§ Baroness Byfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether genetically modified crop trials are being evaluated to establish any benefits to biodiversity in replacing damaging practices in conventional agricultural by planting certain genetically modified crops. [HL2994]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty)The farm scale evaluations are primarily assessing the impact on farmland wildlife of the management of four genetically modified crops (winter and spring oil seed rape, fodder maize and sugar beet) relative to the equivalent conventional (non-GM) crops.
19WAThe farms selected for the evaluations include a wide range of conventional agricultural practices, from intensive to extensive. The research programme should therefore also reveal the impact of conventional practices on biodiversity and contribute to our understanding of the relationships between farming practice and wildlife abundance generally.
§ Baroness Byfordasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in considering safe separation distances for genetically modified crop growth, they have taken into account potential effects on private gardens and allotments. [HL2995]
§ Lord WhittyThe separation distances are set to limit the interaction between genetically modified (GM) crop plants and other plants. The distances set for any particular trial take full account of the potential effects on private gardens and allotments.
The GM crops being grown in the farm scale evaluations, oil and seed rape, fodder beet, sugar beet and forage maize, are not grown in gardens and allotments. The forage maize could potentially cross pollinate with sweetcorn varieties of maize, so a separation distance of 200 metres has been specified between GM maize and sweetcorn. The Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment has advised that at this distance the incidence of cross-pollination should be less than 0.5 per cent.