Last November, the Government's advisory body, the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC), published a report entitled "GM Crops - Coexistence and Liability".
This report examined whether GM crops might contaminate conventional and organic crops and/or the natural environment; if such contamination was acceptable and who would be liable to compensate for such damage?
The report has highlighted some serious problems regarding the commercialisation of GM crops, and found very few solutions.
Greenpeace Coexistence and Liability Briefing
Key Points:
- It is impossible to grow GM and non-GM crops within a few miles of each other without genetic contamination.
- If GM is commercialised in Britain it will be very difficult to avoid eating some GM material unless you avoid certain foods entirely (eg nothing with maize/oil seed rape/beet or their products).
- Organic food will also be contaminated and so much food grown as organic will have to be sold as non-organic and possibly as GM. This will lose the farmers money.
- No serious suggestions have been made to prevent or remedy environmental.
- Neither the insurance industry nor the biotech firms are willing to take liability for either the commercial losses or the environmental damage.
Background
Coexistence refers to the problems arising from trying to grow GM and non-GM crops in the same area and liability to the question of who should be held financially responsible for these problems. Historically, the Government has struggled with these two delicate issues and to get some guidance asked their advisers, the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC), to create a report which was published on Tuesday 25th November.
Strong disagreements amongst the committee are reflected in the report which, along with much discussion, recommends certain measures which should be taken, chiefly in order to preserve consumer choice, if GM crops are commercialised. Overall, the report makes it clear that coexistence would be at least very difficult to achieve, and would require heavy, statutory (legal) controls to be put in place.
Coexistence
The report largely focuses on whether and how to keep the contamination of organic or non-GM crops with GM material down to the appropriate levels. There is an EU statutory limit of 0.9% contamination, above which foods must be labelled as containing GM. There is no specific statutory limit for organic foods, but the Soil Association operates to a level of 0.1%, above which it will not certify foods as organic. The report suggested there were reasonable grounds for protecting the 0.1% purity level not just for organic, but also normal "non-GM" food - i.e. people who didn't want to eat GM or pay for organic shouldn't have to accept 0.9% by default.
The AEBC has argued fiercely amongst themselves over whether and what efforts should be made to maintain the ability of organic farmers to keep to their 'self-imposed' threshold. Whether it is possible to maintain either level is also far from clear. The AEBC recommends statutory crop management rules and a closely monitored introductory period where problems can quickly be detected and (hopefully) remedied, even to the point of suspending production of crops.
Commercial Liability
If a non-GM farmer's crops are contaminated with GM material this may prevent him from selling them as non-GM or organic, and he may well lose money. The AEBC has agreed that these farmers should be compensated at least with respect to the 0.9% statutory limit. The insurance market will not provide cover at this time, or for a while yet, and so there is a problem with regard to who will be liable for this compensation. The biotech industry are opposed to paying for compensation to farmers whose crops are contaminated over 0.9%, and won't even consider paying for breaches of the 0.1% level. Effectively, this means if the Government allows commercial growing the money would come from Government (ie. the taxpayer) or possibly a levy on farmers.
Environmental Liability
The biotech industry is equally unenthusiastic about taking liability for any environmental damage caused by GM crops. Their logic is that once the regulatory system has judged their products safe, no extra burden of responsibility should be placed on them, especially not one that would further demonise GM crops. There is likely to be some difficulty in tracing the cause of any environmental damage to a particular site, or even a particular crop.
Next Steps
The Government will consider the AEBC report, alongside the farm scale trial results and other planks of evidence they've requested on GM, and make an announcement on commercialisation. The earliest this is expected is February, although slippage is predicted as far as June.
