Grow it or throw it – readers respond
15 June 2000
Grow it or throw it – readers respond
MAFF and therefore this Government appear unable to lay down any policy on anything.
Now GM issues hit the headlines with the usual scare tactics employed by the media to sell newspapers.
On one hand the Government bows like a puppet to public/media pressure, yet on the other they force UK agriculture to compete in a world market where GM is both widespread and accepted.
Is there anyone out there to advise our poor, picked-on farmers?
Michael Butler, Shepton Mallet, Somerset
Email:mbutler@bj-omfs.co.uk
THE British public has surely eaten more GM DNA from soya products already than they will ever eat by allowing this minute amount of GM
rapeseed into the normal oilseed crush.
John Dean
Email:jdean@ugg.com
AS long as it is sold as containing genetically modified rapeseed, farmers should be allowed to harvest and sell the crop.
Rebecca
Email:rejayne@yahoo.com
AN obvious basis for any business strategy is to supply the customers with what they want, and they dont want GM products.
So for goodness sake get it buried before farming chokes on its own inability to accept the obvious.
Barry Hudson, Witney, Oxfordshire
Email:hudstaa@freenet.co.uk
IS it correct that these crops can legally be exported from the EC and then reimported once processed into oil and animal feed?
Is it also true that, while we cannot legally grow GM rape here, GM seed can be imported from Canada crushed here and then sold for oil in the EC without it being declared as a GM product? This also appears to apply to soya.
Stephen Collett, Garboldisham, Norfolk
Email:Stephen.Collett@farmline.com
THE BBC news said that it is illegal to sell GM-contaminated crops. How does this apply to the imported soya that we buy to feed to our cattle?
Can farmers who have inadvertently grown crops from GM-contaminated seed feed the produce from these crops to their own livestock or use the produce for fuel or bedding?
Do these unfortunate farmers have a legal duty to mitigate their losses before claiming compensation from their seed suppliers?
Robert Nicholas Stott, Croxfield, Co Durham
Email:nick1@barclays.net
WHY is it that politicians only react to public opinion, when pressure groups put up a campaign?
I thought they were our leaders and as such should stick to their guns and not to a blanket, if you get my drift.
The BBC does not help in the least.
The 5.45 Farming Today seems only to stir on behalf of said pressure groups, with not a mention of milk prices, weather or general issues of help to a beleaguerd Industry.
M Seare
Email:mseare@farmersweekly.net
ITS a storm in a teacup. The suggestion that the rogue variety is sterile seems sound.
Grow it.
David Walker
Email:davidw@openi.co.uk
IF I had unwittingly grown GM rape I would have ploughed it up and redrilled with spring OSR or linseed.
However, I believe farmers should be able to market it in the normal way as there is no evidence of it being harmful.
The Americans must think that we are all mad as in some mid-west states nearly 100% of the maize and soya is GM.
HJ Collins
Email:HJCollins@farmersweekly.net
ITS too late. If these crops were grown last year then the seed is already a volunteer waiting to grow.
Anyone with any knowledge of OSR knows that once it is sown, it is a weed forever!
William Bradley, Middleton-on-the-Wold, Yorkshire
Email:wfbradley@farmersweekly.net
HAVING 18ha of infected Hyola 330, I would like to destroy the crop, but cannot unless compensation is forthcoming. United Oil Seeds, from whom I bought the seed, seemed to know about the
contamination on 17 April, before the seed was sown, but did nothing.
David Brown
Email:morag.brown@mail.com
WHY is it that whenever there is a news story involving agriculture, the emotive language and frequent inaccuracies used in reporting the issue distort the facts.
Even Farmers Weekly describes the effected crops as “GM rape”. These are conventional varieties contaminated by a minute level of GM seed.
As for supermarkets not buying the produce from farmers – when was the last time a farmer rang up Tesco to find how much they were bidding on rapeseed?
So even the farming press cannot be relied upon to describe the refining process which removes all traces of genetic material from the oil – GM or not.
Accuracy please!
“Roo”
Email:rogue_trader@talk21.com
LEAVE them to grow.
Frank Leeming, Preston, Lancashire
Email:Tom.Barron@farmline.com
AS long as total compensation is paid, the crops should be destroyed. This compensation must also include lost income on the enterprise that the maize would be fed to.
“Beef”
Email:beef@farmersweekly.net
MY vote is to grow it, if protocol can be established to ensure it is segregated if required (if the crop shows unacceptable levels, above
tolerance) and directed into markets where it is acceptable.
Louie Sawatzky
Email:lsawatzky@ugg.com
ALL fields planted with contaminated seed must be destroyed and compensation obtained from the suppliers.
Graham Goodwin, Hay-on-Wye, Hereford
Email:Graham.Goodwin@farmline.com
WE have been eating GM tomatoes for a couple of years now, but no one mentions that. This GM rape thing is all hysteria whipped up by the Soil Association.
Robert Watkins, Kentchurch, Hereford
Email:rob.watkins@farmline.com
LET it grow.
Elizabeth Hemmings, Bodmin, Cornwall
Email:Lee.Hemmings@farming.co.uk
WE have little choice but to grow the GM crops, as the contamination is already here.
Michael Pearson, Kingsbridge, Devon
Email:langston@farmersweekly.net