http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1050944,00.html

Pull together ... protesters vow to root out GM crops

John Vidal
Saturday September 27, 2003
The Guardian

Professors, clergymen, politicians and professionals have signed a pledge to
pull up any genetically modified crops that may be grown commercially in
Britain, according to a new national group that is hoping to get 10,000
people to register their strong disapproval to the government.
Buoyed by the 5 to 1 public rejection of the crops recorded in this week's
national debate results, Oxford-based group Greengloves said it was hoping
to get people to pledge to non-violently pull up the crops or to financially
support others who do.

It claims to have signed hundreds of people within days of launching the
idea on the internet.

The group, which includes several people who have been acquitted in the
courts for damaging trial crops as well as activists from Greenpeace,
Friends of the Earth and other organisations, said yesterday that it
intended to signal to the government the depth of feeling at the grassroots.

"The idea is to let people register their intentions in advance of a
decision being made," said a spokesman yesterday. "The scale of dedicated
opposition at the grassroots is enormous".

He added that more than 3,000 people had recently signed a similar pledge in
New Zealand. "We would expect to get very many more in Britain." The
Agriculture Biotechnology Council, which represents the GM industry,
yesterday said that it doubted whether people would actually do anything.

"When are we going to see a commercial GM crop cultivated in Britain? It's a
long time away. Some of the heat may have dissipated by then," said an ABC
spokesman. "We are opposed to activities and pledges which are issued with
little regard for the regulatory process or the law."

More than 50 of the government's trial crops were partly or wholly destroyed
by activists, but the industry is hoping that farmers will not be forced to
register where they are growing them.

The Greengloves statement says: "If the UK government gives the go-ahead to
commercialise the growing of GM crops against the overwhelming wishes of the
British public, I pledge to non-violently remove GM crops from the ground or
support those who take action to remove GM crops."

The group points to a Mori poll earlier this year which found that only 14%
of the British public support GM food.

Four countries - the US, Canada, Argentina and China - grow the overwhelming
majority of GM crops.



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http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1050805,00.html

Comment

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Genetically modified fudge

Faced by public fears, the government hopes it can dodge the GM issue

Emily Wilson
Saturday September 27, 2003
The Guardian

This summer's public debate on GM crops was a curiously private affair.
Unless you are an avid reader of government websites, or a member of an
anti-GM group, it's quite likely you had no idea the debate was taking
place. Even if you did hear talk of an opening event at Birmingham's NEC,
you may have been foxed - the meeting was not listed in the centre's list of
upcoming events.
Given the lack of fanfare, it's impressive that 20,000 people turned out to
meetings and that 37,000 people filled in questionnaires. But it's no
surprise that many of them were already hostile to GM crops. People have
accused environmental groups and even the Women's Institute of sabotaging
the debate with a flood of foot soldiers, but how else was anyone to hear
about what was going on, if not from those groups?

Anyway, the people spoke, and just over half said GM crops must never be
grown in this country. Most of the remainder called for delays. Not such a
big surprise, given the mix of voters. What was interesting, though, was the
response of the focus groups. These were made up of people who had no links
with biotech or anti-GM groups, plucked from across the social spectrum and
deposited in workshops. After they had spent time learning about GM, their
views evolved from uncertainty to concern.

As the official report puts it: "When people in the general population
become more engaged in GM issues, and choose to discover more about them,
they harden their attitudes to GM. Although they are more willing to accept
some potential benefits from GM (especially medical benefits and other
advantages for developing countries) they ... express more concern/greater
unease about all of the risks ... In particular, the more they choose to
discover about GM, the more convinced they are that no one knows enough
about the long-term effects on human health."

So what now? Britain's long deliberations over GM crops are almost at an
end. We have had the economics review. That found that growing GM crops here
would have little, if any, benefit for consumers. As for the risk of driving
away the biotech companies, well, most of them have already washed their
hands of us. We have also had the public debate, and that produced an
equally unenthusiastic response.

But neither exercise was ever going to provide the legal reason the
government says it needs to ban GM crops. That reason needs to be proof of a
risk to human health or the environment, and if it is to be found, it must
come out of the science review, which isn't over yet. The main chunk, a
review of the research so far, found no evidence of a risk to human health
(although of course we still have no idea of the long-term effects) and no
serious risk to the environment, although it did urge caution.

However, we are still waiting for the results of some "field-scale trials".
They were commissioned to study the effects on biodiversity of a particular
herbicide used with some GM crops. The results, some of which will be
published next month, may raise concerns. They may well not, though, and if
they don't, we will, according to the official line on the subject, be out
of excuses. The EU says we must allow GM crops, and so we must.

It is a genuine pickle for the government, given the results of the public
debate, and also the complicated issue of who takes legal responsibility if
anything goes wrong - for example, if a non-GM organic farm becomes polluted
with GM genes. But the received wisdom is that the voluntary moratorium on
commercial growing will be lifted and then, after that, no one will grow any
crops anyway. At least, not for a few years, until all the people who have
sworn to track down and pull up any GM crops have relaxed their vigilance.

Which is all pretty weedy, really. The government gets out of having to make
a decision by wibbling about "EU directives". But no one dares to plant the
stuff, at least until the dust has settled, so there will be no big outcry.

You never know, of course: Mr Blair may astonish us. How much does he really
need the biotech industry anyway? And would Mr Bush really care if Britain
extended the moratorium? Sure, it would annoy Tony's friends in science. But
it wouldn't be the first time a PM has shafted his scientist friends. Or
stuck a finger up at the EU. And just count those votes, baby...

· Emily Wilson is editor of Life, the Guardian's science supplement

emily.wilson@guardian.co.uk