---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 08 Mar 2000 17:19:39 +0000
From: Frank Pennycook <frankp@foe.co.uk>
To: food@foe.co.uk, gm-action@foe.co.uk
Subject: GM-ACT: Farm Scale Trials
Attached is the initial mailing for this year's Farm Scale Trails
campaign, which is just getting under way. It has gone out in the post
too - but some may prefer it by email too.
-- Frank Pennycook Assistant Campaigner Farm Scale Trials Friends of the Earth Phone: 0113 242 8153 Email: frankp@foe.co.uk------
?8th March 2000
Dear Campaigner,
FARM SCALE TRIALS - SPECIAL CAMPAIGN
This spring, GM testing is jumping to a new level - 75 larger “Farm Scale Trials” (FST) are to be started across the country. The government will announce this Friday (10 March) or early next week where the trials are going to be. One of them is likely to be near you.
FOE is running a special campaign against the Farm Scale Trials. We think that the Government is using them to appease public opinion while still not providing scientific answers to the fears that people have about GM crops. At the same time, moves to commercially license GM crops continue.
The enclosed fact sheet (Farm Scale Trials - Quick Facts) explains more about the FSTs, and how there are slight differences between them and the GM test sites that many of you have campaigned on before.
What to do first
Until Friday, we do not know exactly where the trials will be. We do know that there will be a total of 75 fields involved, 25 for each of three crops - sugar beet, oilseed rape and fodder maize. The farms taking part will be chosen to represent a cross-section of British arable farming, so they will be spread across the country.
We will let you know as soon as we can if there is one near you. You can find out yourself through the website of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR), or look for notices in your local paper. (See “Quick Facts”)
After the announcement, there is only a 14-day period when you can object to DETR about the choice of location. We want to get as many objections in as possible, and equally importantly, alert the local public that the FST is happening. You can use the enclosed draft press release to publicise that there will be a trial near you.
What to do next
We want to build as many local campaigns as possible around the FSTs. We may be able to persuade some farmers to pull out (this has been successful before). We may be able to prevent further trials in future years. And we want to show that these experiments are an unjustified risk in themselves and won’t provide the answers people need to reassure them that agriculture is in safe hands.
We will be sending out further briefings and a campaign pack to relevant groups when we know which areas the trials will be in. We will be working at a national level with Greenpeace, GEN (Genetic Engineering Network) and other organisations. In addition, you will be able to look for local allies among organic and non-organic farmers, beekeepers, conservation groups and the general public.
What support is available
For the next three months, I am in post specifically to assist your local campaigns on FSTs. I will be working closely with the Food and Biotech campaigners and with the Local Campaigns Department.
Please do contact me now to let me know if you or your group are going to be able to work on this issue. I will be happy to hear from you - you can email me at frankp@foe.co.uk or phone me in the Leeds office on 0113 242 8153.
Yours sincerely
Frank Pennycook Assistant Campaigner - Farm Scale Trials
---------------------------------------------------------------
Farm Scale Trials Quick Facts
1. What are the FSTs?
The FSTs form a large experiment, running over 3 years, which is supposed to provide information about the effects GM crops might have on the farm-land biodiversity. The fields will be about 10 hectares in size - that’s 10 to 100 times as large as the typical test sites which we have seen up until now.
Three crops are involved - sugar beet, oilseed rape and fodder maize - all modified to be herbicide resistant. There will be 25 fields of each crop. Each field will be divided in two and planted half with a GM variety and half with a conventional variety. Assessments will then be made of changes in biodiversity and also of the potential for genetic material to spread.
Farmers have been encouraged to volunteer to take part in the trials, and we understand that more than 100 have applied. Of these, DETR will select 75 to give a variety of local conditions such as soil type, to form a representative sample of British agriculture.
2. Finding the FSTs
As soon as possible after the announcement, we will provide lists of trials by county on the FOE web site. We will also start notifying the local groups nearest to each trial and help to mobilise local campaigns.
