WHY, in the light of the BSE affair, is the Government not exercising caution with regard to GM foods?

Dr Richard Lacey was one of the first scientists to warn about the BSE crisis and describes genetic engineering as "an inherently risky method for producing new foods."

The US Food and Drug Administration has ignored warnings from scientists about the risks of producing food by placing genes in foreign species. Here an Advisory Committee has revealed foreign DNA is surviving the manufacturing process into animal feed, belying assurances from the biotech industry that such genetic material is destroyed by processing.

Public hearings are taking place about the proposal to add the first GM seed to the National Seed List, removing the barrier to commercial growing.

I represented our group highlighting among other things, the many environmental concerns about growing a crop designed to be resistant to a herbicide. Evidence from the States has shown these crops have led to increased use of the herbicide good for the industry, bad for the environment, the farmer and the consumer.

The current farm-scale trials are not even examining the impact of GMOs on the health of the soil, and yet GMOs have been found to have transferred to soil bacteria.

Nor do the tests look at genetic contamination of crops and plants in the neighbourhood and, because of their timescale, they are only likely to pick up immediate and obvious effects.

Large numbers of Third World farmers are calling for a moratorium on GM crops, seeing this technology as increasing their dependency on large corporations with an eye to profit rather than protection of small farms, food security and biodiversity.

There is distrust of the motives of an industry which is developing sterile seeds, denying farmers the ability to save their seed for the next crop, and crops which produce disease-prone crops unless treated with chemicals.

JO RIPLEY

Friends of the Earth, Marlborough