www.checkbiotech.org ; www.czu.cz ; www.raupp.info

Regulators should assess possible environmental benefits of genetically
modified crops (GMO) as well as their potential to cause damage, scientists
who advise the government say, March 2006.

The current regulatory system is flawed because it doesn't weigh (the)
damage against the potential benefits for the environment," the Advisory
Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) said.

In a report released on Friday, the committee recommended tests of all
agricultural innovations and cited recent four-year-long field trials of GMO
crops in the UK as a suitable basis for the development of new, more
balanced tests.

In a statement published in conjunction with the report British Environment
Minister Elliot Morley said: "The GM trials gave a real insight into how
weed control regimes, in both conventional and GM crops, can affect
biodiversity."

"This raises a general question about the environmental impact of changes in
arable farming."

GMOs have become a thorny issue for the European Union after the World Trade
Organisation ruled last month that the bloc and specifically six member
states had broken rules by barring entry of GMO crops and food.

But the ACRE report has found that the environmental impact of innovations
in conventional crops can be at least as great as the effects of GMOs.

For example, the switch from spring to winter cereals has been associated
with reductions in biodiversity, particularly farmland birds, according to
the report.

"There is, however, currently no equivalent regulatory requirement for
assessment of the positive and negative effects of such changes...on the
environment prior to their widespread adoption," the report said.

Inversely, the introduction of GMO Bt cotton in the United States led to
reduced use of insecticides as well as yield gains resulting in
environmental benefits, according to the report.

Only a new kind of risk-benefit analysis will enable policy makers to make a
balanced decision on novel technologies, ACRE said.

"We know that agriculture is going to change... If you are playing a
different game, you should change the off-site rule," ACRE's chairman Chris
Pollock told reporters ahead of the report.

[today.reuters.co.uk]

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