Two genetically modified (GM) varieties, oil-seed rape and sugar beet, face a Europe-wide ban after long-awaited field-scale trials showed that the crops damaged wildlife and would have a serious long-term effect on bee, butterfly and bird populations.
Three years of trials growing GM crops alongside conventional crops in the United Kingdom have provided a legal basis for banning the two crops under European Union rules, which say that either health or environmental detriment must be proved.
The British government is now faced with an embarrassing about-turn on its enthusiasm for GM technology. Loss of birdlife in the countryside has been put forward as a key ”quality of life” indicator by the government and it is pledged to reverse the trend.
Scientists from the independent panel set up to conduct the field trials were surprised that the results were so dramatic. In the case of conventional oil-seed rape, five times as many weed seeds survived, providing food for birds like skylarks, than in the GM field. The results were uniform across the country, giving Professor Chris Pollock, chairperson of the scientific panel, confidence that the results would be the same across all of Europe.
David Gibbons, another panel member, said: ”These results were unexpectedly dramatic. There were very big differences, three to five times more seeds, for example. There will be less food for birds if [the GM crops] are grown commercially.”
British government ministers were cautious although Elliot Morley, the UK Environment Minister, said the results showed ”GM crops had severe implications for wild birds”. The government would await advice from the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (Acre), but Morley added: ”I cannot see any European government ignoring these results and their effect on wildlife.”
There has been huge public hostility in the UK to GM crops found in the widest-ever public consultation on a single issue. The British government also has to contend with other recent scientific findings that GM genes could disperse in the countryside and create superweeds. It has been told by its own civil servants that there is no economic benefit to Britain from the technology now, and to grow GM crops might cause civil unrest.
Acre recommended GM oil-seed rape in 1997, saying it could see no danger to the environment.
A question mark hangs over a third crop, GM maize, which did well in the trials compared to conventional maize. At least part of the trials will have to be repeated if they are to be conclusive, said Dr Geoff Squire, another scientific panel member from the Scottish Crop Research Institute.
Conventional crops that did so badly in the maize trials in conserving wildlife compared with GM crops had been treated with a powerful herbicide called Atrazine, which is to be banned. New tests will be done with a less virulent herbicide before deciding which of the two types of maize is better for the environment.
Michael Meacher, the former UK environment minister who set up the trials with industry in 1998, said two of the three crops had been shown to be indisputably bad for the environment, and the third would have to be retested with another herbicide.
”The government said that if the trials showed harm to the environment then they would not proceed with GM. We’ve always known the public is hostile, and now the science shows the same. That settles the argument,” he said. — Â