Commercial planting of GM maize gets go ahead

The government has said today that it has agreed "in principle" to the commercial cultivation of GM herbicide-tolerant maize.

Mrs Beckett said she did not anticipate any commercial cultivation of GM maize "before spring 2005 at the earliest". She added that future developments in GM crops could potentially "offer benefits of greater value and significance" to UK.

Safety, human health and the environment would be "at the heart" of GM regulatory regime and "rigorous and robust" monitoring would be carried out, she vowed.

The Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett told the Commons today that the cultivation should go ahead after seven years of "the largest [trials] carried out in the world".

The trials reported "no verifiable ill-effects" from extensive human and animal consumption of products from GM crops over seven years, and it concluded too that current GM crops were very unlikely either to invade the countryside or to be toxic to wildlife, Mrs Beckett said.

Mrs Beckett acknowledged that there had been "general unease" about GM crops and food and little support for early commercialisation of GM crops. But GM crops had been used for at least 10 years "across the world" in the production of food and medicines - both human and anima, she said.

"People worry that a GM crop could affect wild relatives and hence the gene pool. Maize has no wild relatives in the UK. It is highly unlikely that any stray remaining plant or seed would survive a winter here to raise concerns about a subsequent crop. Equally there is very little organic maize grown here. So many of the concerns usually raised do not apply. This reinforces the value of a case-by-case approach," said the minister.

However, the minister stipulated two conditions: that maize can only be grown and managed as in the trials, or under such conditions as will not result in adverse effect on the environment; and that the consent holders should be required to carry out further scientific analysis to monitor changes in herbicide use on conventional maize.

The last Tory government approved GM soya and tomato puree for use, and the present administration had approved use of some forms of maize. At present no GM crop has all the approvals needed for commercial cultivation in the UK.

The government will, however, oppose the commercial cultivation of certain varieties of GM beet and oilseed rape anywhere in the European Union "using the management regime tested in the Farm-Scale Evaluations".

Before commercial cultivation of GM maize can proceed, separate approval will also be required under seeds legislation, and also under pesticides legislation for the associated herbicide use, she said.

(gmcg)