UK crop official critical of government on GM debate
Date: 07-Feb-03
Country: UK
In a letter to UK farm minister Margaret Beckett, Malcolm Grant, chairman of the GM Public Debate Steering Board, said the debate - designed to gather opinions ahead of a decision on commercial growing of such crops - should not start until May.
"Being still unclear as to what resources are to be expected from Government for the debate continues to blight our planning," Grant said in a letter published on the government-appointed group's website.
"...we still have not yet been in a position to tell organisations what exactly we are planning and what we will be able to offer them," he added.
The government had initially allocated 250,000 pounds ($413,200) for the debate before adding an extra 200,000 pounds to the budget.
Grant also criticised the "excessively compressed timetable," which expects delivery of the steering board report to the government by the end of June.
No GM crops can be approved for commercial growing in the UK until completion of a three-year test planting programme, designed to measure the impact of such crops, but the final stages of those trials are approaching.
Environmentalists say GM crops will contaminate traditional varieties and change the countryside, while some scientists argue that they could solve world hunger.
The government called a public debate on the issue earlier this year, but drew criticism early when it confirmed that a major scientific review of the technology will end before the GM field trials end.
"This GM debate has become a farce before it has even started. It is under-funded. It is uncertain when it will start, and even more unclear what it will achieve," a spokesman from environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth said.
"The whole sorry saga only adds to the suspicion that the government is not really interested in an open-minded debate on this issue, and that it is keen to allow GM crops to be commercially grown in the UK," he added.
A spokesman at Britain's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said that the government would consider all avenues but a decision had not been reached on extending the debate.
