§ Mr. YeoTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what commercial activities are prescribed by the voluntary agreement with the GM industry on GM crop trials. [144375]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 8 January 2001]: I have been asked to reply.
The Government and the industry body SCIMAC made a voluntary agreement in November 1999 on the conduct of the farm-scale evaluations of certain GM crops. Under the terms of this agreement:
There will be no widespread planting leading to general market access of GM crops grown in the UK until the farm-scale evaluations are complete.For the duration of the farm-scale evaluations, no direct commercial benefit will be sought from these plantings by the consent-holders.
§ Mr. YeoTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) if the voluntary agreement with the GM industry on the conduct of crop trials in the United Kingdom(a) covers trials licensed under a Part C consent and (b) allows the harvesting and storage of GM seed from trial sites before the completion of the crop trials; [144371]
(2) if fertile seed is being harvested from GM trial sites in the United Kingdom and stored. [144367]
§ Mr. Meacher[holding answer 8 January 2001]: I have been asked to reply.
The Government and the industry body SCIMAC made a voluntary agreement in November 1999 on the conduct of the farm scale evaluations of certain GM crops.
The agreement covers all GM crops including those with Part C consent under European directive 90/220. At present one of the crops involved in the evaluations, herbicide tolerant maize, has a Part C consent.
The Part B consents permitting the oil seed rape, fodder beet and sugar beet to be grown in the farm scale evaluations require the crops to be destroyed on harvest. The maize in the evaluations, which has a Part C consent, is a forage variety which would be harvested for silage not seeds. The terms of the approval for herbicide use on the maize does not permit it to enter the food or feed chain and the crop is destroyed on harvest.
The agreement does not permit any other field scale plantings of these crops without the approval of the Scientific Steering Committee who will take account of the relevance of the proposals to biodiversity.
260WA number of Part B consents for small scale plantings of other GM crops are currently in force. Each specifies the fate of the crop at the end of the trial and some permit the saving of seed for further research or testing.