Note by the secretary
1 Since the last Commission meeting the consumer choice sub-group has held a technical workshop at the Central Science Laboratory in York, involving industry, agronomists and those involved in testing for GM. The sub-group has met once since then to discuss the shape of its work.
2 Since the last meeting, too, political agreement has been reached in the EU Agriculture Council on the Food and Feed regulations (details were circulated earlier to Members). The Council inter alia set a new threshold of 0.9% (compared with 1% at present) for adventitious presence of GM material requiring labelling of food and feed. The revised proposals will now be subject to a second reading in the European Parliament. The related traceability and labelling regulations are due to be discussed at the Environment Council meeting on 9/10 December.
3 The attached outline structure of a report prepared by the secretariat is intended to show the direction that the sub-group has set for the workstream and the areas the advice from the AEBC would be intended to cover. With the draft outline report structure as background, the group would welcome a discussion with Commission members on the following specific points:
4 The group plans to hold a stakeholder seminar in due course. The group is also considering testing out draft scenarios/recommendations with citizens/consumers through social research or through the GM public debate.
5 I should point out to members that the diversion of secretariat resources to support the GM public debate steering board has meant a corresponding decreased secretariat effort in support of this workstream. The addition of an additional member of staff in the secretariat in the New Year will help to redress this.
AEBC secretariat
December 2002
CONTENTS
PART 1 Introduction
Part 1 of the report would be relatively brief, setting out the implications of assumptions about consumer desires as reflected in the EC regulations for the possible use of GM crops in UK farming.
1.1 Factors in consumers' decision-making
To set the scene, a summary analysis of main factors in consumer decision-making. Disparities between intentions and buying decisions. Consumers making trade-offs more generally and what this might indicate for possible GM crop commercialisation in the UK. (Note that people are both consumers and citizens.)
1.2 Implications for agriculture of delivering choice to consumers on GM
Co-existence of GM with non-GM farming in the UK is a consumer choice issue because of the implications for producing crops in the UK of the thresholds set in Europe for labelling of products as GM – if adventitious presence (AP) content is under 1% (0.9% or possibly 0.5% in future) no labelling is required, if over, labelling and traceability required. Also, for some consumers, there is the particular issue of organic production in the UK (organic industry-determined ‘zero’ threshold) and GM. Imported food a matter for Food Standards Agency – the AEBC report would focus on implications for UK agriculture of the EC regulations, albeit taking account of the broader context.
PART 2 Thresholds
Following on from part 1, this part would look at AP thresholds, which are predicated on allowing consumers to choose between GM and non-GM produce.
2.1 Legislation and practice
Include brief background to the present and proposed regulations. Include seed legislation (and any statement of UK Government position) and development of AP thresholds for seed in Europe.
Focus on the implications for farmers’ practices of the thresholds and scope of present proposals. Draw on House of Lords Committee report in this area and UK Government evidence to the Committee. Compare situation overseas. Look at implications of the proposed thresholds for UK farming (link to scenarios in part 4). Include description of existing positions on thresholds of UK retailers and organic farming.
Less directly, GM farming may have agronomic implications for non-GM farming that could affect consumer choice, for instance use of additional pesticides for control of GM volunteers (English Nature line). Is this a significant issue? Canadian experience on HT gene stacking in canola; Canadian Wheat Board on possible problems of HT volunteers in wheat may be relevant. On the other hand, what of overall pesticide use – including claims that GM HT crops if managed properly will result in considerable reduction in pesticide use: so no commercialisation could equally be said to be denying consumers the chance to purchase crops on which much less pesticides were being used.
2.2 Technical and practical limits
First, describe the technical limits of detectability (testing). Second, practical issues of keeping material separate on the farm (and elsewhere in the agricultural supply chain, working back to show the implications for practices on the farm). General discussion about effects of volunteers, outcrossing and seed spillage/mixing on maintaining threshholds – with the practical limits for individual crops covered in part 3 of the report.
Technical detectability limits: at present figures of x, y and z achievable (differs for different crops) but accuracy depends on available primers (i.e. knowing what you’re looking for); sample size; sampling regime (i.e. which part of the field/batch); testing methodology; performance standards of the lab; narrow time window for testing oil seed rape (draw on information gained from York technical workshop).
