Advanta could sue over GMscandal
Advanta could sue over GMscandal
By Donald MacPhail
ADVANTA Seeds UK, the company at the centre of the genetically modified seed scandal, is considering suing the government.
About 4700ha (11,600 acres) of oilseed rape were sown this spring by up to 600 producers after Advanta inadvertently supplied farmers with GM-contaminated seed.
Appearing before the all-Party agricultural select committee on Tuesday (July 18), the company said it was considering its legal position after farm minister Nick Brown said on May 27 the contaminated crop should be ploughed up.
The company had hoped to sell the crop abroad, but after the ministers intervention agreed to pay around £1.7m compensation to farmers.
MPs were told by Advanta European affairs director David Buckeridge it was doubtful that trace-level GM contamination could be prevented because of the worldwide scale of GM plantings
The company criticised the government for failing to introduce regulations to cover GM impurities in conventional crops, and called for a 1% threshold.
Advanta executives said the tainted seed, which was grown in Canada, had become contaminated although 4km (2.5 miles) from the nearest GM crops.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth said this showed that buffer zones of 50-200m for UK GM oilseed rape test sites are wholly inadequate and called for trials to be suspended.
But Daniel Persall, secretary of pro-GM industry body Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Crops (SCIMAC) which is running the trials dismissed this.
He said the cause of the Advanta contamination had not yet been determined and that the SCIMAC segregation distances were based on proven experience over many years.
A MAFF spokeswoman said the department had not received any indication from Advanta that it was planning legal action.
Meanwhile, seven people were arrested after protesters attempted to destroy a field of genetically modified maize in Over Compton, near Sherborne, Dorset on Sunday (July 16).