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From: jim mc nulty <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 02 Oct 2000
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: B-GE:(UK): Green campaigners call for GM crop     approval delay

http://www.organicts.com/newsnow/

     Green campaigners call for GM crop approval delay


     Wildlife and green campaigners are warning against adding a
     genetically modified fodder maize to the National Seed List before
     Government-backed GM crop trials are complete.

     The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Friends of the
      Earth are both voicing fears over Chardon LL, which has been
      developed by biotechnology company Aventis CropScience,
      and genetically   modified to be resistant to the herbicide
      glufosinate ammonium, also produced by Aventis and marketed
      under the name of "Liberty".

     The RSPB is concerned that the use of GM crops and powerful
     herbicides may be responsible for a huge decline in farmland birds
     like the skylark, which relies on weeds and seeds for its survival.

     Skylark populations have fallen sharply by 75% in the last 25 years,
     due to loss of food and farmland habitat.

     The Government is holding a 10-week series of public hearings
     over its plans to allow a GM crop to clear a final regulatory hurdle,
     before it can be commercially grown in the UK. The first opens in
     London today.

     The RSPB and FoE say that if Chardon LL is added to the National
     Seed List, there will be no legal barrier to prevent it being
     commercially grown in the UK.

     It is being used in the Government's farm-scale trials programme,
     intended to examine the crop's impact on wildlife.

     If the GM maize is added to the Seed List it will do so before the
     Government's own research is complete.

     The maize was approved as a crop by the European Union in 1998.
     Since then, the risk assessments needed have been strengthened
     and made stricter.

     But the FoE says that Chardon LL would not have a European
     approval under this more rigorous procedure on the basis of its 1996
     application.

     Last updated: 00:12 Monday 2nd October 2000.
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