GM firms finally give up on planting in Britain
Taken from  http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=585086

The Independent, Uk, by Geoffrey Lean , 24.11.2004 09:18



DATE: 21 Nov 2004




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Industry has dropped its last attempts to get GM seeds approved for
growing in Britain, in a final surrender of its dream to spread modified
crops rapidly across the country.

Bayer CropScience has withdrawn the only two remaining applications for
government permission for the seeds - a winter and a spring oilseed rape,
both modified to tolerate one of the firm's herbicides. Supporters of the
technology say this will put back their commercial use in Britain for
years. Environmentalists cite it as one more indication that they are
never likely to be grown here.

The withdrawal of the applications marks a sharp contrast to the
situation when The Independent on Sunday began its campaign over genetic
modification nearly six years ago. At that time, 53 different GM seeds
were awaiting approval, and widespread cultivation was assumed to be only
a year away.

The Government had put all its weight behind the technology, aiming to
make Britain its "European hub", and Tony Blair privately dismissed
opposition as a "flash in the pan".

But rising public concern forced the Government to introduce a moratorium
while tests were carried out on the effects on the environment of growing
GM crops. The trials - the results of which were reported last year -
found that the way GM beet and spring oilseed rape were cultivated
damaged wildlife more than the growing of conventional crops (the results
for winter oilseed rape are due to be published shortly).

The trials appeared to clear GM maize, but the IoS revealed that the
verdict was invalid because a pesticide central to the clearance was
about to be banned. The Government still gave approval for the maize to
be grown - the only one given to a GM crop in Britain. But shortly
afterwards, Bayer announced it would not proceed, saying that the
controls on how the maize would be cultivated were too strict.

GM advocates presented this as a temporary setback, arguing that new
varieties could be grown as early as 2006. Now, however, industry,
ministers and environmentalists agree that the abandonment of the last
applications means it will be the end of this decade, at the earliest,
before any GM crops can be grown.

Any new application will now have to go through a long process to be
approved. First, it will have to be passed by the European Union, an
unlikely prospect as it has a moratorium on GM crops. Even if that hurdle
were surmounted, the crop would have to go through two years of trials in
Britain, and then get government approval - a process that will be fought
by protesters.

Last week Bayer said it would not even try to carry out trials in Britain
until the Government took strong measures to stop protesters pulling up
the plants. And ministers now believe that there is no market for the
crops, so they would not be grown even if approval were granted.

Yesterday, Pete Riley, director of the anti-GM campaign Five Year Freeze,
said: "This development makes it even less likely that modified crops
will ever be grown in Britain. The Government should now abandon its
doomed obsession with GM crops and put together a coherent strategy to
put the whole of UK farming on a sustainable basis."