GENETIC MODIFICATION: The Secret UK Files*

UK Ministers are funding genetically modified crop projects with scores
of millions of pounds every year and are colluding with a biotech
company to ease its GM tests, the IoS can reveal. Geoffrey Lean on a
murky tale that Whitehall tried to hide
Published: 28 October 2007

Ministers are secretly easing the way for GM crops in Britain, while
professing to be impartial on the technology, startling internal
documents reveal.

The documents, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, show
that the Government colluded with a biotech company in setting
conditions for testing GM potatoes, and gives tens of millions of pounds
a year to boost research into modified crops and foods.

The information on funding proved extraordinarily difficult to get,
requiring three months of investigation by an environmental pressure
group, a series of parliamentary questions, and three applications for
the information.

Friends of the Earth finally obtained still partial information last
week which shows that the Government provides at least £50m a year for
research into agricultural biotechnology, largely GM crops and food.
This generosity contrasts with the £1.6m given last year for research
into organic agriculture, in spite of repeated promises to promote
environmentally friendly, "sustainable" farming.

Publicly ministers claim to be neutral over GM. Four years ago, at the
height of controversy about plans to introduce modified crops to
Britain, Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted that the Government was
"neither for nor against" them. The then Environment minister, Elliot
Morley, added: "There is an open and transparent process for their
assessment and all relevant material will be put in the public domain."
Last month the Environment Secretary, Hilary Benn, reiterated: "There is
no change in the Government's position."

But the documents show that ministers have been far from even-handed.
One set, obtained by the campaigning group GM Freeze, clearly
demonstrate that the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(Defra) allowed the biotech giant BASF to help to set the conditions for
field trials it has conducted on modified potatoes. On 1 December last
year the company was given permission to plant 450,000 modified potatoes
in British fields over the next five years, in a series of 10 trials.
The set of emails and letters between Defra and the company reveal that
officials repeatedly went to remarkable lengths to make sure the trial
conditions, supposed to protect the environment and farmers, were
"agreeable" to BASF.

On 29 September a department official emailed BASF to inform it of a
recommendation by the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment
(Acre), its official advisers on risks to health and the environment
from GM, that "the land should be left fallow for two years following
each trial" and added "I would like to know whether you think that this
is workable for you". The official pointed out that other EU countries
had specified that "berries/true seed should be removed from the trial"
but that Acre had "not specified this because the committee believes
that this would be a very big job". The email went on: "If you think
this is completely unworkable, I think the committee may be prepared to
accommodate a reduction of this fallow period to one year but there may
be other conditions (eg removal of flowers/berries)."

The writer added: "In addition to this, Acre has recommended a
particular tillage regime, hopefully you are able to accommodate this."

On 6 October Defra sent BASF a draft of the consent to the trials,
adding: "Please let me know whether or not the conditions as they stand
would be agreeable to BASF or whether there are any conditions that
would be difficult to meet."

BASF replied on 26 October that it believed that the "probable
conditions" were "very agreeable to us", adding: "We hope that the final
conditions will not change too much."

On 9 November Defra again emailed BASF to check that one of the
conditions "does not affect your plans", and five days later was in
touch again to say that it had "redrafted" another "in response to your
concerns".

Yet the department insisted in a written statement last week: "There is
no truth in any allegation that Defra was in any way influenced by BASF
in relation to the terms under which BASF could conduct trials on GM
potatoes in the UK."

Pete Riley, the campaign director of GM Freeze, said: "That is simply
not correct. The documents clearly show that Defra colluded with BASF to
ensure that Acre's conditions for growing their GM crop were to their
liking. Its role is to protect the environment and public health. It is
supposed to be a watchdog, but the documents reveal it to be the
industry's lapdog."

Peter Ainsworth, the Conservative environment spokesman, added: "This is
a government department that claims to be objective and science-based in
its approach to biotechnology, but clearly it has bent over backwards to
model its conditions on the requirements of BASF."

A spokesman for BASF said: "I do not think that they granted us any
concessions that would not normally have been granted."

The funding disclosure came when the Biotechnology and Biological
Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) – which is funded by the Department
for Innovation, Universities and Skills – revealed that it gave £39.3m
to its seven sponsored institutes for research on "agricultural
biotechnology" in 2006-07.

The sum has more than doubled, from £15.5m, since 1997, even though the
prospects for GM crops in Britain have been declining in this period,
with ministers admitting three years ago that none would be grown
commercially "for the foreseeable future".

Besides this "core strategic grant", the BBSRC also gives tens of
millions of pounds a year for similar research to universities and other
institutes.

In 2003-04 this sum totalled £27.1m. The BBSRC told Friends of the Earth
that it could not provide it with up-to-date information until January,
unless it paid a fee of £750, because this "would take considerable
effort, beyond the appropriate limit" to assemble. But the figure is
believed not to have fallen over the past three years. On top of the
BBSRC funding, Defra provided £12.6m for agricultural biotechnology
research in 2005-06, the last year for which figures are available.

Nor is it clear how much money goes to genetic modification, since the
BBSRC defines agricultural biotechnology as "the application of
molecular genetic and other modern biological techniques to crops,
livestock and disease-causing organisms".

It says it is not yet able to provide information on the proportion that
has recently been devoted to GM, as opposed to other techniques. But
figures on its website show that in 2000-01 about half of its core
strategic grant to the seven institutes was spent on the technology.

In contrast, Defra spent £1.6m on research "relating to organic
farming", while BBSRC refuses to provide any funds at all, saying it
"does not fund applied work on entire farming systems".

It justifies spending so much taxpayers' money on GM before, as it
admits, "there is any clear evidence that the public wants them" by
saying that research must retain "the flexibility to remain competitive
and to respond to changing global situations and changes in consumer
demand".

Yet when the Government officially asked the public, four years ago,
about their preferences, 86 per cent said they would not be happy to eat
GM foods. By contrast, sales of organic produce rose by 22 per cent last
year to break through the £2bn barrier. More than half of Britons now
buy it, at least from time to time.

The BBSRC says that its funding for the research on GM crops would
continue even if there was "a Europe-wide ban" on growing them commercially.

Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Friends of the Earth's food campaigner, said:
"The Government's support for GM crops and foods is out of all
proportion to its non-existent benefits, let alone the public's
non-existent desire to consume them.

"Despite continually promising to support sustainable agriculture, it is
spending tens of millions on a technology that has fallen flat on its
face while starving organic farming, which is producing food that people
want to buy.

"It is also staggering that there is no clear information in the public
domain on exactly how much money is going into GM research, and that it
has proved so hard to get even partial figures out into the light of day."

A farmer's story: 'It's all about control of food production'

The spectre of GM contamination has cost John Turner dear. A succession
of trials near his 250 acre farm in Little Bytham, south Lincolnshire,
between 2000 and 2002 forced him to stop growing certain crops –
suffering heavy financial losses as a result.

"It was a nightmare and we just felt absolutely powerless to do anything
over it at all," he recalled. "Without any real protection against
contamination, we were forced to stop growing crops like maize that
could be vulnerable to cross-pollination. It wasn't easy but it was
preferable to the damage that could have been done if our crops were no
longer GM-free. We feel that we are in remission at the moment, but
every few months there seems to be a new PR push from the GM lobby."

The facts are being twisted to fit a commercial agenda, according to Mr
Turner: "There is no sound science behind the push for GM crops. It's
all about money and control of not only the seeds but also food
production from one end to the other. The more I find out about it the
less I understand why there has been this impetus to force this
technology on farming. It has been hugely over-hyped by those trying to
promote it. There are plenty of ways of improving crops that don't
involve swapping genes around.

"But farmers could sleepwalk into using GM crops and by the time they
realise the proposed benefits just aren't there they will not be in a
position to go back to a GM-free style of agriculture – that's the
danger and that's been the experience of farmers in other parts of the
world."