LEAD LETTERS: GM CROPS

1.

Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and the Environment, is absolutely correct to remind his pro-GM critics that the Scottish Government’s resolution – joining an estimated 65 per cent of the total EU population, and leaving the UK in the minority – to use this year’s new EU legislation to exercise its right to opt out of cultivation of GM crops was based on factors that go beyond only scientific risk questions, as defined and decided by the European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) genetically modified organisms panel (Letters, December 9).

Those further factors have been repeatedly denied and ignored by pro-GM member states such as the UK, as well as the European Commission itself, yet they include legitimate matters of long-standing public concern; for example, about the intensifying concentration of private ownership of the key resources of the global food chain (seed, knowledge, land) that pursuit of GM technologies allows.

However it is important to note the further point, that the so-called scientific authorisations of GM environmental releases which Efsa, as the EU’s sole designated authority for scientific risk assessment, are far from properly scientific and far from conclusive anyway.

As one example, of several: the data-dossiers that Efsa receives from the commercial GM promoter as applicant for safety-approval, and even the GM plant materials and specific DNA sequences, remain confidential and no independent scientific testing or analysis is allowed.

Thus, even if pro-GM interests had their way and the broader issues that the Scottish and most EU governments have rightly addressed in reaching their decisions were denied once more, the scientific knowledge is itself inadequate; regulatory ‘science’ is not science anyway; and the independent research needed to help overcome these failings remains unfunded.

Thus, even in scientific terms alone before we even reach the social, economic and other dimensions that thankfully are now being included, there is no case for GM cultivation in Scotland, nor anywhere else.

Professor (Emeritus) Brian Wynne,

South-West House, Gartness,

Balfron Station,

Stirlingshire.

2.

Richard Lochhead writes: "Changes made by the EU broke the link between the scientific assessment of the safety of a GM crop and the decision on whether or not it may be cultivated in a certain area or region."

As a farmer and former governor of the Scottish Crop Research Institute , Dundee, we should understand the background to this EU change of policy. One of Scotland's most eminent scientists is Professor Anne Glover CBE. She is a professor of microbiology at Aberdeen University. From 2006 to 2011 she was science adviser to the Scottish Government (this role is at present vacant) and until earlier this year she provided advice on science to the European Commission.

However the incoming President, Jean Claude Junker, decided scrap the role of chief scientific advisor. This was the result of a letter to Mr Juncker from non-government organisations stating that Professor Glover's views about the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) "misrepresented the diversity of opinion among scientists".

She told the BBC Hardtalk programme that "the technology behind GM crops is safe" and that criticism from environmental groups was unjustified. I believe the future of mankind and our planet will be far better served by the likes of Professor Glover than by politicians.

We have been growing GM barley in Scotland since 1966. Golden Promise (a GMO) has been the premier malting barley since then and has been the preferred barley of The Macallan malt for more than 40 years. And more recently Scottish GM Golden Promise is popular for brewing craft beer here and in the United States. Had Mr Lochhead sought advice from the scientific community in Scotland before "banning" GM crops he would have discovered he is too late. May I suggest we bring in the New Year with The Macallan and enjoy a GM dram.

Gordon Rennie,

Stenton Farm,

St Monans,

Fife.