Trial results prompt new `ban GM' calls

From the Echo, first published Friday 17th Oct 2003.

DORSET opponents of GM crops say results of a study into their environmental impact have come as little surprise.

Scientists tested three biotech crops and found the cultivation of two - an oilseed rape and a beet crop - to be more harmful to many groups of wildlife than their conventional equivalents.

The production of a third biotech plant - a maize - was shown to be kinder to other plants and animals than the normal crop.

In Dorset, among the trial sites were Hilton, Ibberton and Turnworth - all near Blandford - Over Compton near Sherborne and Puddletown. Among the farmers involved were Dorset NFU chairman Owen Yeatman and North Dorset district councillor Michael Cox.

Ralph Arliss, from the North Dorset Green Party, said: "We are not at all surprised by the results and hopefully the government will have learned a lesson from this.

"It's got to be filtering through that this is not wanted. I am mildly optimistic and I think the government is on a back foot.

"Tony Blair could have an election in 2005. If the crops went in the ground early next year and something went wrong that would be another nail in his coffin."

Meanwhile, the RSPB has called on the government to ban two of the three GM crops trialled because of their adverse effects on wildlife.

Many farmland birds rely on seeds from weeds for their survival and the government's trials showed that GM beet and GM spring oilseed rape reduced seed numbers by up to 80 per cent compared with the conventional crops.

Peter Exley, of the RSPB in Exeter, said declines in farmland birds such as skylarks, corn buntings, tree sparrows and yellowhammers in the South-west were among the most severe in the country.

"The FSE results show that the introduction of these crops could be disastrous and undermine the efforts of conservationists and many farmers to reverse the decline in our region's farmland birds," he said.

North Dorset MP Bob Walter said: "These trials are at best inconclusive.

"The results are mixed and fail to answer some of the fundamental fears of those who live near the trial sites."

The results of the trials will be used by the government, along with other information, to make a decision on whether or not to allow the engineered plants to be cultivated commercially in the country.

The outcome of the £6m three-year study was reported in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences.

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