For the sugar beet and oilseed rape trials, Public Notices must be placed in a local paper. These notices are likely to go in only a few days after the DETR announcement because the crop must be sown very soon. Then there is a 14 day period during which DETR will receive objections to the trials. If at all possible, you should object during this time.
Write to: Chemicals and Biotechnology Division DETR Ashdown House 123 Victoria Street London SW1E 6DE
In your letter, ask for an assurance that your objection will be made known to the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE).
The maize crop has a different status - it already has EU marketing consent, and so is no longer covered by the public notification rules governing GM test sites. It is the same modified variety of maize (known as T25) that is being considered for national seed listing right now. As such it could become the first commercially available GM crop in the UK.
For the maize trials, notices need not be placed in local papers, but we expect the locations of the sites to be made known by DETR in the same way as for the other crops. Luckily, with maize, we have slightly longer before it must be sown (mid to late April). We will try to inform all groups in the vicinity of the trials.
Further Information
FOE briefings about FSTs are on the FOE Food and Biotechnology web site:
www.foe.co.uk/camps/foodbio/, under briefings
• Farm Scale Trials - in depth • Farm Scale Trials - a short critique • Farm Scale Evaluations of Genetically Modified Foods, March 1999
More information about all aspects of our real food campaign is at: www.foe.co.uk/realfood/index.html
Other links Official information about the trials can be found on the DETR website at: www.environment.detr.gov.uk/fse/index.htm
Also worth checking are the pages for ACRE (Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment): www.environment.detr.gov.uk/acre/index.htm
------------------------------------------------------------------------
DRAFT PRESS RELEASE- for use when a Farm Scale Trial location is announced near you.
Immediate Release PAGE 1 OF 2
Yourtown Friends of the Earth warns of GM pollution in Anyfield
Friends of the Earth today urged local people to oppose plans to grow a Farm Scale Trial of genetically modified oilseed rape (or whatever the crop is) at Old MacDonald’s Farm, near Anyfield. FOE warned that the GM trials threaten the local environment and the livelihoods of those nearby who wish to farm without using GM crops. The site is in the first wave of this summer’s GM Farm Scale Trials and are due to be planted in the next few weeks. [1]
The siting of the trial site will come as a surprise to most people living locally. Under the regulations local people do not have to be consulted before the crops are planted in their neighbourhood. And although notices have to be placed in local papers before the crops are planted, local people do not have any legal rights to object to them.
Many organisations, including FOE, are objecting to the farm scale trials programme, as : • they pose an unjustified threat to the environment; • organic and conventional farmers and beekeepers risk having their crops or honey contaminated; [2] • liability for possible environmental damage and loss of crops is not resolved; • most people in the UK do not want GM food.
Teresa Green of Yourtown FOE said: “These farm scale trials are a waste of time and a waste of money too. The industry cannot guarantee local organic or conventional farmers that their livelihoods will not be harmed, or who will be responsible if things go wrong. And as no-one wants to eat GM food anyway, surely the taxpayers money spent on these trials would have been better spent on helping farmers reduce pesticide use for instance by going organic. These trials are not welcome in our area, and we are calling on the farmers taking part not to subject our countryside to this massive and dangerous experiment”.
In the next 14 days, people can protest about the locations of the trials. Write to the Biotechnology Unit at the DETR (Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions), or to your local MP, saying that they should not go ahead.
Contact: Teresa Green, Yourtown FOE’s Real Food Campaign, 01234 567890
P.T.O Notes to editors 1. Each Farm Scale Trial will cover an area of 10 hectares (25 acres), that is 10 - 100 times as large as the smaller GM test sites which have already proved controversial in previous years. 25 fields will be planted with each of the three crops this spring (75 fields in total).
2. Organic certification standards rule out genetically modified material, so organic farmers growing a similar crop near to a GM field risk hybrids which could lead to their certification being withdrawn.
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