Food industry backs genetic crop move, green ...
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Food industry backs genetic crop move, green groups angry
By Peter Blackburn
LONDON, Oct 23 (Reuters) - British farmers and food processors
welcomed a government move this week to allow commercial planting
of genetically modified (GM) crops under strict controls, but
environmental groups were outraged.
Environment Minister Michael Meacher on Wednesday assured a House
of Lords committee that the ecological impact of GM crops would
be closely monitored before deciding on marketing the produce.
Commercial production of insect-resistant crops will be banned
for three years, he added.
"It's a positive means towards the controlled commercial
introduction of GM crops," said a spokesperson for the
National Farmers' Union of England and Wales.
It will help all groups, from farmers to environmentalists, be
confident about GM food, the spokesperson added. The NFU said it
also supported a move to revise EU rules to make monitoring of
commercial GM crops compulsory.
There are already more than 300 GM crop test sites in Britain and
approved varieties of imported GM maize and soybeans as well as
tomato paste are sold in shops.
Green groups accused the government of misleading the public.
"It's appalling. Meacher has basically given the commercial
go-ahead while pretending to have called a moratorium," said
Adrian Bebb, food campaigner at Friends of the Earth.
The three-year moratorium on insect resistant crops was
meaningless because there weren't any ready for at least three
years, he added.
Bebb said that despite uncertainty about the health and
environmental risks, the government was pressing ahead even
though its research will not be finished until 2001.
"They have abdicated their powers to industry," Bebb
said.
The Food industry welcomed the government's decision to take what
it said was a step forward towards commercial production of GM
food.
"We have long held the belief that genetic modification
offers enormous potential benefits, not only to primary
agricultural producers, but also to manufacturers and
consumers," the Food and Drink Federation said in a
statement.
It said it was confident that rules were robust enough to ensure
the safety of GM food and added that it was committed to
providing balanced information to consumers.
Confectionery producers said that GM food was inevitable, noting
that several products were already in the food chain.
"It's almost impossible to guarantee that maize and soy are
not genetically modified," said an official at the Biscuit,
Cake, Chocolate and Cofectionery Alliance (BCCA), noting that
U.S. producers did not segregate traditional from GM seed.
Chocolate contains tiny amounts of lecithin, a thickener derived
from soybeans, which is exempted from GM labelling rules because
it is food additive.
As lecithin is a purified material it is extremely difficult to
detect if there is any GM present, added the official, noting the
same applied to refined maize and soybean cooking oils.