UK faces risk of GM contamination

   UK: January 10, 2000

   OXFORD - British trials of genetically modified crops are almost
   guaranteed to contaminate other crops, the Executive Director of
   Greenpeace UK warned.

   "There is no real chance that we might keep GM contamination out of
   the UK," Lord Melchett, head of the environmental action group for
   over 10 years, told Reuters. "Nobody in the GM industry ever believed
   segregation of genetically modified crops from conventional seeds was
   possible."

   Speaking on the fringes of the annual Oxford Farming Conference late
   on Thursday, Melchett said that British trials of GM crops, due to be
   held until 2002 or 2003, were a disgrace.

   "These trials are a huge danger to the British farming industry and
   British consumers. It is a scandal that taxpayers' money is being used
   to pay for these trials," Melchett said.

   Melchett noted the position of Canadian farmers who have protested
   that their conventional crops are being contaminated from GM seeds
   blown in from neighbouring farms.

   "These Canadian farmers ask themselves how they can sell GM-free to
   Europe if they have got GM oilseed rape growing wild in their fields,"
   he said.

   Melchett said he would not be surprised if scandals similar to BSE or
   "mad cow disease" occurred in the future because farmers were not open
   about their production methods.

   "Not a single joint of beef, not a single pork chop, not a piece of
   cheese nor a single pint of milk is sold in this country as coming
   from farm animals fed on GM soya, but almost most of it is," Melchett
   said.

   In his conference speech Melchett placed the blame for BSE squarely on
   farmers.

   "I am clear that BSE, or something like it, was a direct consequence
   of the values that have underpinned the industry over the last fifty
   years," he said.

   More than 160 cases of BSE, which was first detected in cattle in
   Britain in November 1986, emerge in Britain every month. The full
   health risks from the British epidemic of Creutzfeld Jakob disease or
   CJD as the human form of the disease is most commonly known, are still
   uncertain.

   Melchett sees organic farming as one response to GM companies which he
   argues behave like "bullies".

   REUTERS NEWS SERVICE