AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT BIOTECHNOLOGY COMMISSION
EIGHTEENTH COMMISSION MEETING
7-8 MAY 2003
THE MANCHESTER CONFERENCE CENTRE
UMIST, SACKVILLE STREET
Members
Professor Malcolm Grant (Chair)
Ms Julie Hill (Deputy Chair)
Ms Helen Browning
Dr Dave Carmichael
Professor Phil Dale
Dr Ed Dart
Dr Matthew Freeman
Mr John Gilliland
Professor Robin Grove-White
Ms Judith Hann
Dr Derek Langslow
Professor Jeff Maxwell
Dr Sue Mayer
Dr Paul Rylott
Ms Justine Thornton
Secretariat
Mr Richard Abel
Mr Andrea Bovolenta
Mrs Laura McMahon
Mr Pat Wilson
THE MEETING WAS CONDUCTED IN PUBLIC
SESSION
Apologies for Absence
1. Apologies had been received from
Ms Anna Bradley, Dr David Buckeridge, Ms ChiChi Iweajunwa and Dr Roger Turner.
Introductory matters
2. The Chair opened the meeting by welcoming members of the public who
had come to observe the Commission’s proceedings. Professor Grant
particularly welcomed Dr Paul Rylott, who along with Dr David Buckeridge had
recently joined the Commission. The Chair reported that the bio-ethicist and
agricultural economist appointments would be re-advertised, to cast the net
more widely to invite applications from economists and philosophers.
Minutes of the Previous Meeting
3. The Chair said that the secretariat had taken on board Members’
comments on the minutes of the 4 April meeting. The Commission confirmed the minutes as a correct record
and agreed to their being posted on the AEBC website as such.
Matters of
Report
7. Dr Rosie Hails said that the ACRE working group - on which she had
been co-opted - to review the GM inspection and enforcement regime had now
completed its report, which would be submitted to Ministers as part of a
wider review of inspection regimes undertaken by Defra. The report contained
material that could be drawn on to inform the AEBC report, for example on
sampling errors and limits of detectability.
The report would be sent to Members when it was published.
8. Rosie Hails also told Members that the report of the Defra sponsored
desk study – a review of research into the environmental and socio-
economic impacts of contemporary and alternative arable cropping systems -
was in its final stages, and that Defra hoped to publish it in the next few
weeks. The report would be sent
to all Members when published, so that the AEBC could consider whether to
suggest to Defra some areas where further research work seemed needed.
9. Julie Hill reported that the 10 July AEBC meeting might provide an
opportunity to bring the three strands of the public debate together, if
there were some early outputs from the science review and economics study by
then. Details had not been
worked out and views were still being canvassed. Members agreed that it was
an interesting idea to explore further.
Action:
secretariat
10.
Malcolm Grant introduced the main item of business by thanking
Elizabeth Hopkins for her hard work in drafting the report and highlighting
the issues which were yet to be resolved.
The Commission discussions would focus particularly on two aspects:
(1) the substance of the recommendations in the draft report and the quality
of the supporting evidence and arguments for the recommendations, and (2)
deciding how to deal with issues unresolved from previous AEBC discussions.
12.
In initial discussions on the context and scope of the report, some
Members identified three key points as needing clarification and more
detail: the proposals for thresholds and organic agriculture, the
practicability and enforceability of the protocols, and the lack of emphasis
on environmental liability issues. They considered the tone of the report might need
changing to make explicit the contentious nature of the report, and to be
more cautious in approach.
13.
Some Members were glad that the draft report had been set in the
context of Europe and the rest of the world. Members agreed that the report should set out the broad
context in which Government needed to take decisions on GM technology, and
should include more about the wider issues, including the future of rural
economies, the future direction of UK agriculture, with reference to the
Curry Commission and to Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform.
It would include material about the nature of choice.
This would set the scene to allow political understanding of the
choices to be made.
Protocols
14. Members discussed protocols, and in particular what they could
achieve, whether they seemed to be the way ahead, the link between protocols
and liability, the enforcement of protocols, economic redress, and the
potential role of insurance.
15.
Oilseed rape would be the hardest of current crops to keep within
thresholds for adventitious presence, though protocols worked effectively
for separating high erucic acid (HEAR) oilseed rape, which is poisonous, and
oilseed rape for consumption. The
culture of using protocols seemed to be widespread in agriculture.
A number of Members considered that protocols were the only feasible
option, and that a threshold of 0.1% was meaningful and likely to remain so
because of inevitable sampling errors.
Members agreed that further consideration of several aspects was
needed, in developing the report, on how/ whether protocols might be adapted
to give confidence for achieving coexistence, for example on how an
inspection and enforcement regime would be work and be funded, on what might
be learnt from other regimes eg for pesticides, and how compliance with
protocols would link in with setting liability.
These would be developed in the next draft of the report.
16.
For protocols, three particular questions were: (1) who should
design them and what to include, (2) what would enhance delivery of
adventitious presence below the threshold and (3) what to do if it would be
difficult to deliver adventitious presence below the threshold.
Conditions might be applied to protocols, so that compliance became a
condition for access to GM seeds. There
might be a link to general assurance schemes, and there would need to be
clear consequences of non-compliance where there was adventitious presence
(AP) over the threshold. These
aspects would be developed in the next draft of the report.
Action:
Elizabeth Hopkins with Members
17. In discussing
insurance, some Members considered that if the rules were clear, an
extension of public liability insurance might have a useful role. This
would be developed in the next draft of the report.
18.
There was brief discussion of whether tribunals might have a role
– this would also be included in the next draft.
19. Discussing an industry fund, some Members felt that a fund would not
ensure that people took responsibility – it might encourage complacency,
and encourage people to misuse the system.
It was not clear who should contribute.
The liability group had discussed strict liability at some length and
had concluded that setting up strict liability could in effect close down
the plant breeding industry. Strict
liability was a punitive regime, normally applied if things were inherently
dangerous, whereas any commercial GM crops would have require Part C
Consents - which include
approval on safety grounds.
20.
Discussion was
adjourned for further consideration the following morning, after the
evening’s public seminar of discussions with Professor Gordon Conway and
Dr Suman Sahai.
Discussions on
Thursday 8 May at 9.00am
21.
The aim of these discussions was to focus on the key recommendations
for the AEBC’s report, and in particular further discussion on economic
redress, protocols, environmental liability and the process for taking the
report forward after the meeting.
22. Members had further discussions on two models of protocol: one where
the industry was in the lead, and the other with statutory protocols.
Once set up, the protocols would have to be enforced and policed. Members agreed that it would be useful to have a system
that could be reviewed in the light of experience. Some members emphasised that there had to be
compensation available if protocols had been adhered to and if, despite
this, thresholds for AP were breached.
23.
Introduction of GM growing would probably be on a small scale
initially. Some Members thought
that after a few years the scale of any issues would become clearer, and
that for a transitional period there might be a levy eg on farmers, industry
and/or consumers, or money from Government and industry to fund redress/
compensation for the relatively few cases where it might be needed.
24. Some Members said that environmental impacts might well be indirect and take a long time to emerge – for GM as for other systems - and there was a general need to start valuing external costs and benefits of all agricultural systems. The aim should be to move to a system based on outcomes, though there were real problems in valuing biodiversity and environmental capital, and in rewarding or penalising as seemed appropriate.
25.
Rosie Hails offered to check what the ACRE sub-group on post
commercialisation monitoring were recommending. The AEBC report would include an accurate account of
what the law does and its shortfalls. Some
members felt it important to make clear the nature of the harms that legal
provisions can address, and the limitations of a system.
A liability regime only really had anything to offer for catastrophic
events where damage happened quickly, and would not deal with damage
emerging gradually over time. The
report should explain in clearer, starker terms that whatever the regime,
things could go wrong – with adverse environmental consequences.
26.
Some Members considered that the AEBC should recommend increased
scope for the European environmental liability draft Directive, to extend
its coverage to wider geographical areas, and with an extension of strict
liability. This should be
alongside a fund - for industry to take more responsibility for harm - and
monitoring which would have to be open-minded to see unexpected outcomes.
27.
Some Members suggested that if industry set up a serious,
independent foundation, with substantial financial resources, this could be
an innovative and valuable symbol of moving forwards together.
This might have a role on the lines of the Rockefeller Foundation,
which Professor Conway had described the previous evening.
Members discussed what the role of such a body might be, and a number
of Members would support the idea, though not as a pre-requisite for
commercialisation.
28.
A number of Members did not see how an industry fund for
compensation or remediation could work in practice.
Some Members emphasised the importance of symmetry and consistency in
law. Members agreed that the
two aspects in a possible foundation: research and compensation, would need
to be clarified, and noted that there would be costs and benefits of the
approach, since it would not be ‘free’ money.
Next steps
29.
Elizabeth Hopkins would write a further draft of the report on
coexistence and responsibility, with the input she needed from Members and
the secretariat. The
secretariat would circulate this revised draft to Members on 27 May.
After that, the aim would be to clear points by circulation as far as
possible, with the option of having an extra meeting if any Member felt one
was needed.
30.
There was no other business. The
Commission meeting closed with a reflective discussion among Members, which
was not open to the public. Aspects discussed included what the Commission had
achieved to date and lessons learned for future work.
AEBC Secretariat
June 2003
AGRICULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT BIOTECHNOLOGY COMMISSION
EVENING PUBLIC LECTURE
THE RENOLD BUILDING, UMIST, SACKVILLE STREET, MANCHESTER
7 MAY 2003
1.
Professor Grant welcomed Professor Gordon Conway, President of the
Rockefeller Foundation and Dr Suman Sahai, Convenor of Gene Campaign India. On behalf of the AEBC he expressed his gratitude that
Professor Conway and Dr Sahai had agreed to lead the evening’s discussions at
this public event on the vitally important subject of GM technology and the
developing world. The Government
were sponsoring a major GM Public Debate in the UK during the summer, and he was
Chair of the independent Steering Board for that debate.
He was delighted to welcome the two distinguished speakers with their
differing perspectives.
2. Gordon Conway opened by stating
that the GM Public Debate, which would be launched in June, was to be welcomed,
an innovative idea which would be a model for other countries to invite public
participation in areas of national importance. The Rockefeller Foundation was
independent and was not beholden to business or Government. Professor Conway
said that the organisation was not interested in biotechnology per se,
but was interested in food poverty and the green revolution – the interest in
GM arose if biotechnology helped further the goal of reducing hunger, and in
ways that were effective, affordable and safe.
3. The impact of the debate in the UK
and the rest of Europe was of key significance in Africa, and Professor Conway
went on to say that developed countries should not create a political climate
which precluded poor countries from making their own decisions - for example
trade had an inbuilt bias against developing countries.
Countries needed to be able to make their decisions without pressures
from companies, Governments or NGOs. His
foundation and others should help for example in developing biosafety and in
training plant breeders to acquire biotechnology know-how if they wanted it.
4. There were approximately 200
million chronically undernourished people in Africa, 65% of African women of
childbearing age were anaemic, and with falling food production these statistics
were likely to become worse. Though the Green Revolution had brought some
problems of its own, such as reliance on pesticides, it had largely bypassed
Africa – it was particularly relevant in the Philippines and India for
example. Average yield in Africa
was falling – and was only around 1 ton/hectare in Africa, compared with 3
tons/hectare in Asia. Many of the
problems were intractable to conventional plant breeding.
There was potential for biotechnology to solve these problems, for
example developments in molecular and cellular biology such as tissue cultured
bananas had been successful in East Africa and there had been some successes
with GM cotton in South Africa. African
plant breeders needed help to achieve sustainable agriculture, and help with new
crop varieties. Biotechnology was
one tool in the toolkit, alongside the other tools of tissue culture and
marker-aided selection.
5. Professor Conway argued that if
biotechnology was to be helpful in reducing and assisting development, the
current barriers which were preventing this needed to be broken down. He added
that market issues and the advancement of intellectual property rules seemed to
inhibit biotechnological innovation for poor people, with corporations lacking
the incentive to develop new products which would improve the basic crops of the
developing world. The green revolution was based on the free distribution of
goods, and it was vital that public/private partnerships were created to ensure
that new technologies could be transferred to developing countries – the
corporations were not interested in ‘poor goods’, or products mainly be used
by subsistence African farmers for example.
6. Professor Conway urged
stakeholders and participants in the European debate on GMOs to keep an open
mind and allow developing countries to take their own decisions on the use of
biotechnology without pressure from outside vested interest groups.
7. Dr Sahai echoed the comments of
Professor Conway by welcoming the GM debate in the UK which she said was a
credible attempt at inclusive policy making and highlighted the far reaching
consequences European GM policy has on the developing world. There was no debate
on GM policy in India and Dr Sahai urged that European policy makers ensure a
balanced debate leading to a responsible decision making process and contrasted
this with the situation in the United States, with vested interests dominating
the scene.
8. Unlike Professor Conway, Dr Sahai
did not feel that developing countries were going down the GM agriculture route
– a vastly improved regulatory capacity was needed in developing countries.
Although India was developing Bt rice[1],
some Indian states did not have advisory committees in place to oversee
development and it was imperative that GM development was halted until this
regulatory capacity was built up. As a precursor to this development there
should be a discussion about the goals of agricultural biotechnology and who
would benefit from its use. Dr Sahai said this should be a balanced discussion,
made relevant to the developing world and directed to its real problems. In
discussion Suman Sahai advocated the need for the creation of ‘public
goods’, a fair and equitable intellectual property rights regime and the
transfer of technology for small-scale farmers. She considered that the World
Trade Organisation Agreement on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights (TRIPS) was hindering public-good agricultural research and
development.
9. Factors for developing countries
included:
understanding public perception
public awareness generation
setting appropriate research
agendas
policy on centres of origin/
diversity
vastly improving regulatory
capacity – including monitoring and evaluation
10. Agricultural-biotechnology
was not feeding the world, nor would it, and in a scaled-down approach, directed
to real problems, GM should be seen as one of many tools.
The potential of the technology was not currently visible, but what might
make it relevant was:
creation of public goods (needing
public money);
just and equitable IPR regimes,
with or without GM;
technology which addressed the
needs of small farmers for food and livelihood security.
11. The
speakers joined in discussions with the audience of members of the public and of
the AEBC. Some main points covered
included:
· The balance of public funding remained an important issue – and had been one for a number of decades. Public private partnerships might be key, and for example the green revolution was based on free or cheap distribution of seeds. Partnerships were difficult to negotiate – and there had to be a benefit to both parties.
·
There
were major issues over intellectual property rights, which could skew the
allocation of resources and reduce scope for a holistic approach to agriculture.
· For countries outside Europe, there might not be the need to replicate health assessments done in other countries, because of the likelihood of similar outcomes, but the key issues were environmental. Centres of diversity were key, and regional centres were probably needed eg in West Africa, East Africa and South Africa.
· GM was part of a shift in power – with companies such as Cargill, supermarket groups, EU, Governments and WTO being key players in the big picture.
12. In closing, Malcolm Grant thanked both the speakers and members of the public for the very worthwhile evening’s discussions.
[1] Bt is Bacillus thuringiensis – a soil bacterium that produces toxins that are deadly to some insects