2.3 Enforcement and assurance
Alongside the technical limits, explore general issues around what sort of enforcement on the farm and elsewhere in the supply chain would be required under conditions of possible GM crop commercialisation.
Detectability must also depend on the overall monitoring regime – how often, by whom, who pays – adequacy of monitoring likely to be scrutinised closely by NGOs and others and perhaps more widely, credibility of any regime will depend in part on implementation. Who monitors and how? Voluntary arrangements? Retailers or suppliers to 'police' it through a combination of IP/testing? [There is a link here to forthcoming work by ACRE on GM inspection and enforcement] Specific issues under this heading would be covered in the possible scenarios for co-existence.
2.4 Scope
Implications for farming of introducing traceability and labelling requirements to new categories of products, particularly highly refined products derived from GM crops and other materials. Will this effect what farmers choose to grow? What implications for co-existence in the UK might the scope of new regulations have? Will the costs fall to farmers or consumers or elsewhere?
PART 3 Crop life cycles
What would be the prospects for different crops for keeping within the 1% (0.9%) threshold between farms or on the same farm? Or at 0.1% or ‘zero’? This section would look at a range of crop life-cycles to show where the pressure points are to inform the possible co-existence scenarios in part 4.
Include a matrix of
crop life cycles and critical control points for:
In each case, the lifecycle should show (in matrix and diagrams) how the crop is grown, harvested and handled on the farm - and then the implications for farming of handling elsewhere in the supply chain through to processing and manufacture of the final product, showing critical control points for maintaining separation between GM and non-GM material. Consider separately biological characteristics and agronomic issues. Also, whether non-food crops (non-pharmaceutical) crops could reasonably be treated differently in respect of co-existence.
Structure the discussion around three main lifecycle issues for co-existence on the farm:
· geneflow
· volunteers
· seed spillage
Include discussion of geneflow including gene-stacking in relation to on-farm management only, to keep the report focussed on co-existence. One of the main messages from technical workshop was that geneflow from pollen transfer would not be generally the main determinant of successful co-existence on the farm.
Consider at which points in each life cycle one would test for GM presence. Volunteer populations of GM crops (likely to apply only to oil seed rape; most likely through seed spillage but also through cross-pollination with conventional varieties) will complicate models of levels of presence of GM, and could cause very local ‘peaks’ of adventitious presence. (cf. Edinburgh AEBC evidence session; also in York.)
Adventitious presence of GM seed in non-GM seed could also be a complication – cf. English Nature response to DEFRA consultation: ‘at the allowable limit of 0.3% adventitious presence, up to 10,000 GM seeds per hectare could be inadvertently sown’. But proposed thresholds a very serious concern for (conventional and GM) seed-producers and for experimental seed production. Also, farmer-saved seed could multiply-up the ‘problem’ (evidence at York). How much seed comes from abroad and how much is home produced? There are issues around the sampling of seeds to give a meaningful result (evidence at York): could require a large volume of material to be tested for some possible future crops e.g. potatoes.
Adventitious presence of non-authorised GM in authorised GM seed also an issue for English Nature because of potential for novel combinations – see response to DEFRA consultation – but more a possible environmental than consumer choice/co-existence issue?
PART 4 Potential for co-existence in UK farming
This section would consider some scenarios for possible co-existence of GM/organic/non-GM non-organic cultivation, building up some general scenarios for possible co-existence (or not) which would then need to be populated in respect of different crops, building on the discussion about the crops included in the crop lifecycle matrix.
The discussion of the scenarios should cover how agricultural practices might be adapted; what opportunities might exist and costs arise; and where costs would fall. Scenarios should be seen against a broader background of implications for land-use. The scenarios must be explicit about trade-offs for farming and for consumers, and look at the difficulties in achieving co-existence under each option – the difficulties should not be glossed over and the economic implications brought out fully (there may be scope on the latter to draw here on the work of the GM dialogue economics study).
Starting with the organic/GM co-existence, there is a particular issue for consumer choice because of the organic standards ‘zero tolerance’ policy. ‘Zero’ limit logically impossible to verify – can’t know whether GM is absent or simply has not shown up in tests. Would accepting in a possible post-commercialisation scenario a ‘zero’ threshold, combined with increasing organic cultivation, amount to a de facto ban on growing certain GM crops?
All of the same issues with adventitious presence and detectability apply to conventional non-GM agriculture, although perhaps less acutely.
To achieve nothing detectable, models suggest large distances needed between crops – how much and for which crops? (Joe Perry, Jan Ingram). Modelling also suggests field patterns could be important, with organic farms surrounded by GM likely to have most introgression (Joe Perry). Implications of introgression? Cross-pollination not the only issue.
List some possible GM/organic co-existence scenarios:
- Accept ‘zero’ or 0.1% threshold and allow greater separation distances – but can’t leave large areas fallow, so:
- Buffer zones of non-GM crops between the GM and the organic - but if foods they would still be subject to labelling thresholds. So confine buffer zones to non-food crops?
- Regional zoning of GM/organic crops (problems: the wish of farmers to be ‘free to farm’ whatever crops they believe they should produce; still need buffer zones at borders; volunteers from long-distance transport of seed; monitoring for unauthorised growing within the ‘GM-free’ zone; industry will argue that it stigmatises GM without justification). Seems unlikely to be a popular option with farmers.
- Relaxation of organic standards (in which case will face same issues as growers of non-GM crops of keeping within thresholds). EU organic production legislation provides for a threshold for AP of GM in organic food, though not provided for in law yet. Seems highly unlikely that organic producers will relax threshold in foreseeable future.
- Don’t commercialise GM crops – will then only to have to deal with adventitious presence in seed.
- Rely on local agreements between farmers, using the SCIMAC separation distances and code of practice, with perhaps another body (drawn from NFU/organic certification bodies?) asked to mediate locally in cases of serious dispute? Include discussion of the North Essex seed zoning scheme in this scenario.
- Seeking consensus (voluntary) among interested parties to a phased introduction of GM crops, starting perhaps with crops which pose fewer co-existence difficulties, with a post-commercialisation monitoring regime to build confidence among producers and that co-existence was working.
These framework scenarios then need to be populated by individual crops – different scenarios could work for different crops.
Could these then be narrowed down to what looks like the most realistic solutions? Is it realistic to achieve a consensus among farmers/the public on a way forward? A possible general recommendation could be that there will need to be wide acceptance of whatever way forward is chosen on co-existence. (These points apply equally to coexistence of GM and conventional non-GM production.)
Key issues for any co-existence regime are:
Need to include link in report to AEBC liability work, because some people see a liability regime requiring organic/non-GM farmers to be compensated for economic loss resulting from AP of GM material. Others believe firmly that there should be no such compensation provision (through law or other mechanism).
Similar set of scenarios to organic though possible differences in separation distances ‘required’, less the organic standards issue (but the UK supermarkets’ sourcing standards - will they be at 0.1%? – are likely to be relevant. (Secretary to have discussion with retailers to discuss further)
Another option would be for Government to press for higher EU AP thresholds (too late for food and feed, but for seeds?)
Co-existence of non-GM crops with GM crops producing therapeutic substances
Perhaps more a safety than consumer choice issue, but likely to cause concern. Not a major issue yet in UK but is an emerging debate in U.S.A. Probably would want effectively zero presence in food. Could recommend that a) therapeutic substances never put into food crops and/or crops that cross-pollinate or b) GM therapeutics never grown near food crops or c) adequate containment measures put in place including/or d) use of ‘terminator’ technology. Should draw on best-practice guidance ACRE has given on this already and what can practicably be achieved by plant-breeders now.
Growing of unauthorised varieties (i.e. deliberately growing a crop with Part B consent only – different to adventitious presence)
Could affect consumer choice because GM presence might not be reflected on labels: and after proposed three year transition period, how could a ‘zero’ threshold for unauthorised varieties work? Possible small level of presence of GM from Part B trial sites (do FSEs give a model for handling this?) How likely is this to happen though? ACRE should have a view.
