From: Laurel Hopwood <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: Biotech Forum <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: EU report on GE crops and organic farming

The AGRIBUSINESS  EXAMINER
June 4, 2002   #166
Monitoring Corporate Agribusiness From a Public Interest Perspective
EDITOR\PUBLISHER: A.V. Krebs

EU REPORT CONCLUDES ORGANIC FARMING WILL BE FORCED OUT OF BUSINESS IF GE
CROPS ARE GROWN COMMERCIALLY

GEOFFREY LEAN: Organic farming will be forced out of production in Britain
and across Europe if GM crops are grown commercially, a startling new EU
report concludes. The report --- which is so controversial that top EC
officials tried to stop it being made public  --- shows that organic farms
will become so contaminated by genes from the new crops that they can no
longer be licensed or will have to spend so much money trying to protect
themselves that they will become uneconomic. Conventional non-GM farms will
also be seriously affected.

Drawn up as a result of two years of studies in Britain, France, Italy and
Germany, it provides the most damning confirmation to date of the
arguments, long advanced by environmentalists, that it is not possible for
GM and organic farming to co-exist and that, as a result, shoppers will be
denied a choice of what to buy.

The conclusion is politically explosive because the demand for organic
produce is increasing rapidly across Europe, while consumer resistance to
GM food has forced supermarkets not to stock it.

The Director General of the EC's Joint Research Centre, which produced the
report, submitted it with a letter saying: "In view of the sensitivity of
the issue, I would suggest that the report be kept for internal use within
the Commission only." Publication of the findings is embarrassing for the
Government. On Friday the Prime Minister denounced GM opponents as using
"emotion to drive out reason."

The report --- which follows a study by the European Environment Agency
warning that genes from GM crops will travel long distances, creating
superweeds --- studies the effects of growing modified maize, potatoes and
oilseed rape commercially on several types of farms.

It found that even if only a tenth of a country or region was planted with
them --- far less that the 54% of Canada now under GM crops --- keeping
contamination at a level that would allow organic farming to continue would
be "extremely difficult for any farm-crop combination in the scenarios
considered."

It adds that when contamination occurred every year through "the
wide-ranging cultivation of GM crops" in an area "organic farms will lose
their organic status and face severe problems to grow their crops according
to the regulations given by the EU."

GM farmers would also be at risk, it added, because organic farmers might
well be entitled to compensation.. . . . Adrian Bebb, food campaigner of
Friends of the Earth, said: "This report shows that if GM crops are grown
in Britain farming will be plunged into even greater crisis and consumers
will be denied their fundamental right to choose what they and their
children will eat."

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