FOCUS - UK govt will not contest GM crop challenge
Date: 20-Sep-99
Country: UK
Author: John Morrison
"Following legal advice, the government has decided not to contest the
judicial review of proceedings instigated by Friends of the Earth (FoE)
in respect of licensing of certain GM trials," Environment Minister
Michael Meacher told a news conference.
FoE, which had sought to stop the planting of a trial of GM rapeseed in
Lincolnshire by biotechnology company AgrEvo, described the announcement
as a humiliating climbdown.
FoE policy director Tony Juniper said the government's GM trials
programme was now in complete chaos. "It is a nonsense to pretend that
this is a technical matter," he said.
"This decision allowed a new crop to be grown, over four times the
previous area, for twelve months rather than six," he said, accusing the
government of bending the law to suit the biotechnology companies.
Public opinion in Britain is firmly opposed to GM crops but Prime
Minister Tony Blair's government has warned that the country's research
lead will be jeopardised if trials are blocked.
GOVERNMENT ACTED ILLEGALLY
"We are accepting that on this point we acted illegally," Meacher said,
adding: "The practical effect will be very little if anything."
He described the issue as "a narrow technical matter" with no health,
safety or environmental implications.
FoE had sought a judicial review of a government decision to allow
AgrEvo, a joint venture between Germany's Hoechst AG and Schering AG ,
to switch one of its tests of GM rapeseed from spring to autumn
planting.
Meacher said the government accepted his officials had made an error
because the law did not allow it to vary its consent and the company
should have made a fresh application.
"If a consent had been sought in the normal way as a fresh application I
have no doubt it would have been granted," Meacher said. He said the
government programme of farm-scale crop trials would continue.
Meacher said the government would not require AgrEvo to end its trials
because it had acted in good faith but it was possible a court could
decide differently.
"If an application is made to the courts, they will give a ruling," he
said, adding that the government's programme of "absolutely vital"
farm-scale crop trials will continue.
Some 75 trials are planned over the next three years of spring rapeseed,
autumn rapeseed and maize. The current trials are a dry run to check the
methodology for the wider experiments. All the crops have to be
destroyed after they are harvested.
Meacher made clear he was hoping to extend a voluntary agreement with
the industry under which commercial growing would be held up until the
evidence from the farm scale trials was complete.
"We are not in collusion with AgrEvo," he added.
He said he was worried about the security of crop sites following
well-publicised protests by environmentalists but was very reluctant to
change policy and keep the sites secret.