Written question asked by Alan Simpson (Labour) on Wednesday, 5 November 2003, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 19 November 2003. It was answered by Elliot Morley (Labour) on Wednesday, 19 November 2003 on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether estimates of yield for GM maize in the GM farm scale evaluation published by her Department will be based upon maize crops grown using the same herbicide regime as used on these farm scale evaluations. - Inc ref to 'Crop management and agronomy of the farm-scale evaluations'.

Answer: Alan Simpson: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs whether estimates of yield for GM maize in the GM farm scale evaluation published by her Department will be based upon maize crops grown using the same herbicide regime as used on these farm scale evaluations. [137655] Mr. Morley: The Department has not published yield estimates for the GM maize grown in the farm-scale evaluations. The paper by Champion and others `Crop management and agronomy of the farm-scale evaluations' published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society on 16 October explains that crop yields were not routinely recorded. The GM and conventional maize crops in each field evaluation were assessed and compared at every stage of growth and results were only included in the analysis where these correlates of yield were comparable and consistent with the protocol requiring `cost effective weed control'.

Secondary information