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'PR disaster' of GM crops (Tuesday, July 1, 2003 -- CropChoice news) -- Farmers Weekly, 06/27/03: EMBRACING genetically modified crops could be a public
lations disaster for UK farmers, the Liberal Democrat shadow
rural affairs minister has warned.
Andrew George waded into
the debate on GM crops by warning farmers if they are unquestioning about the benefits of the
technology, then they risk getting
the blame if things do go wrong.
Farmers had unfairly been
blamed for BSE and a similar situation could arise again, he told
FARMERS WEEKLY.
"I fear that coming down the
track with GM there is an opportunity for farmers to be sucked
into a PR disaster," he said.
"The best thing Britisn farm-
ers could do at the moment is wait
and see, certainly for years,
maybe for decades. Farmers in
this country would be extremely
unwise to take them on at the
moment."
Mr George added that accepting GM could also be dangerous
to farmers on a commercial basis,
because farmers would be bound
by the rules of the biotechnology
companies.
Short and curlies
"Supermarkets have got farmers
by the short and curlies. But
biotechnology companies will
have them by the throat," he
warned.
"These two [supermarkets and
biotechnology companies] could
reduce farmers to playing a bit part in the food chain."
Mr George's warning comes
after former DEFRA minister
Michael Meacher explosively
accused the government of rushing to accept GM technology.
Mr Meacher, who had respon-
sibility for GMs until the latest
government reshuffle, said it was
extraordinary that there had been
virtually no independent studies
of the health effects of GM. He
said the only government-spon-
sored work into health impacts
ever carried out was Dr Pusztai's
work on rats and GM potatoes
which was "widely rubbished in
government circles".
The comments, which come as
the national GM Nation debate
continues, have delighted anti"
GM campaigners such as the Soil
Association. But the Food
Standards Agency and Royal
Society have challenged some of
the points made.
Mr Meacher said that certain
studies which questioned the safety of GM food had been brushed
aside by the FSA.
But the agency said a study by
Newcastle University was dismissed largely because it was a
small study carried out on people
who already had unrelated health
problems.
The president of the Royal
Society, Lord May of Oxford, also
accused Mr Meacher of applying
spin by quoting selectively from a
Society report on GM foods.
"The recent newspaper articles by Mr Meacher appear to
show an ideological opposition to
GM crops, and present a severely
distorted account of the scientific
facts and uncertainties surrounding GM foods," he said.
For related item, see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/gmdebate/Story/0,2763,756666,00.html | |
