gm bayer

On July 26th, Friends of the Earth revealed that the German biotech giant Bayer withdrew its applications to grow GM oilseed rape in the European Union. Earlier this year, results from the world's biggest environmental trials confirmed that growing GM oilseed rape, which has been modified to make it resistant to a weed killer, reduced the level of wildlife in the field.  New research by the UK government showed that the GM crop had also crossed with wild plants to produce herbicide-resistant 'superweeds' in the UK 

major blow for bayer as it pulls gm maize out of uk

Wednesday 31 March, 2004

Bayer CropScience has announced that they have withdrawn their GM maize variety Chardon LL from the UK, the only crop that has been authorized to be grown in the UK .

This means that there are unlikely to be any commercial GM crops grown in the UK before 2008.

As the value of Bayer's shares fell, Friends of the Earth's GM campaigner Pete Riley said:

"This episode will be of deep concern to Bayer's shareholders. The UK Government must now abandon this dangerous and unpopular technology and concentrate on protecting our food, farming and environment from GM contamination and put real effort into genuinely sustainable agriculture."

A spokesperson for Bayer (previously known as Aventis) said, however, that they remain committed to developing plant biotechnologies in the UK . “We hope that the UK will be able to benefit from the opportunity afforded by this technology some time in the future”.

Although the UK government had given their permission for the crop to be grown only three weeks earlier, Bayer decided that the restrictions and conditions announced by Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, would make the crop “economically non-viable”.

Opposing the cultivation of GM beet and oil seed rape, Beckett announced four key conditions on the cultivation of GM maize:

• That GM companies should compensate non-GM farmer for any financial loss caused by GM contamination;
• That non-GM farmers could establish voluntary GM-free zones even though a voluntary scheme like this would be very difficult and costly to organise and would easily break down if any one farmer disagrees with it;
• That the license will only last until 2006, when Bayer would need to reapply under EU legislation for a new license;
• That Bayer will have to carry out more scientific analysis to show that GM maize is not worse for the environment compared to conventional crops after atrazine, which is currently used in maze farming and was used is banned.

The purpose of genetically transforming maize to create Chardon LL was to allow it to be used with a weed killer produced by Bayer CropScience called Liberty (glufosinate ammonium). Farm-scale evaluations were set up to test “that there are no significant differences between the biodiversity associated with the management of GM fodder maize tolerant to the herbicide glufosinate ammonium and comparable non-GM fodder maize at the farm scale”.

The results of the trials appeared to show that GM maize, used with Liberty, was slightly less damaging to farmland biodiversity than growing conventional maize sprayed with atrazine because most of the time Liberty killed fewer weeds. Birds and small mammals depend on weed seeds for food.

But these results are widely regarded as being fatally flawed for four reasons:

• The EU has now banned atrazine
  Atrazine will be banned in the EU from 2006 because of its damaging impacts on the environment. There is no research to show how GM maize compares with conventional maize sprayed with the herbicide that will replace atrazine.

• Commercial yield doubts
  The GM maize in the farm trials was not grown in a way that produced commercial yields. In the early stages of growth maize is extremely susceptible to competition from weeds, but Bayer advised some GM farmers to delay the application of the weed killer. It is likely that biodiversity measurements were therefore enhanced at the expense of yield. However, there is no way to check this statistically, as the trials did not include an accurate measure of yield or maturity.

• GM maize growers in the USA often use extra herbicides
  Evidence from the USA suggests that farmers often use additional herbicides when they grow GM maize. In the UK farm trials, only Liberty was used, but information from the USA shows that weed control with Liberty is “poor to fair” and that 75-90 per cent of farmers growing GM maize use a Bayer product that contains atrazine.

• The farm trials compared two unsustainable farming systems
  Problems with conventional maize growing include pollution of water courses and groundwater by manures, fertilisers and pesticides, air pollution and soil erosion. So the farm-scale evaluations were simply comparing two unsustainable and damaging methods of maize production.

Friends of the Earth will not be calling for more trials. A comprehensive review of all aspects of maize cultivation is needed to drastically reduce its environmental impact.

The purpose of genetically modifying crops such as maize is to increase crop yields by making them more resistant to certain herbicides, such as Liberty, reducing the number of weeds that are competing for resources. If, like GM beet and oil seed rape, GM maize is shown to be considerably worse for the environment than conventional maize after the ban on atrazine comes into force then the future of commercial GM maize production will be under threat. If, on the other hand, GM maize still kills fewer weeds than conventional maize farming, even after the atrazine ban, then genetic modification will have failed to achieve its original aim – higher yields. If Bayer and other biotechnology companies attempt to go ahead with the commercialization of their products under these conditions it will show that they are not interested in higher yields, but only in gaining control of both the seed and herbicide markets. Genetic crop science will be revealed as a purely capitalistic enterprise.

This episode is only a temporary victory for environmental campaigners. The fact remains that the UK government has set a precedent by permitting a biotechnology company to go ahead, even if Bayer felt it was unable to take up the opportunity. The company now has time to develop new varieties and to chip away at the remaining political resistance in the UK and EU, while campaigners gear up for events after 2006.