LETTER TO THE SCIENTIFIC STEERING COMMITTEE
Re: Threat to HDRA Organic Gardens

Web version of a letter sent in May 2001 by SGR

To: Professor Martin Crawley
Cc: Martin Doughty
Jim Orson
Dick Potts
Graham Wynne

Subject: Threat to HDRA Organic Gardens

Gentlemen,

The threat to the Ryton Organic Gardens of the Henry Doubleday Research Association, from the planned trial of genetically modified maize only a few kilometres away, is very real. The Gardens grow organic maize, which would very likely be contaminated by the pollen from the GM variety. Not only would the crop be de-classified from organic status, but the organic certification of the Gardens would be lost. Honey from the five colonies of bees in the Gardens would also become contaminated with GM pollen; it has been shown that bees obtain pollen from distances at least as great as 4.5 km, the maximum distance in the experiment to determine how far bees will fly to obtain pollen.

Research nearing completion, by myself and Prof Jean Perdang of the University of Liege, Belgium, on the transport of pollen by wind shows that even relatively steady winds will result in a patchy distribution of pollen that settles on plants beyond the field in which they are grown. Our computer models use a cellular automaton method to trace the progress of the pollen from the moment it leaves the parent plant until it settles either on the ground or an another plant. Depending on the overall strength and direction of the wind and the nature of its complexities, pockets of high pollen count can be found at distances several times the distance at which most of the pollen is deposited. Areas of lower pollen density extend much further. It is because of this wide spreading of pollen that we believe contamination of the maize at the HDRA Gardens will occur. For a reference already published, please consult ‘A Report on the Dispersal of Maize Pollen’, Jan. 1999, compiled by Dr Jean Emberlin, Beverley Adams-Groom and Julie Tidmarsh, available from The Soil Association.

Moreover, the fact that the trial site is considerably larger than the Garden plot means that much more GM pollen than organic pollen will be produced in that vicinity, thus increasing the probability that pollen received by maize in the Gardens will be genetically modified.

One must question the value of the trials being conducted. Independent analysts have declared them to be inadequately planned. Two examples of such inadequacy are that the effects on soil organisms are not investigated, and the effects of the GM pollen on the health of the workers who inhale it are not monitored. Questions about horizontal gene transfer involving soil bacteria, and the effects such transfer would have on health, are also not being addressed. A warning that ‘GM DNA can be incorporated into mammalian cells, with unpredictable results’ was issued in a letter published by N. Tomlinson of the Joint Food Safety and Standards Groups of MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) in the Annual Report 1998 of the Advisory Committee on Novel Foods and Processes, p. 64.

The public hearing held in October-November 2000 (and now indefinitely adjourned) produced a great deal of evidence indicating that the maize variety there in question, Chardon LL, which is the same variety that is to be grown in the trial site near the HDRA site, should not be grown. The Department of the Environment, Transport and Regions has acknowledged that the evidence presented is strong and has admitted that it had been too hasty in granting approval for the maize. The evidence given to date may be read on the appropriate part of the DEFRA website.

The proposed trial opens questions of ethics, of financial responsibility and of consumer choice. Does a farmer who chooses to grow GM maize have the right to contaminate his neighbour’s crop, who chooses to grow non-GM maize and who obtains a premium price for it? Who should pay for the contamination? How will consumers who choose not to eat genetically modified foods be able to exercise their right, if contamination with GM pollen gradually spreads from one farmer’s field to other fields? Who should pay for any unforeseen harm to soil, plants, animals or human beings? The crossing of species barriers is an experiment that has never before been known in nature. Unpredicted, harmful consequences are virtually certain to occur.

Yours sincerely,

(Dr) Eva Novotny
on behalf of Scientists for Global Responsibility