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A letter to Tony Blair from 120 UK NGOs (9/2/2004)

Below is a letter just sent to Tony Blair by the Five Year Freeze on behalf of more than 120 UK NGOs, including Britain's 2 largest trade unions and the largest national organisation for women in the UK. The combined membership is many, many times greater than all the UK's political parties put togethe and they all want a continuing moratorium on GM.

The umbrella group writing on their behalf -  Five Year Freeze - ask, "Please get your organisation to write to Tony Blair [address below] in the next couple of weeks, before the Government announcement, with the message that we are not ready for GM crops and that you do not support any decision in favour of commercialisation.  We do not know exactly when the announcement will be made, but we are expecting it to be in two stages.  The first will be a response to the FSEs and the public debate and is expected in March.  The second is likely to be a specific decision on the commercial growing of GM maize, later in March.  If the Government comes under enough pressure they do take notice!"
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The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair MP
10 Downing Street
London
SW1A 2AA
9th February 2004

Dear Mr Blair,

Decision on the Commercial Growing of GM Crops in the UK

The Five Year Freeze was launched exactly five years ago, in February 1999, in order to give voice to deep public concern over the rapid introduction of GM crops and food in the UK.  The Freeze called for the following to be addressed during the period of a moratorium:

· A system where people can exercise their right to choose products free of genetic engineering

· Public involvement in the decisions on the need for and the regulation of genetic engineering

· Prevention of genetic pollution of the environment

· Strict legal liability for adverse effects on people or the environment from the release and marketing of genetically modified organisms

· Independent assessment of the implications of patenting genetic resources

· Independent assessment of the social and economic impact of genetic engineering on farmers

The 120 supporting organisations, including the National Federation of Women’s Institutes, UNISON, the Local Government Association and many others (see attached list of supporters), shared a common belief that it was premature to commercialise GM crops while so little was known about their potential impact on health, the environment and society, both here in the UK and internationally.

We understand that the Government is now considering the commercialisation of GM crops and the conditions under which they would be grown in the UK. This is an alarming development at this point, which will further undermine confidence in the Government’s willingness to take seriously the views and concerns of its citizens.

Despite the fact that certain research has been undertaken in the past five years, and elements of the regulatory system have been strengthened, we feel that almost none of the Freeze’s founding questions have been satisfactorily addressed.  Events in countries where commercial growing has been allowed - such as Argentina, now over-dependent on GM soya as its dominant export crop, and Canada where contamination is severely undermining the organic industry - are far from reassuring and underline our original concerns.

Freeze supporters, including members of the British Overseas Agencies Group, also object to using the problems faced by the developing world as an argument for commercialisation of GM crops in the UK.

The Government’s own research over the past few years has similarly confirmed the legitimacy of the questions we have been raising over the past five years.  It is clear from the Government’s own public debate, GM Nation?,  and other reviews of public attitudes, such as the Food Standard Agency’s citizen’s jury and the Consumer’s Association’s ‘GM Dilemmas’, that the public do not welcome the prospect of commercial growing of GM crops in the UK for a variety of reasons.  These include lack of research on long-term impacts on health and the environment, the influence of corporations on Government decision-making and the food chain, and the absence of any clear need for GM crops.

Indeed, the Science Review Panel established by the Government and the Strategy Unit’s review of the Costs and Benefits of GM crops, were unable to provide the clear answers that members of the Freeze and the majority of the UK’s population are looking for. Both these pieces of research highlighted how little is still known about the real impact of growing GM crops in the UK.  The results of the Farm Scale Evaluations, controversial because of the narrowness of their scope among other things, indicated negative impacts from GM crops on biodiversity with results for maize considered by many to be invalid because of the use of the now banned atrazine.

At the heart of public concerns over the growing of GM crops is the ability to be able to choose not to grow or eat GM crops, and the Government has consistently assured us that this right to choose will be maintained. However the AEBC’s recent report on Coexistence and Liability clearly illustrated the problems in maintaining this right if GM crops are grown commercially.

We urge you to suspend any decision to approve the commercial growing of GM maize and other crops until our questions have been properly answered.

We look to the new Government policy to provide:

*Protection of the non-GM food chain from contamination to a level of a maximum of 0.1% for all non-GM crops (some Freeze members would call for zero);

*Strict liability for environmental and economic harm arising from contamination caused by growing GM crops to be borne by the industry that produces and profits from developing them;

*Full choice not to eat GM products, including those from animals fed on GM feed;

*A ban on the cultivation of herbicide tolerant GM sugar beet and oilseed rape based of the evidence of the Farm Scale Evaluations and further research in to the effects of GM maize;

*Research on the safety of GM food that is open, transparent and trusted by the public.

The Five Year Freeze will continue its work to ensure that a moratorium on GM releases is maintained for as long as is necessary to ensure that our key concerns are adequately addressed.  If there is no support forthcoming from your Government, we will continue to work with business, the public and public interest organisations to ensure that GM crops and foods are not prematurely released into the environment and the food chain while there are still so many unanswered questions about their safety, necessity and economic viability.

We hope that the forthcoming policy announcement on these issues will fully reflect our concerns.

Yours sincerely
Carrie Stebbings
Campaign Co-ordinator, Five Year Freeze

 

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