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Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food

Answer

Mr. Yeo: To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will publish the location of each of the genetically modified maize trials taking place in the United Kingdom. [128363] Mr. Nick Brown: All the genetically modified (GM) maize under trial in the UK has a Part C marketing consent under EU Directive 90/220. This means it has undergone a detailed safety assessment and been approved for commercial release across the EU. The Directive does not require the disclosure of GM plantings with Part C approval, but the locations of Farm Scale Evaluation (FSE) trials of GM maize are available on the DETR website www.environment.detr.gov.uk, and the locations of National List trials of GM maize have been made available at civil parish level as follows: _________________________________________________________________________________________________. Variety/county Parish Sheridan Oxfordshire Stoke Talmage Somerset Brockley Yorkshire Bramham cum Oglethorpe Cambridgeshire Histon Shropshire Ercall Magna _________________________________________________________________________________________________. The locations of other trails of GM maize do not need to be notified to the Government. However, we understand that only four such trails have been undertaken this year, and that these have been very small in scale, mainly co-located with other publicised trials, and subject to the same guidelines for GM cropping as in the FSE trials, including the application of separation distances between the GM plants and equivalent non-GM plants. The industry has agreed there will be no commercial growing of GM crops until the FSE trials has been completed and evaluated.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

357 c562W; 128363

Session

1999-00

Subjects

Crops EU law Genetically modified organisms Location Testing Maize

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk