Imported seeds tainted by GM

Government defends polluted crops planted in UK

GM food: special report

James Meikle

Thursday May 18, 2000

Thousands of acres of crops tainted by GM pollen have been growing in Britain for more than a year and may have been used in food production, the government admitted last night in a move that is highly embarrassing for its scientific advisers, who had previously claimed there was little risk of cross-pollination with conventional crops. Hundreds of farmers have unwittingly planted the contaminated seed over two spring seasons without the safeguards used for GM field trials, but ministers, whose officials had known about the problem for a month, insisted there was no risk to health or the environment.

The seeds came from the Canadian prairies, from plants that were growing more than 800 metres away from the nearest GM varieties but still picked up traces of modified material.

The tainted seed is thought to have been used on 9,000 hectares last year, nearly 2% of the rape crop. This year it has probably been used on 4,700 hectares, involving between 500 and 600 farmers.

It also emerged that there had been no random testing of imports of conventional seed for rogue GM material, despite the rapid spread of GM crops through the United States, Canada and Brazil. In this country no GM seeds are to be sold to farmers until after three years of farm trials to test their impact on the environment and wildlife.

Opposition parties immediately condemned ministers for the lack of proper controls on seeds, and for the delay and the low key announcement, made through a parliamentary written answer. The Liberal Democrats' environment spokesman, David Heath, said the delay and the manner in which the government announcement had been made was deeply disturbing. "It is another example of the contempt in which the government holds the British public," he said.

The Tory spokesman, Tim Yeo, accused the government of a "willingness to allow commercial considerations to override the need to protect the British environment".

The latest embarrassment came a day after it emerged that some British honey might have been contaminated by pollen from GM trials.

The seeds discovery was made during testing of imported seeds by the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg. The international company responsible, Advanta Seeds, was informed by one of its customers in the state. Its British arm was told on April 3, and took steps to stop further sales while it began its own testing; this revealed a GM presence of up to 1% in seeds grown in 1998 and sold over the past two years.

The company told government officials on April 17. It was worried because the GM oilseed rape which tainted the conventional seed had no commercial licences for sales to farmers in Europe, but it could not inform its distributors or farmers until the government acted.

"We are absolutely dismayed," said Mike Ruthven, general manager of Advanta Seeds UK. "We are very concerned for consumers, because of the sensitivity of these things. We believe we are extremely responsible and we are gobsmacked that this has happened with an orthodox crop."

He said the advice from the government so far was that no regulation had been broken, and there was no threat to health or the environment - "although we have had some difficulty in getting those statements".

The 1999 seed crop had not been contaminated because the company had by then moved its seed growing from Alberta, Canada, to Ontario in eastern Canada, Montana in the US, and New Zealand.

Oilseed rape is used in foods such as margarine and in industrial processes, but the GM material that has been available from abroad was passed as safe by government advisers several years ago.

The seed is also thought to have been used on 600 hectares in France, 500 in Sweden and 400 in Germany, causing international embarrassment and highlighting a lack of international regulation of seed purity.

Baroness Hayman, the agriculture minister, said there would be new spot checks on imports and work with the industry on a new code of practice: "This is not a safety issue... However, the issue of seed purity is a serious one."