There has been considerable media interest and criticism over BASF's plans to trial and, in future years try to market, blight resistant GM potatoes in the UK. The Soil Association strongly opposes these plans. The commercialisation of GM potatoes, and indeed all GM staple foods, failed in the US because of rejection by the food industry. We hope there will be the same outcome here in the UK.
GM potatoes pose risks of contaminating normal non-GM crops, including organic crops. Any contamination would be serious as it would result in people unknowingly eating whole GM potatoes. There are several serious health concerns with GM potatoes: animal feeding trials have shown that they cause unusual growths in the gut. We cannot accept BASF's claims that these GM varieties would eliminate most pesticide use on potatoes, as the potatoes would only avoid the use of most fungicides which only makes up 1,300 tonnes of the total 12,000 tonnes of pesticides used on potatoes in Great Britain. We note that BASF abandoned its plans to trial GM potatoes this year in Ireland after strong opposition and the requirement of strict conditions by the Environmental Protection Agency.
What's happening?
Two farms in England are trialling the experimental GM potatoes in spring 2007. The first trial is starting on 31 March near Girton in Cambridgeshire (
grid ref TL 4262). The second is taking place shortly afterwards (date TBC) near Hedding in East Riding, Yorkshire (
grid ref TA1729). The trials are going ahead in the face of widespread opposition to GM crops among the British public, who don't want to eat GM, as well as British retailers, who don't want to sell GM. The British Potato Council, which represents the potato industry, has also opposed the GM trials.
You can read the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra's) December 2006
announcement on the GM potato trials.
To know more:
» read a summary of the risks of GM potatoes and BASF's plans
» take action
» find out the latest news
Take action - Keep your local area GM-free
Visit the
mutatoes.org campaign website to find out about the latest action updates. If you live near one of the two sites that will be trialling GM potatoes this spring, then you can get involved with local activists in your area:
Latest news
Listen in on our podcast
As GM potato trials launch in England, Michael Green, Soil Association policy officer, discusses the situation and talks to Ken Hayes, an ex-GM researcher who now works for the Soil Association.
» Listen to the mp3 [2.9 MB]
» Read the transcript
GM potatoes scrapped in Holland, calls to halt UK trials
On 7 March 2007, a Dutch court ordered the
suspension of GM potato trials in Holland because they found that the Government had illegally permitted the trials. Following an appeal by Greenpeace, the Dutch Council of State judged that the risk to the environment of the GM potatoes, developed by BASF, had not been properly assessed. Following this announcement,
Friends of the Earth and the GM Freeze called on the Government to suspend forthcoming trials of BASF's GM potatoes in the UK, due to commence from 31 March 2007. Friends of the Earth said: "These new environmental concerns should prompt the Government to rethink plans to allow BASF to grow its GM potatoes in the UK. The trials are unnecessary and unwanted. Blight resistant potatoes are already available through conventional breeding and there is simply no market for GM spuds in the UK."
BASF shelve GM spuds in Ireland
BASF announced that it has abandoned its plans to grow GM potatoes in Ireland. Crop trials were delayed in 2006 due to the regulations and monitoring requirements required by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). "It is now opting to grow them in Britain where there are fewer restrictions," reported the Irish Independent. "Regulations on the co-existence of GM and conventional crops are expected to be finalised, but opponents want controls tight enough to make it almost impossible to grow GM food. "A number of county councils around the country have declared themselves GM-free zones, but this has no legal power as the EPA is the body charged with approving the cultivation of GM organisms. However, official figures show that hundreds of thousands of tonnes of genetically modified (GM) animal feed are now being imported each year." ('GM Spuds have had their chips as Irish trials stopped', Irish Independent, 12 March 2007)
Secret GM feeding trial published after eight years
Eight years after being conducted, a
secret feeding study of Monsanto GM potatoes has finally been published showing that the potatoes caused 'considerable damage to the organs of the rats in the study'. In comparison, the rats in 'control groups' that were fed on normal potatoes or on a non-potato diet were healthier and had much less organ and tissue damage. The study was eventually made public following a court case brought by Greenpeace Russia against Monsanto and Institute of Nutrition of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences who had refused to release it. Dr Irina Ermakova of the Russian Academy of Science has written a
commentary on the suppressed study.
There are now three feeding trials of GM potatoes, all of which show negative health effects and you can
read about the other two studies here (Ewen and Pusztai, 1999; Fares and El-Sayed, 1998).
GM potato company 'exaggerate' costs of blight
The GM Freeze have revealed that biotech company BASF are 'exaggerating the costs of potato blight losses'. BASF, who want to grow GM potatoes in the UK, claimed that losses to the fungal disease blight cost farmers £30 million each year, not including the £20 million spent on fungicide sprays. However, the British Potato Council has stated that the cost of blight losses are £3 million in addition to fungicides. Read the
press release.
Genetically modified potatoes fed to sick patients in an experiment
Rats that ate similar potatoes in the research suffered reductions in the weight of their hearts and prostate glands.
Read the report in The Independent (4 March 2007)
The GM potato debate
» watch Gundula Azeez, the Soil Association's policy manager on Channel 4 News (23 August 2006)
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