Public opposition to GM crops has hardened during the past two years

1. Worried consumers 'shun GM foods' - BBC
2. Concern at GM crops increases - Guardian
3. FoE - GM OPPOSITION GROWS - NEW SURVEY
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1.Worried consumers 'shun GM foods'
BBC News Wednesday, 1 September, 2004
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3618386.stm

Britons are increasingly worried about genetically modified foods, a survey by consumer magazine Which? suggests.

Of the 1,000 people polled, 61% said they were concerned about the use of GM material in food production.

The poll also suggested more consumers are trying not to buy GM food, while fewer back GM crops in the UK.

Earlier this year, the government gave the go-ahead to the commercial growing of a variety of GM maize, but banned two more varieties of crops.

According to the poll, the number of people who are wary of GM foods and try to avoid them has gone up from 45% in 2002 to 58%.

"Consumers clearly don't want GM food and are hardening their stance against it," said the editor of Which?, Malcolm Coles.

"It's hardly surprising when questions still remain about the risks for health and the environment," he added.

He went on to say that the government had ignored the public's concerns for long enough and needed "to rethink its policy before going ahead with growing GM crops commercially".

Ingredients removed

Fewer people are happy with having GM crops in the UK - only one in four Britons compared to one in three two years ago.

Finally, the number of those satisfied with manufacturers removing GM ingredients from their products has gone up 5%, from 28% to 32%.

Environmentalist group Friends of the Earth welcomed the survey.

Clare Oxborrow, the group's GM campaigner, said: "Public opposition to GM food and crops is growing, yet the government is planning to allow widespread GM contamination of non-GM crops.

"The government must listen to the public and introduce tough new rules to keep our food, farming and environment GM-free."

GM maize

In March this year, Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett gave the green light to cultivation of herbicide-tolerant maize for animal feed.

She rejected GM beet and oilseed rape, which had been recently tested in so-called farm-scale evaluations.

But environmental activists and farmers' groups this summer staged several protests at Sainsbury's depots and supermarkets.

They accuse the chain of producing and selling milk and dairy products from cows fed on imported GM feed.

But Sainsbury's replied there was "no evidence" that milk from animals fed on such crops contained any GM material.
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2.Concern at GM crops increases
Felicity Lawrence
The Guardian, September 2, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1295214,00.html

Six out of 10 Britons now say they are concerned at use of genetic modification in food production and want to avoid GM foods, but most already eat them without realising.

The hardening of attitudes emerges in a survey by the Consumers' Association, published today, which finds more respondents say they are against GM crops than a similar representative sample of around 1,000 questioned two years ago. Only a quarter say they favour GM crops being grown in the UK, compared with almost a third in 2002.

Six out of 10 respondents also fear they are eating GM foods unknowingly, and, according to the Food Standards Agency, they are probably right. If you eat any processed foods, you are likely to be consuming GM material.

Foods may contain 0.9% of GM material without being labelled as GM. The leeway is granted because it is difficult to segregate GM and conventional crops, and GM soya and maize grown in America are likely to have contaminated non-GM crops. Soya and maize are found in the majority of processed foods.
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3.GM OPPOSITION GROWS - NEW SURVEY
Friends of the Earth, Sep 2
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/gm_opposition_grows_new_su_01092004.html

Friends of the Earth has welcomed a new survey published today which shows that public opposition to GM food and crops has grown since 2002. The mood contrasts sharply with UK Government views, with Ministers currently considering plans to allow widespread GM contamination of non-GM crops.

The UK Government is currently consulting on plans to allow significant levels of GM contamination of non-GM crops. The consultation on 'coexistence' (between conventional and GM crops), is the latest stage in a process that would allow GM crops to be commercially grown in the UK. Despite consumer opposition to GM, the Government has refused to broaden the consultation to look at what measures (such as separation distances) would be needed to ensure that crops and food are kept completely GM free [2].

Friends of the Earth's GM Campaigner, Clare Oxborrow said

"Public opposition to GM food and crops is growing, yet the Government is planning to allow widespread GM contamination of non-GM crops. If this happens people will find it increasingly difficult to avoid GM food. The Government must listen to the public and introduce tough new rules to keep our food, farming and environment GM-free."

[2] The Government coexistence consultation aims to put in place measures to allow GM crops to "coexist" with conventional crops. The measures will be designed to allow GM contamination up to the level set out in the EU labelling threshold of 0.9 per cent. Friends of the Earth believes that much stricter measures should be put in place to protect farmer and consumer choice that aim to eliminate GM contamination to lowest detectable levels, currently agreed to be 0.1per cent.

DEFRA information on the consultation:
http://www.defra.gov.uk/news/2004/040716a.htm
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/gm/crops/index.htm#Coexistence

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