Cari tutti,
come forse sapete gia' e' emerso ieri che, per errore, migliaia di
ettari sono stati seminati con semi transgenici in UK.
[articolo dal sito del Guardian sotto)
Mi sembra un esempio, di come la teoria diverga dalla pratica in tema di
biosafety. I semi sono indistinguibili e i prodotti pure.
Tenerli separati non e' facile in paesi sviluppati.
si puo' ipotizzare che sarebbe estremamente difficile in paesi in via di
sviluppo.
Saluti
Alessandro Gimona
[dal sito del Guardian http;//www.guardian.co.uk]
Thousands of acres of crops tainted by
GM
pollen have been growing in Britain for
more
than a year and may have been
used
in food production, the government
admitted last night in a move that is highly
embarrassing for its scientific advisers,
who
had previously claimed there was
little
risk of cross-pollination with
conventional crops.
Hundreds of farmers have unwittingly
planted the contaminated seed over two
spring
seasons without the safeguards
used
for GM field trials, but ministers,
whose
officials had known about the
pr
no
risk to health or the environment.
The
seeds came from the Canadian
prairies, from plants that were growing
more
than 800 metres away from the
nearest GM varieties but still picked up
traces
of modified material.
The
tainted seed is thought to have been
used
on 9,000 hectares last year, nearly
2% of
the rape crop. This year it has
probably been used on 4,700 hectares,
involving between 500 and 600 farmers.
It
also emerged that there had been no
random
testing of imports of conventional
seed
for rogue GM material, despite the
rapid
spread of GM crops through the
United
States, Canada and Brazil. In this
country no GM seeds are to be sold to
farmers until after three years of farm trials
to
test their impact on the environment
and
wildlife.
Opposition parties immediately
condemned ministers for the lack of
proper
controls on seeds, and for the
delay
and the low key announcement,
made
through a parliamentary written
answer. The Liberal Democrats'
environment spokesman, David Heath,
said
the delay and the manner in which
the
government announcement had been
made
was deeply disturbing. "It is another
example of the contempt in which the
government holds the British public," he
said.
The
Tory spokesman, Tim Yeo, accused
the
government of a "willingness to allow
commercial considerations to override the
need
to protect the British environment".
The
latest embarrassment came a day
after
it emerged tha
might
have been contaminated by pollen
from
GM trials.
The
seeds discovery was made during
testing of imported seeds by the German
state
of Baden-Wurttemberg. The
international company responsible,
Advanta Seeds, was informed by one of
its
customers in the state. Its British arm
was
told on April 3, and took steps to
stop
further sales while it began its own
testing; this revealed a GM presence of up
to 1%
in seeds grown in 1998 and sold
over
the past two years.
The
company told government officials on
April
17. It was worried because the GM
oilseed rape which tainted the
conventional seed had no commercial
licences for sales to farmers in Europe,
but it
could not inform its distributors or
until the government acted.
"We
are absolutely dismayed," said Mike
Ruthven, general manager of Advanta
Seeds
UK. "We are very concerned for
consumers, because of the sensitivity of
these
things. We believe we are
extremely responsible and we are
gobsmacked that this has happened with
an
orthodox crop."
He
said the advice from the government
so far
was that no regulation had been
broken, and there was no threat to health
or the
environment - "although we have
had
some difficulty in getting those
statements".
The
1999 seed crop had not been
contaminated because the company had
by
then moved its seed growing from
Alberta, Canada, to Ontario in eastern
Canada, Montana in the US, and New
Zealand.
Oilseed rape is used in foods such as
margarine and in industrial processes, but
the GM
material that has been available
from
abroad was passed as safe by
government advisers several years ago.
The
seed is also thought to have been
used
on 600 hectares in France, 500 in
Sweden
and 400 in Germany, causing
international embarrassment and
highlighting a lack of international
regulation of
seed purity.
Baroness Hayman, the agriculture
minister, said there would be new spot
checks
on imports and work with the
industry on a new code of practice: "This
is not
a safety issue... However, the issue
of
seed purity is a serious one."