1.Friends of the Earth's response to BASF's application to trial GM potatoes
2.MINUTES OF THE 111th MEETING OF ACRE

GM WATCH COMMENT: With no market for GM foods in the UK and no GM field trials going on at the moment, it would be easy to see the UK Government's current consultation on "co-existence" as largely academic.

But a glance at the minutes (ITEM 2) from the last meeting of the UK's Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) shows it's anything but.

The biotech industry's back in the form of the corporate giant BASF and its GM potato trials, and ACRE is displaying all it's usual regulatory complacency.

While ACRE recognises that "long-distance cross-pollination events are possible, especially where pollen beetles are common in the release area," these are dismissed as "rare" and nothing to worry about. So while studies suggest cross-pollination can occur at up to a kilometre, "BASF has proposed a separation distance of 20 metres and ACRE considers that this distance is sufficient to ensure that potatoes containing GM events have an extremely low probability of entering the food chain." (ITEM 2)

This despite the fact that another agenda item notes that, "One of the knowledge gaps highlighted in the [Government's official] GM Science Review and in the programme workshop for the NERC-BBSRC initiative on gene flow was the consequences of gene flow from GM crops..."
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/acre/meetings/06/min060928.htm

Note too that ACRE bats off the concerns over pollen flow in relation to the GM potato trial by relying on a single paper co-authored by a former member of ACRE (Phil Dale) notorious for his pro-GM lobbying.
http://www.lobbywatch.org/profile1.asp?PrId=34

There's no sense here that the current massive GM fiasco affecting US rice was the result of GM field trials that finished 5 years ago! Or that field trials have even resulted in non-GM crops being contaminated with maize engineered to produce an experimental pig vaccine!!

To comment on "coexistence" go to http://www.stopgmcontamination.org

Details of how to comment on the GM potato trials are in item 1 below.
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1.Friends of the Earth's response to BASF's application to trial GM blight-resistant potatoes in the UK is pasted below.

Don't forget, all responses have to be in by this Thursday!

If you want to respond, full details are at http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/gm/regulation/applications/06-r42-01.htm

Best wishes,
Liz Wright

Representation from Friends of the Earth on application for a part B consent from BASF Plant Science to release genetically modified potatoes with improved resistance to Phytophthora infestans (Application Reference 06/R42/01)

October 2006

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Friends of the Earth objects to this application from BASF Plant Science to release blight resistant genetically modified potatoes into the environment in experimental trials.

Our grounds for objection are as follows:

GM contamination

Although commercial potatoes are propagated via tubers, true potato seed production can also occur, and while not affecting the current tubers, it can create GM volunteers in future crops. Rates of outcrossing recorded under field conditions for potatoes range from 0 to 20%, with both wind and insect pollination likely to be involved [1]. Some studies have detected pollen up to 20m from the source [2], but one study recorded outcrossing levels of 31% at 1000m, thought to be due to pollen beetles [3].

Of the three varieties BASF will be using in the trials, P835 and P880 produce abundant flowers, while P698 is middling. P880 frequently sets berries, P835 sets few, and P698 rarely does, but no information on the viability or longevity of the seeds is given.

Groundkeeper control will be crucial to prevent contamination. True seed, unharvested tubers and damaged tuber pieces can all sprout in the following year to produce weed plants in subsequent crops, which will in turn produce small tubers which can persist to contaminate crops in future years. Control with herbicides is difficult in following broad leaved crops. BASF say that groundkeepers will be quickly killed by frosts, but as a 2002 European Environment Agency report [4] explains, "in recent years, the combination of reduced herbicide rates throughout the rotation due to declining arable margins, a succession of mild winters and the use of vigorous potato varieties has increased the numbers of volunteer potatoes."

Friends of the Earth therefore objects to this application for growing experimental GM potatoes in the open air on the basis that it will be very difficult to prevent them contaminating other non-GM potato crops. Should Defra give the go ahead for these trials, strict measures must be put in place to ensure that these experimental potatoes cannot contaminate future crops via groundkeepers or volunteers derived from seed production. Nearby potato crops must also be protected from pollen transfer from the GM potatoes.

Safety

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