Another typically superficial Reuters piece that exclusively quotes biotech proponents (you should be able to find everybody quoted here, or their institution, in the GM Watch "biotech brigade" directory of GM pushers). As for the sub-heading "UNITED STATES, CANADA AHEAD", being "ahead" in an unproven but market-damaging technology might be something of a mixed blessing, quite apart from the recent evidence from CSPI that in fact GM development in the US is "withering on the vine" with the number of GM crops going through the regulatory review process dropping sharply in recent years.
http://www.cspinet.org/new/200502021.html
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UK Firms Drop GMO Study, Seek to Boost Regular Seed
Reuters: March 10, 2005
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/29882/story.htm

LONDON - Consumer fears of genetically modified (GMO) food have dealt a heavy blow to Britain's biotech industry, with many scientists leaving the sector and firms refocusing on conventional research, industry analysts said.

"Most of the industry has left this country already. It's going to cost us hundreds of millions of pounds a year in lost revenue," said John Pidgeon, director of plant research body Broom's Barn, which is funded by private and government money.
The European Union last year ended an effective six-year embargo on new GMO approvals, but the product in question was for food use only.

Brussels has made no approvals since 1998 of any new gene-spliced crop varieties for planting and growing in the EU.

Analysts say GMO research has been hit hard.

"We're not doing that much in the UK these days," said Julian Little of Bayer CropScience, the company behind much of Britain's GMO studies.

"And if the government in the UK today said we can go ahead (and sell GMO seeds), it would take a number of years for anything to happen."

Bayer decided to abandon field testing of GMO crops in Britain last year and then withdrew any applications awaiting government approval to sell biotech seeds.

The firm, a unit of Germany-based Bayer AG, won conditional approval in Britain last year to sell a GMO variety of forage maize, but it later decided against the move, saying the government rules attached to the go-ahead were too tight.

UNITED STATES, CANADA AHEAD

No new GMO seeds are awaiting approval in Britain, whereas in the mid-1990s more than 50 different GMO applications were in the queue.

Public opposition to so-called Frankenstein Foods is strong in Britain, where last week top supermarket chain Tesco -- which excludes GMOs from its own-brand products -- said consumer attitudes showed little sign of weakening. As a result, analysts estimate that Britain's research competitors in the United States and Canada have a head start equivalent to five years of technological progress.

"In terms of the UK's main crop -- cereals -- then the catch-up period may well be nearer to 10 years," said Roger Turner, CEO of the British Society of Plant Breeders (BSPB), an association of private and public plant breeders.

CONVENTIONAL FOCUS

Conventional UK crop breeding continues, as does investment in new farming techniques.

"For most arable crops, conventional plant breeding is still, and will be, the mainstay...for the near future," said John Snape, head of the Crop Genetics department at the independent John Innes plant research centre in eastern England.

The BSPB, which has nearly 50 company members, said conventional plant breeding contributed to around half of the threefold increase in UK wheat yields recorded between 1947 and 1992 and that yields were still rising.

In January a unit of UK cereal trader Grainfarmers opened a new 1.75 million-pound seed processing plant and laboratory facility aimed at improving the quality and marketability of British grain.

Story by David Cullen

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