GM CROP PLANTING COULD HIT LAND VALUES _ REPORT
PA NewsDonnerstag, 11. März 1999 10:36:00
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By Paul Hunter, PA News
The Government was today warned that farmers planting genetically
modified crops risk a fall in land values. And tenant farmers
could face the prospect of picking up the bill for any shortfall
in the price suffered by the landowner.
The warnings are contained in a report by the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) which has been sent to the Office of Science and Technology and several other Government departments. The RICS report calls for the setting up of a land register through which potential buyers and banks could find out if and when GM crops had been grown on a particular holding. The RICS is one of the largest professional bodies in the world and its 100,000 members manage most of the land in the UK.
The report said: "The growing of GM crops on let land could conceivably be deemed a breach of terms of the tenancy agreement under the requirements to farm in accordance with the rules of good husbandry. "This may affect the value of the landlord's reversionary interest and tenants could face claims for dilapidations." This effectively means tenant farmers could be sued by their landlords for the shortfall in price as a result of growing GM crops. Michael Chambers, RICS policy unit director, said a register already existed of GM crop trial areas. "There is in effect a register at the moment because of all the land that's affected," he said.
The Government should consider introducing a permanent register of sites where GM crops were or had been, he said. "It's very hard to see how it could be controlled once you grow on a widespread scale in the countryside," Mr Chambers added. Environment campaign group Friends of the Earth Scotland has backed the RICS calls for a land register. It warned of disastrous consequences for UK agriculture if the Government pressed ahead with commercial-scale GM crop trials.
Kevin Dunion, director of FoE Scotland, said: "This is a frightening new dimension to the whole GM debate. "The push to fill our countryside with GM crops means danger for wildlife from genetic pollution and could be a final death blow to our already beleaguered agricultural industry."