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Dept for Environment Food and Rural Affairs

Answer

Mr. Simon Thomas: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs when during the GM farm scale evaluations she was informed that neither the use of Liberty alone on GM maize nor the use of Atrazine on the non-GM control crop would replicate the herbicide use and management regimes which would be used in commercial plantings in the UK in future years. [136808] Mr. Morley: [holding answer 6 November 2003]: The farm-scale evaluations were set up to assess the relative impact on wildlife of GM and non-GM management of four crops, based on practices current at the time. They were not set up to investigate the impact of any potential future management changes for either crop, although they will provide an invaluable baseline in our understanding of any such future changes. The decision to phase out Atrazine in the EU was taken on 3 October 2003, over a year after the completion of the last maize field trials. During the time of the trials (1999-2002) conventional maize practice predominately involved the use of Atrazine; this therefore formed a large part of the sample of FSE fields. In 2002 some evidence emerged that farmers in the US often mixed Atrazine with glufosinate ammonium for use on GM maize crops. In the FSE, farmers of GM maize used glufosinate ammonium alone. The industry asserted that the UK and US differed in conditions and that glufosinate ammonium alone was typical of the likely practice in the UK. The scientific steering committee, whose role it is to advise me on the conduct of the FSE, considered that in the absence of evidence either way to justify the need for Atrazine to be used in conjunction with glufosinate ammonium in the UK that trials would continue as before. Accordingly, I was not advised that any action was necessary. Now that Atrazine is being phased out it clearly will not be permitted on any fodder maize crop, GM or otherwise. However, the issue of whether other licensed herbicides could be mixed with glufosinate ammonium on GM crops remains.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

136808; 413 c413-4W

Session

2002-03

Subjects

Crops Genetically modified organisms Pesticides Maize Weedkillers

Link

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