Ministers pressed to destroy GM crops

 GM debate: special report
 Greenpeace

 James Meikle
 Friday May 26, 2000

 Greenpeace is threatening to take the government
 to court to make it order the destruction of crops
 accidentally contaminated by genetically modified
 material.

 The environmental group also gave ministers
 seven days to warn farmers they could face
 criminal prosecution if they sold produce grown
 from contaminated seed. Greenpeace would start
 high court proceedings in a week's time if
 ministers did not comply, it told them in a letter.

 The warning came as France followed Sweden in
 ordering the destruction of similarly affected
 crops. In the UK, ministers yesterday showed
 little sign of changing their view that there was
 no bar to farmers selling on their unwittingly
 tainted crop - even though some supermarkets
 are reluctant to use the material.

 The government is also refusing to authorise
 compensation to farmers who are beginning to
 destroy their crops of oil seed rape. Advanta, the
 seed company involved in the mistake, said that it
 had not considered compensation since it was
 "awaiting some advice from government on what
 course of action to take".

 The company also said that it had had little contact
 with government officials, beyond answering
 questions, since April 17 when it had informed
 them that thousands of acres of crops in Britain
 and Europe had been sown over the last two
 springs with seed accidentally contaminated with
 GM material. Some of last year's harvest will
 have entered human or animal food.

 The government has spent weeks taking legal and
 scientific advice, but one insider suggested a
 potentially disastrous stand-off was developing
 because all parties were entering new legal
 territory. "We all find ourselves on an ice floe,
 we can hear it cracking and no one wants to be the
 first to go through."

 It emerged yesterday that prominent farmers like
  the Marquess of Lansdowne and the RSPB had
 decided to destroy such crops. The peer, in a letter
 to the Times, stated that the government had
 known a fortnight before he had sown 540 acres
 of his cereal land in Perthshire, Scotland. He had
 only been informed by seed merchants last Friday.

 Ministers admit there is an urgent need to set
 international standards for purity of seeds. But
  they argue that there would be grounds for
 destroying contaminated crops only if they were a
 danger to human health or the environment, and
 scientific advisers suggest this is not the case.

 Greenpeace, which is also threatening action
 against German authorities, said any marketing of
 the "polluted' rape seed would constitute an illegal
 act because the European Union had not given the
 necessary consent for the GM material involved.
 The Ministry of Agriculture said it would be
 studying the Greenpeace letter and would respond
 "in due course".

 Meanwhile, ministers were keen not to seem to be
 bounced into agreeing to seed companies' demands
 that Europe accepts contamination levels of up to
 1% in conventional seed, because of problems of
 keeping seeds pure. Michael Meacher, the
 environment minister, said: "We shall have to
 take a very careful hard look at that, before we
 can agree ... we need more evidence of public
 opinion."

 In Scotland , there were calls for the resignation
 of the agriculture minister, Nick Brown, after it
 emerged that officials in Whitehall had not
 informed counterparts in Scotland or Wales until
 May 15, a month after they knew. Ross Finnie,
 the Scottish rural affairs minister, spoke of his
 "deep anger and annoyance".