NGOs call for action to prevent GM beet crops

Environmental groups Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FoE), together with the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), recently urged EU governments and the European Commission to safeguard European agriculture and biodiversity by preventing any genetically modified (GM) crops of beet and oilseed rape being grown inthe EU.

A recent report​ by the European Environmental Agency (EEA) finds a risk of contamination if GM crops are commercially grown in Europe, the groups said in a joint statement. Based on the EEA's conclusions, such a risk is unmanageable, particularly for oilseed rape and beet, the environmental NGOs said.

In its report, the EEA warned that: "oilseed rape can be described as a highrisk crop for crop-to-crop gene flow and from crops to wild relatives . Itis predicted that plants carrying multiple [herbicide] resistance genes willbecome common post-GM release . Oilseed rape is cross compatible with anumber of wild relatives and thus the likelihood of gene flow to thesespecies is high"​.

The problem was already recognised by the Frenchgovernment, which banned cultivation of GM oilseed rape in 1998.Similar contamination problems exist for beet, the groups continue, which is another plant that is indigenous to Europe and has a number of wild relatives. According to theEEA: "Sugar beet can be described as medium to high risk for gene flow cropto crop and from crop to wild relatives. Pollen from sugar beet has beenrecorded at distances of more than 1 Km at relatively high frequency . Thepossible implications of hybridisation and introgression [of transgenes]between crops and wild plant species are so far unclear because it isdifficult to predict how the flow of genetically engineered genes will beexpressed".​

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the EEB claim that EU authoritiescannot ignore the EEA's findings, and that the report fully justifies theuse of the Precautionary Principle, a pillar in the EU Treaty, in order toprevent irreversible damage to European agriculture and biodiversity.

TheNGOs are demanding that cultivation of GM oilseed rape and beet should not be allowed in the EU, and that the European Commission and Member States take action to suspend several authorisations already granted for GM oilseedrape.

The environmental NGOs are also calling on the European Commission - which iscurrently drafting a Directive to establish tolerance levels foradventitious contamination of non-GM seeds by GM seeds - to set a maximumthreshold no higher than detectability level (0.1 per cent). Anything above that,say the NGOs, will lead to creeping contamination of seed supplies andultimately to the erosion of Europe's agricultural and natural biodiversity.