticism as GM debate ends
- Second reading for Recycling Bill
- Shameful EU plans for growing GM crops
- Shropshire goes gm-free
- Slow progress on pesticide residues
- Slow progress on pesticide residues
- South Gloucestershire votes to go GM-free
- South Hams votes to go GM-free
- Stop Safeway stitch-up, alliance demands
- Supermarket code fails farmers
- Supermarket code fails farmers
- Supermarkets continue to shun GM food
- Supermarkets must be blocked from Safeway takeover
- The US ghost fleet – behind the hype
- UK votes to keep highly toxic pesticide
- UN treaty regulating GM to become law
- Uncertainty over GM safety
- US files WTO GM complaint
- US threat over GM food
- Warwickshire goes GM-free
- Why the Safeway take-over must be stopped
Illegal GM contamination threat28 July 2003
The Government's GM advisors have revealed that farmers who grow conventional oil seed rape on land where GM oil seed rape has previously been grown are likely to produce crops that are so heavily contaminated with GM material that it would be unlawful to sell them in Europe.
Minutes released by the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE), reveal that after two years, farmers that have taken part in the GM trials "could legally plant conventional rape but in doing so it would not be possible to control GM volunteers. Preliminary results from new research had shown that up to 5% of the crop which emerges could be GM volunteers, thus making it potentially unlawful to market the crop." GM oil seed rape is not licensed for sale in the UK. EU rules allows up to 0.5 per cent GM contamination from a crop that has not been licensed in Europe. Above that level it would be illegal to sell it.
On 25 July, the Government issued a press statement saying that farmers that have taken part in the Farm Scale Evaluations of GM crops had been warned not to grow conventional oil seed rape on land where a GM variety had previously been grown in the coming planting season commencing August. The release neglected to mention that the crops produced risked GM contamination levels ten times more than legally allowed.
Advice offered by the EU's Scientific Committee on Plants in 2001 suggested that a five year gap should elapse between GM oilseed crops and non-GM seed production and that "volunteers may arise for up to 10 years, possibly longer".
Friends of the Earth has written to the Government to ask:
-
How many years should elapse before it is safe to grow conventional oil seed rape on land that has hosted GM oil seed rape trials;
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What measures have been taken to ensure that GM oil seed rape has not been, and will not be, grown on land that has also hosted GM oil seed rape trials, but not as part of the GM farm scale evaluations. Experimental crops have been grown on huge tracts of land, sometimes bigger than FSE trials since 1997.
"Fields where GM oil seed rape has been grown are so heavily contaminated that farmers won't be able to grow conventional oil seed rape in them for years to come," said Friends of the Earth's GM Campaigner, Pete Riley. "If they do they are likely to produce crops that can't legally be sold in Europe. The Government must take steps to ensure that all farmers that have grown GM oil seed rape, and not just the ones that have taken part in the farm scale trials, are banned from planting rape in these heavily polluted fields.
"This news highlights the threat GM crops pose to our food, farming and environment. The Government must not allow GM crops to be commercially grown in the UK."
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