GMO Crop liability issues

1. We perceive that safety and environmental impact issues (and what bodies like AEBC call environmental liability issues) are issues dealt with by the regulatory approval process of GM crops.  All residual liability issues (including what some parties incorrectly call environmental liability) relate to economic and marketing issues only – see below and attached paper on Co-existence in the UK.
    

2. Four key words summarise the co-existence and economic/marketing liability topic – context, proportionality, consistency and equity.  These are examined in more detail below.
    

3. Context.  GM trial crops, including the Farm Scale Evaluations (FSEs) have co-existed with conventional and organic crops without economic and commercial problems – no conventional or organic crops near to GM crops have found any adventitious presence of GMOs.  For the future, the likelihood of economic and commercial problems of co-existence arising remains very limited, even if there is a significant development of commercial GM crops and increased plantings of organic crops because:

• the GM traits being commercialised in the next few years are in crops for which there is limited demand for non GM material (with the possible exception of sugar beet);
   

• the organic areas of the three key crops (oilseed rape, sugar beet and forage maize) are extremely small (only 0.24% of the area planted to these crops in the UK); 
   

• The organic area of these crops (and other combinable crops) is likely to continue to be a very small part of the total arable crop areas (even if there was a tenfold increase in plantings), with a very limited economic contribution relative to the rest of the UK arable crops.  The likelihood of these (organic) areas expanding is limited due to a combination of adverse agronomic factors (eg, a need for sites with few weed problems and the nutrient demanding nature of crops like oilseed rape), limited demand, and market preference for competing (imported) produce (eg, cane sugar);
   

• The possibility of gene transfer to related wild and other crop species from any of the GM crops is extremely low[1]- this is also an issue examined before regulatory approval is given;
   

• UK arable farmers have been successfully growing specialist crops (eg, seed production, high erucic acid oilseed rape) for many years, near to other crops of the same species, without compromising the high purity levels required;
   

• some changes to farming practices on some farms may be required once GM crops are commercialised.  This will however, only apply where GM crops are located near non GM or organic crops for which the non GM status of the crop is important (eg, where buyers do not wish to label products as being GM or derived from GM according EU labelling regulations).  These changes are likely to focus on the use of separation distances and buffer crops (of non GM crops) between the GM crops and the ‘vulnerable’ non GM/organic crop and the application of good husbandry (weed control) practices.  GM crop planting farmers in the FSEs already adopt these practices as part of applying the SCIMAC guidelines for growing GM crops in the UK and would be provided with ‘GM crop stewardship programmes’ by seed suppliers, post commercialisation[2].  Few GM planting farmers are however, likely to find themselves located near to ‘vulnerable’ non GM/organic crops and hence the need to apply all of these guidelines rigorously may not be necessary.  For example, if a farmer planted GM forage maize next to a non GM forage maize crop and the non GM forage maize was fed to dairy cows whose milk produce was sold into markets where the buyers were indifferent to the GM or non GM status of the feeding regimes used.

4. Consistency.  The organic sector currently applies inconsistencies to GMOs and other ‘unwanted’ materials in organic products.  It should apply the same testing principles and thresholds currently applied to GMOs to impurities (eg, introduce a de minimis threshold on pesticide residues and apply a 0.1% threshold on the limit for acceptance of all unwanted materials and impurities).  It should also accept that if it/they wish to retain policies towards GMOs that advocate farming practices that go beyond those recommended for GMO crop stewardship (eg, buffer crops and separation distances that are more stringent than those considered to be reasonable to meet the EU labelling and traceability regulations), then the onus for implementation of such measures (and associated cost) should fall on the organic certification bodies and their members in the same way as current organic farmers incur costs associated with adhering to organic principles and are rewarded through the receipt of organic price premia. 
    

5. Proportionality (and equity).  If highly onerous GM crop stewardship conditions are applied to all farms[3] that might wish to grow GM crops, even though the vast majority of such crops would not be located near to organic-equivalent crops or conventional crops for which the non GM status is important, this would be disproportionate and inequitable.  In effect, conventional farmers, who account for 99.76% of the current, relevant UK arable crop farming area could be discouraged from adopting a new technology, that is likely to deliver farm level benefits (yield gains, cost savings) and provide wider environmental gains (reduced pesticide use, switches to more environmentally benign herbicides, reduced levels of greenhouse gas emissions).
    

6. Equity.  It is important to recognise that if legislation was to be introduced that placed a possible liability on GM using farmers for possible economic/marketing impact on non GM farmers, then it can reasonably be argued that, on equity grounds, the same principles should apply to non GM (including organic) farmers, whose activities might have an adverse impact on GM crop producers.  For example, the hypothetical scenario of a farmer growing a crop with a GM quality trait that loses its (quality trait) price premia because of adventitious presence of non GM material above an agreed threshold.  Alternatively the possible example of an organic potato farmer who suffers a blight attack (mainly because of the much higher risks of infection in an organic system compared to a conventional production system) and this spreads to adjacent conventional farms, causing yield losses and/or the need to apply additional sprays to curb the disease.  
    
7. Additional points:

• In most markets for agricultural produce, the burden of costs associated with maintaining the integrity of a product or ‘preserving its identity’ falls on the sector that produces that product and which is seeking to benefit from its production.  For example, producers of quality assured or regional produce, organic produce, quality trait crops (eg, high erucic acid oilseed rape, high oil maize, malting barley, bread-making quality wheat, basmati rice).  In all these cases, the respective products tend to trade at a premium to the majority of produce traded and this premia provides the incentive to initiate actions to preserve integrity and identity.  This potential allocation of the burden of costs is referred to in the Commission’s Communication on co-existence of GM, conventional and organic crops (2003)[4];
   

• There is currently no legally enforceable de minimis threshold for the adventitious presence of GMOs in organic products, below the ‘generally applicable’ 0.9% threshold introduced in recent EU labelling legislation.  EU organic regulations allow for the setting of such a de minimis threshold but one has never been set or proposed.

PG Economics

24 February 2004

[1] For example, the FSEs found no evidence for the transfer of the herbicide tolerance gene from GM oilseed rape to common wild relatives

[2] 60% of farmers in the FSEs indicated that the SCIMAC audit procedures were are in line with requirements in other farm assurance schemes (Pearsall 2003)

[3] For example the setting of substantial separation distances between GM crops and any conventionally grown equivalent

[4] Page 5

Co-existence of GM and non GM crops: economic and market perspectives - PDF format

Co-existence of GM and non GM crops: case study of maize grown in Spain - PDF format

Co-existence of GM and non GM crops in the UK can occur without problems - PDF format