UK Govt Unveils Details Of Biotech Beet, Rapeseed Trials

Dow Jones Newswires 28feb01

LONDON -- The U.K. Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions Wednesday said planting for spring trials of genetically modified oilseed rape may begin within a few weeks.

In a press release Wednesday, the DETR announced trial sites for spring-sown oilseed rape - 27 in England, five in Scotland - and 26 sites for sugar and fodder beets. Sites for corn, which is sown later in the year, will be announced in the week beginning March 26.

The DETR said it has received applications from Aventis SA (AVE) and Monsanto Co. (MON) to release oilseed rape resistant to glufosinate ammonium herbicide, and beets resistant to glyphosate herbicide. It said both are "widely used in agriculture, but not for the equivalent conventional crops."

In response, environmental group Friends of the Earth said the trials represent a "gamble with our countryside," adding that "separation distances are entirely inadequate, and GM (gene-modified) contamination will creep into our food. These crops threaten the livelihoods of those who are meeting the massive demand for GM-free food."

The DETR said the government has "agreed with industry to increase the notification period to up to six weeks, in order to give people more time to find out about farm-scale evaluations in their area."

However, it also said: "Depending on weather and soil conditions, sowing of oilseed rape might start from mid-to-late March through April, of beets from the end of March through April, and of (corn) from the end of April through May."

A DETR spokesman said the six-week notification period was a goal that the government and the companies were working toward, but confirmed that the period between notification and planting might well be less than six weeks this time around.

"It could be late March when planting begins," he said.

He said two of the planned sites - one for fodder beets in Blaisdon, Gloucestershire, and one for oilseed rape in Oakenshaw, Durham - are within exclusion zones established by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to halt the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, but he said the DETR has been assured by MAFF that the trials can continue as normal.

"However, if further restrictions are announced, our independent researchers will have to reconsider the safety of visiting the sites, and will take further advice from MAFF," he said.

The DETR said all seeds in the trials have been through "years of rigorous safety tests," and the trials are designed to investigate the effects, if any, of farming practices associated with the gene-modified crops in the study.

"The purpose of these trials is to provide systematic answers to the question as to whether the planting of herbicide-tolerant GM crops, and the use of weedkillers associated with them, will cause any detriment to wildlife. They are not about the safety of GM technology," the DETR said.

Results will be evaluated by an independent scientific steering committee.

The new trials represent the second year of a three-year program. At the end of the program in 2002-2003, results will be reported, made publicly available and considered by the government.

The DETR said under an agreement between the government and industry, there will be no commercial growing of gene-modified crops in the U.K. until the end of the farm-scale evaluations, "and only then if the crops are assessed as causing no unacceptable effects on the environment."