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A U.S. study of GM crops spells trouble for Europe
(Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2004 -- CropChoice news) -- via checkbiotech.org: The study showed that genes from the grass, developed by Monsanto
and Scotts for use on golf courses, were found in test plants around
20 kilometers away -- a spectacular distance, and much farther than
observed in any other GM-crop study.
The Oregon study may just turn the debate over GM crops on its head.
The news sent shivers through Brussels, where bureaucrats fear it
could wreak havoc with the EU's newly muscular policy on biotech.
Indeed, the findings come just as the EU is trying to clear the way
for the first new GM food imports in six years and defend itself
against charges of obstructing trade before the World Trade
Organization.
Environmental organizations pounced on the study, claiming it as proof
that GM crops are a Pandora's box. Once the crops are planted in
Europe's fields, they argue, the foreign genes, borne by pollen, will
insinuate themselves into every furrow and seedling.
There'll be no such thing as a non-GM crop.
The pollen study has given Europe's environmental activists plenty of
grist, but it may wind up undercutting their argument. The fear that
genes engineered into crops could escape into the environment, perhaps
combining with other species to form super-weeds or contaminating
non-GM crops, has —been the environmentalists' most potent argument
against GM crops. One potential implication of the study, though, is
that this threshold may already have been crossed—the GM genie may
already be floating free. Pollen-borne genes can travel for immense
distances. (The 20-km range was the maximum measured in the Oregon
study; it's likely, say scientists, that grass pollen could travel
even further.) Sand from the Sahara Desert can easily make it into
Europe, note biotech researchers. Given the right atmospheric
conditions, "even the Atlantic might not be big enough" to keep out
pollen floating from the United States," says Vivian Moses, biology
professor at the University of London.
Don't look to scientists to settle the political questions just yet.
For one thing, scientists have known about so-called gene flow -- the
transfer of genes from one species of crop to another -- for decades. And
they caution that one can't generalize too much from the new study.
Bentgrass, even your ordinary garden variety, has notoriously light
pollen, and is prone to pollinating species at great distances. The
region of Oregon where the study was conducted is extremely dry, which
would cause the pollen to travel farther than it would in a relatively
wet region like Germany. Furthermore, the area studied is subject to
strong winds out of the Rocky Mountains, which can carry pollen
greater distances than the gentle breeze off the Italian Riviera. A
pollen study on grass in Oregon has virtually nothing useful to say to
corn farmers in Brittany or Thrace.
The facts have done little to bridge the divide. Biotech companies
continue to maintain that gene-flow can be managed easily. "You talk
with neighboring farmers to make sure they're not planting a crop
that's affected by the gene crop, and you make sure to grow gene crops
the necessary distance from others," argues Tony Combes, a director of
Corporate Affairs at Monsanto in the United Kingdom. Environmental
groups, on the other hand, say the findings are proof that GM crops
can't be kept discrete from conventional ones. "Genetically engineered
organisms, once released into the environment, will contaminate other
crops," says Greenpeace's Lindsay Keenan. The anti-GM lobby wants more
European countries to follow Denmark's lead by trying to create laws
making GM companies pay conventional or organic farmers compensation
if cross-contamination takes place. (A German draft law to that effect
stalled in the Bundestag last week, after some states argued for
loosened guidelines.) The bentgrass study has renewed calls from the
anti-GM camp for legally recognized GM-free zones, although last year
the EC made it clear, via a test case against Upper Austria, that they
were not feasible. "We're fairly unsympathetic to GMO-free zones,
unless the GMOs are particularly prone to bite children in Salzburg,"
notes Mark Cantley, a biotech adviser to the European Commission. "In
which case, we want to see the teeth marks."
The bentgrass study comes at a diplomatically tricky moment in
Europe's GM saga. In the spring the EU lifted a six-year moratorium on
genetically modified food, establishing a new regulatory framework for
traceability and labeling. And the two-year-old European Food Safety
Authority is in place, designed to review GM issues on a case-by-case
basis on the grounds of science, not politics. The European Commission
is keen to show that the system works, not least because the United
States, Canada and Argentina are still going ahead with a 2003 WTO
case against the EU moratorium. "We're conscious of the political need
to demonstrate we've got a working system," observes Cantley.
As the EU's unelected executive, the European Commission has had to
chivvy along skittish nation-states. In May, after member states
remained divided on whether to approve a Swiss-made strain of modified
sweet corn for sale, the European Commission was forced to allow it.
And only last week, when an EU committee was due to decide on
authorizing a GM maize, Monsanto's MON 863, for use as animal feed,
individual nation-states balked, and the maize went back for another
round of tests.
In the long run, the pollen-drift studies may ultimately be a boon for
the pro-GM camp. The research, say some biotech advocates, offers a
reality check for consumers. To be GM-free in Europe, a product has to
have less than 0.9 percent GM-derived content. Any more and it's got
to be clearly labeled that it contains GM bits, which must be
traceable back to their origins. The anti-GM activists may advocate a
Europe where some seeds are completely GM-free. But in a world where
the wind blows pollen, that ultimately may not be possible.
With Emily Flynn in London, Tracy McNicoll in Paris and Stefan Theil
in Berlin
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