Environmental Dangers May Halt GM Revolution

By Michael McCarthy

October 17, 2003, The lndependent/UK

British Scientists delivered a massive blow to the case
for genetically modified crops yesterday when they
showed in a trail-blazing study that growing them could
harm the environment.

Their findings, which will spark controversy around the
world, are likely to present a serious obstacle to Tony
Blair in his desire to bring GM technology to Britain,
and will be viewed with concern and anger in the United
States, home of GM technology. They could ultimately
lead to a ban on growing the crops concerned throughout
the European Union.

Certainly the chances of GM crops being planted
commercially in Britain itself look much less likely
after the discovery, in the three-year study, that
farmland wildlife is harmed much more by the extra-
powerful weedkillers used with GM crops than by
herbicides used in conventional agriculture.

The results of the study came after a succession of
reports to the Government this summer, all questioning
the economics, the science and the public acceptability
of GM, and will be seen in some quarters as the
clinching argument against GM commercialization in
Britain.

Michael Meacher, who as environment minister set up the
study in 1998 and presided over it for most of its
duration before being sacked in the last government
reshuffle, writes in today’s Independent that the
Government’s strategy over GM "is unraveling fast".

The biotech industry, by contrast, put a brave face on
yesterday’s findings. "None of the studies published
this year supports the banning of any GM crops," said
Paul Rylott, of the industry’s umbrella body, the
Agricultural Biotechnology Council.

The Government itself kept its cards close to its chest
yesterday, with Margaret Beckett, the Secretary of State
for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, saying she
would "carefully reflect" on the results.

It will be months, perhaps more than a year, before a
final decision is taken, which will almost certainly be
at a European level. But whatever happens there is
little doubt that there will be continued American
pressure on Mr Blair to push GM technology forward,
despite widespread public opposition, which has now -
for the first time - been backed up with serious
science.

The three-year study, set up by the Government itself
and known as the Farm-Scale Evaluations (FSE), compared
what happened to biodiversity in the fields during the
growth of three GM crops - sugar beet, oilseed rape and
maize - with what happened during the growth of their
conventional, non-GM equivalents in adjoining fields.

The GM crops had all been genetically engineered to be
herbicide-tolerant - to be unaffected by so-called
"broad-spectrum" weedkillers, very deadly chemicals such
as Monsanto’s Roundup or Bayer’s Liberty, which are too
strong to be used in conventional crop fields as they
would kill everything, including the crop plants
themselves.

With two out of three crops tested - beet and oilseed
rape - far fewer plants, seeds and insects such as bees
and butterflies were left in the GM fields after the
application of weedkiller than in the non-GM fields, the
study found. In the beet fields, there were 1.3 times as
many weeds and three times as many seeds left for birds
and insects to feed on in the conventional fields
compared with the GM fields, with 1.4 times as many
butterflies. In the oilseed rape fields there were 1.7
times as many weeds, five times more seeds and 1.3 times
as many butterflies.

With a third crop, maize, the reverse trend was true,
with more biodiversity left in the GM fields - but the
researchers themselves put a question mark over this
result yesterday, saying it might have to be revised.
This is because the herbicide that was used with the
conventional maize, atrazine, is itself so deadly and
long-lasting that it is being banned in Europe - and so
the comparison is potentially flawed.

The researchers say the study is the first large-scale
field trial of a novel agricultural system before it has
been put into practice. It involved more 200 sites, from
south-west England to northern Scotland, and more than
4,000 site visits; in the course of it more than half a
million seeds and more than 1.5 million insects and
other invertebrates were counted.

Peer-reviewed and published by the Royal Society, the
results confirm, over eight scientific papers,
conservationists’ concerns that the GM crops scheduled
for growth in Britain would mean yet another blow for
the insects, flowers and birds that have already been
decimated by more than 30 years of intensive farming.

English Nature, the Government’s wildlife and
conservation adviser, had pressed for the trials to be
set up in 1998. Brian Johnson, English Nature’s
biotechnology adviser and the man who headed the call,
said the results confirmed the agency’s fears.

"The results confirm our long-held concerns that some GM
herbicide-tolerant crops could further intensify arable
farming and harm wildlife," he said. "If these crops
were grown commercially in the UK, we now know that
there would be further declines in farmland wildlife."

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said many
farmland birds relied on weed seeds for their survival,
and the trials had shown that GM beet and GM spring
oilseed rape reduced seed numbers by up to 80 per cent,
compared with conventional beet and oilseed rape.

The results will now go to another government GM
advisory body, which will examine them and offer
ministers its own advice.

The Trials

The first large-scale trials of GM crops anywhere in the
world involved tests on three crops, lasted three years,
and cost £5.5m. The findings showed a significant impact
on wildlife

GM Oilseed Rape

The tests showed a fivefold decrease in flora and a 25
per cent reduction in butterflies. There were also fewer
seeds for wildlife to eat

GM Sugar Beet

Reduction in wild plants growing in fields and 40 per
cent fewer flowers at field margins

GM Maize

There was an 82% increase in seeds and more insects were
present. But there are doubts about the weedkiller used