From: GBurch1@aol.com
Date: Sun Jul 11 1999 - 11:34:01 MDT
The following article, forwarded on another list, highlights the level of
opposition to genetic engineering that is developing outside the U.S. Based
on the extent of the "anti-GM" hysteria I'm seeing increasing signs of in the
UK, elsewhere in the EU and to a lesser extent in Australia, I think we may
be facing a fundamental showdown on a key element of the transhumanist agenda
much sooner than many of us expected. I'm worried that there hasn't been
nearly enough time for our ideas to take root and that with Prince Charles
declaring that ''Genetic modification takes mankind into realms that belong
to God and God alone,'' we could be in a world of hurt before we know it . .
. check this out:
* * * * * * * *
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000579381554028&rtmo=gZlYnlju&atmo=99999999&p/
g=/et/99/7/10/tlbees10.html
-
Saturday 10 July 1999
Too late to worry about honey and GM crops?
Sam Westmacott finds that bees have been in and out of genetically
modified flowers for at least seven years
BEES are good to us. They provide us with honey, one of the purest
foods in the world. But are we being good to them? The question is
disturbing thousands of beekeepers.
Frank Eggleton, a 67-year-old retired design engineer, is terrified by
the threat of genetically modified crops. He cares deeply about bees.
There are about 150,000 in the garden of his 17th-century cottage in
Wiltshire.
Like many beekeepers, he has infinite patience and a great love of the
countryside. Not the kind of chap who you would expect to go ballistic.
But he did, when Captain Fred Barker planted genetically modified
oil-seed rape at Lushill Farm, Hannington, where his bees forage.
"My bees are in danger," he says. "And what about cross-pollination?
Bees scatter pollen all over the place. Wild turnips, cabbages and all
kinds of domestic and wild plants will be contaminated."
He knows that the rape, sponsored by AgrEvo - a major GM company with
six field-scale trials this year - has an extra gene and a specific
herbicide resistance, so that weeds such as charlock will be destroyed
without affecting the main crop.
Eggleton is convinced that the gene's presence will contaminate his
honey. He has no evidence for this assumption, but that does not deter
his protests.
Friends of the Earth held a meeting in the village hall and Eggleton
declared: "Big field trials of GM rape are a step too far. I would never
give my two-year-old grandson GM honey or eat it myself. I would rather
dump my crop."
Captain Barker burnt his crop in response to pressure from his trustees
and the Soil Association. But Eggleton's fear spread throughout the
beekeeper community. Adrian Waring, the general secretary of the British
Beekeepers Association, was besieged by members worried about genetic
pollution.
"No one knows what to believe," he says. Rumours spread that beekeepers
would be fined £5,000 for a hive near GM crops and that Brussels
labelling laws would force them to mark their pots "Contains genetically
modified pollen". Who will buy it then?
The beekeepers find it difficult to understand how a scientist can think
that a buffer zone of 200 yards between GM and other plants can stop
cross-pollination. Bees pollinate plants up to three miles away from the
hive.
People have forgotten the reason for buffer zones - to protect a crop
from contamination. According to AgrEvo, the industry guidelines
initially requested 50 yards so that the grower could claim 98.5 per
cent purity of seed certification, although they are not yet growing
commercially.
Similarly, while the public believes cross-pollination is a real
threat, it seems that the Government has other evidence. Imperial
College, London, did a series of experiments examining the effect on
pollen transfer through wind and insects, including bees. It
was on the strength of that work in the Eighties that the Government
allowed open-air trials.
AgrEvo and the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed that conventional
oil-seed rape, a man-made crop created about 300 years
ago, had never cross-pollinated outside a laboratory. Such intermittent
and partial revelations infuriate Waring and association
members. "The Government has been so cagey and the bio-technical
companies so slow to publish their research, that they've
got us all hopping about and shouting," says Waring.
When the Government announced large field trials last October, most
people understood that meant a greater acreage of crops
would be planted. Wrong again.
The first GM crops were planted in 1987. By 1992, they were un-netted
in the open air. Bees could fly freely in and out of the
crops. The plots were about the same size as the floor space of a
three-bedroom house. The acreage covered could be vast.
One man who knows how far GM research has gone is David Parker. For 30
years, he has worked with agri-chemical and
bio-technical companies carrying out trials on his 900-acre farm in
Oxfordshire. He sees research as his mission in life. "Why
else would God give me an inquiring mind and put me on a farm?" he
asked.
Parker has grown GM crops every year since 1996. Sipping beer in the
Carriers Arms, Watlington, he waits anxiously for a
protest march to arrive on his land and tells me that he is puzzled that
the public outcry had not happened sooner.
"The research is lessening. At 18 acres, this is a small trial. The
biggest was 27 acres in 1996. Every summer, conventional rape
and beehives have been dotted all around my GM crops. The bird or bee
has already flown," he says.
AgrEvo and the Government confirmed Parker's statement. The acreage
planted is smaller, but this is not in response to public
opinion.
In 1998, there were 300 trials, this year there were only 150. "We have
collected the data we need for various submission
packages to the regulators, so there is less call for trials," says a
spokesman for AgrEvo.
Bees all over Britain have been in and out of GM flowers for at least
seven years. We have probably already eaten honey
made from GM pollen. Does it matter?
The government agency that is responsible for safety standards and the
labelling of GM food says: "Consumption of gene
products from pollen in honey is likely to be negligible." In other
words, they do not know what the effect will be.
Honey must be clearly labelled. If a beekeeper knows his bees have been
foraging in GM crops and he does not label his
honey, he may be fined £5,000.
Parker suggests that genetic modification is to us what steam travel
was to the Victorians. "When George Stephenson
developed the Rocket, people said the human body could not withstand
speed in excess of 20mph. We always fear what we
do not understand."
A recent poll by Mori showed one per cent of consumers believe GM is a
good thing. The rest of us do not want organic crops
compromised or standards changed to allow GM foods, and we do not want
field trials on farmland.
Are our fears justified? Three years ago, Catherine Tulip, a solicitor,
resigned to fight for the abolition of GM. Last year, she
removed the crops on Parker's farm. I expected her to be well informed,
a mistress of the facts.
Not so. She knows there are 32 million hectares of GM crops growing
commercially worldwide, but she does not know the
extent of trials in Britain nor the nature of those on Parker's farm.
She expresses a deep human revulsion against man playing
God, but has little evidence on which to base her objections. None the
less, she is determined GM will stop.
Unlike America, where farming areas are huge and remote, Britain is a
small country where urban sprawl penetrates deep into
rural areas. None of us, especially the beekeepers, will rest easy until
the politicians come clean and make their research open.
* * * * * * * *
Pretty scary, huh?
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
"Civilization is protest against nature;
progress requires us to take control of evolution."
-- Thomas Huxley
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