Source: Monsanto UK Ltd.

The final phase of the Farm Scale Evaluations of GM herbicide tolerant crops were published on Monday 21st March 2005. These were the results of the trials with winter oilseed rape (WOSR) - not a Monsanto crop.

These results have been published as a peer-reviewed paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, and following a media briefing and one for only selected stakeholders, a public presentation of the results by the scientists involved was held at the Royal Institution, London, which Monsanto attended, having contributed £1.5m towards the cost of the FSEs. (see http://www.seedquest.com/News/releases/2005/march/11730.htm)

The general conclusions of this study were presented as follows:

1. Overall the majority of plant and invertebrate species studied showed no significant difference between the cultivation of GM and non-GM oilseed rape. Whilst there were some differences, these were mostly relatively small, and whilst some results favoured the conventional (non-GM) crop, others favoured the GM crop.

2. The independent scientists concluded that all of the effects observed could be explained by the level of weed control achieved by the different herbicide programmes. This means the results were not influenced by whether the crop was GM or not.

3. The growth of weeds and other plants within the crops showed few significant differences until July, that is, the month before harvest. At that time, there was less growth of broad-leaved plants in the GM WOSR crop, which shed fewer seeds, whereas there was less growth of grasses and of seed production in the non-GM crop.

4. Counts of bees and butterflies were not significantly different until the month of July, when there were more counted in the non-GM crop. The pest species, Cabbage White, showed the greatest difference in butterfly numbers.

5. Conversely, numbers of the soil invertebrates, springtails (important for breaking down plant material into humus), were significantly higher in the GM crop. Counts of other invertebrates i.e. slugs, snails, spiders, rove beetles, and ground beetles showed no differences between the GM and non-GM crops.

6. When all of the FSE results are considered together, any differences in effects on farmland wildlife are far greater between crops of different types (e.g. rapeseed versus maize or sugar beet) than any differences between the GM and non-GM versions of the same crop.

Following lurid front page UK newspaper headlines such as yesterday's Independent "The end for GM crops: Final British trial confirms threat to wildlife"- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=622479 and today's Daily Mail with "VINDICATED - Finally, the long and popular struggle to stop the growing of GM crops in Britain appears to be over. A new study has shown -- yet again -- that cultivating the modified crops devastates wildlife", it may be helpful to place on record, a highly illustrative part of the Q & A that took place at the public presentation of these results, which were not recorded by the media present. This is unsurprising because such versatile crop management techniques - unrelated to whether the crop in question is GM or conventional - are a new concept to British farmers, available only to the exiting 8.25 million GM farmers.

One of Monsanto's scientists, who has been closely involved throughout the 6 years of FSEs, asked the following non-verbatim questions:

Question: In the published results for butterflies, there appears to be no significant difference for total butterflies, but a significantly lower count of Cabbage White butterflies in the non-GM crop. Does this mean that other butterfly species were higher in the GM crop, and could the numbers of Cabbage Whites be related to egg-laying (because WOSR is a Brassica) rather than foraging for nectar?

Answer: It was agreed that the main significant difference in butterfly numbers was in the pest species, Large Cabbage White. It was also agreed that during July this species would be foraging for egg-laying sites as well as for nectar, as the Cabbage White will lay its eggs in oilseed rape.

Question: Is it an accurate interpretation, from the whole FSE study, and from this presentation, that the differences observed in populations of plant and animal species can all be directly related to the level of weed control by the different herbicide treatments. If so, from regulatory considerations, can we now say that we can put the conclusion of this very large study to constructive use, and make regulatory decisions on the basis of weed control trials, for which there is a long history of experience and available data, and of the kind which allow many more comparisons of different dosages and timings of herbicides than were possible in these whole field studies?

Answer: It was agreed that the results from this study showed that populations of plants and invertebrates could be related to the weed control programmes and their effects, so the simple answer is "yes".

The next step will be that these results, as with the previous results for spring crops, will be reviewed by the Government's advisory committee, ACRE.