Archived press release

Biotech industry- funded GM beet study criticised

19 January 2005

Commenting on the study published today on GM sugar beet, conducted at Broom's Barn Research Station, Friends of the Earth's GM campaigner, Emily Diamand, said:

"This research, funded by the biotech industry, is a desperate attempt to counter detailed Government research showing that growing GM sugar beet would have a disastrous impact on farmland wildlife. Overall, the results do not appear to show biodiversity benefits from growing GM crops, yet they have been spun to give a different impression. GM crops remain a threat to our food, farming and environment, no matter how the biotech industry tries to sell it".

• The farmscale trials have already shown that growing GM beet will have a negative impact on farmland wildlife. In the FSEs farmers grew the crops and applied the herbicides as they normally would in commercial practice - this gives a much better indication of the true impact of growing these crops than this latest study does.
• This study was funded by the biotech industry;
• Some of the plots treated by band spraying glyphosate (spraying in strips 20cm wide) produced more weed seeds in the summer, but not in the autumn. The plots using a single spray of glyphosate produced more weed seeds in the autumn, but not in the summer. So to produce more weed seeds in summer and autumn (providing food for farmland birds) would need two separate GM crop management schemes;
• The researchers claim that GM crops provide more flexibility for farmers, but in fact these management techniques so complicated and intricate that it is very unlikely that farmers will ever undertake them commercially;
• The study used so many different variations of treatments of the glyphosate herbicide, and not many replications of each treatment, that it is difficult to draw robust conclusions from the results - the statistical validity is questionable;
• And ultimately there is still no market for GM sugar beet, British Sugar still have a GM free policy and consumers won't buy it - latest research by Which? showed that 61% of UK public are concerned about GM in food production (see GM opposition grows - New survey)

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust