Somerset County Council response to the DEFRA consultation document on proposals for managing the co-existence of conventional

Somerset County Council response to the DEFRA consultation document on proposals for managing the co-existence of conventional and organic crops October 2006

There is great concern in Somerset over the government’s intention to allow GM crops to be grown in the UK. The term GM is used rather ambiguously in the consultation document and Government Policy statements, the Council’s concerns relate to plants in which the genetic material has been altered in a way that does not occur naturally.

A large number of individuals and organisations attended a meeting of the Council’s Executive Board on 11^th October at which the Council’s policy position on GM crops was discussed in addition to the response to the DEFRA consultation. The public speakers included representatives from:

Yeo Valley Organics, a successful local organic dairy products producer
Friends of the Earth
The Castle Hotel, Taunton, a local hotel with an internationally renowned restaurant, which spends £300,000 a year on locally sourced food
Individuals who had worked in communities, especially concerned with rural poverty
A farmer and worker with the Bath and Wells Diocese

Written representations were received from:

Friends of the Earth
Bowerings Animal Feeds, Bridgwater
Somerset Wildlife Trust
Somerset Organic Link and Somerset Organic Link Producers
Somerset County Federation of Women’s Institutes
Keinton Mandeville Parish Council, which unanimously resolved to support the County Council's position on GM crops and would like this support passed on with regard to comments on the Government's GM consultation paper.

All public speakers and all of the written submissions expressed the strong and unanimous view that there should not be any GM crops grown in the UK. In considering the Council’s position on the commercial growing of GM crops in Somerset the special characteristics of the Somerset countryside and economy are important:

Somerset is a rural County with a national park, 3 areas of outstanding national beauty, 3 environmentally sensitive areas 126 site of special scientific interest, 11 national nature reserves and 19 local nature reserves
The total area of Somerset is 345,233 hectares, 269,371 hectares (78%) of which is under agricultural management employing a total of 14,000 people. Of the 269,371 hectares under management 59,000 hectares are used for the production of crops on 2079 holdings
38% of the total organic land area in England production is in the South West. In Somerset a total land area of 13,736 hectares is organic which is 14.3% of the organic land in the South West.
3000 hectares of organic land in Somerset is used for organic crops – this is 5% of the total crop area in Somerset
Somerset is home to 23% of all farmed bee colonies in the South West; there are 900 beekeepers producing about 120 tonnes of honey a year worth about £700,000

Councillors on the Executive Board were unanimous in their view that GM crops must not be grown in the UK. They also want the government to press for a change in current EU law to give legal recognition and protection to local areas that wish to remain GM free.

The Board agreed the following resolution:

1 to recommend Council to reiterate and extend its existing policy in respect of genetically modified (GM) crops, namely

(a) That the Council does not believe that GM crops should be grown.

(b) To require all new tenancy agreements for County Farms to contain a clause prohibiting the growth of GM crops.

(d) To ensure that all County Farm tenants be kept informed of the Council’s policies on genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

(e) To recommend that the Government adopts a ‘zero tolerance’ on labelling genetically modified foods.

2 that Portfolio Holders and Officers will engage with key interest groups, including Friends of the Earth and representatives of the farming community, to develop the Council’s response to the Government’s consultation paper on the management of the co-existence of GM, conventional and organic crops. This response will be dealt with under Portfolio Holder delegations.

The Council and local interested parties have given serious consideration to the detailed questions posed in the consultation document. The unanimous conclusion reached was that to respond in detail to questions, which were felt to be badly framed, poorly presented, biased and based on the assumption that GM crops will be grown in the UK, would be inappropriate. The Council’s stance on the development of GM crops in the UK is one of zero tolerance on co-existence in that there are no circumstances under which GM, non-GM and organic crops can be grown together. The following general points however were felt to be important in relation to the consultation document:

The idea that any level of GM contamination of conventional, crops, organic crops and the food chain is unacceptable
The development of GM crops presents a major threat to organic farming which is an important and growing industry in Somerset and one which DEFRA itself promotes
Honey production, another important Somerset industry, is threatened by GM crops as there is no way that any coexistence measures will prevent the contamination of honey with GM pollen
The rights of gardeners and allotment holders to grow their own GM free produce have been completely ignored in the consultation and dismissed as unimportant

The Council is also very disappointed that in launching this consultation on coexistence the government has chosen to ignore the results of its own national debate on GM which found that

“There is little support for the early commercialisation of GM crops. Among active participants in the debate just over half never want to see GM crops grown in the United Kingdom under any circumstances. Almost all the remainder want at least one new condition to be satisfied before this happens. They seek varying periods of delay so that new information, tests or research can identify and eliminate, or at least reduce to an acceptable level, the potential risks to the environment and human health.”

We look forward to the government’s response to these comments and trust that the overwhelming wish of the UK public, that GM crops have no place in British agriculture, is acted upon by the government.

Councillor Jim Mochnacz

Portfolio holder for Community Safety

Somerset County Council

On behalf of the County Council