Farm shake-up

BIOTECH should be for the people. Genetically modified crops must be reclaimed from multinational companies for the good of all,  say UK biotechnology experts. In a new report they also argue that Europe should relax its strict regulations because GM crops have been in use for years. Few of the environmental woes predicted by opponents of GM crops have materialised, says GM Science Update. In the European Union, each new GM crop is assessed by the “The regulatory requirements for GM crops add $20 million to the cost of getting one approved” European Food Safety Authority. But they are only approved for planting if a majority of EU states agree, and that seldom happens as the EU is split between supporters and opponents of GM crops. As a result, since 1998 European farmers have been allowed to grow only one GM crop, a variety of maize. The US has approved 96 GM crops since 1990. The extra regulations for GM crops, compared with crops produced by conventional breeding, can add as much as $20 million to the cost of getting a crop approved, says report author Jonathan Jones of the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norwich, UK. Only multinational companies can afford such an expense, consolidating their control of  GM technology. The high cost  also means that useful traits like drought-tolerance, developed in academic laboratories, can never be made publicly available, says co-author Jim Dunwell of the University of Reading, UK. To remedy this, the team suggests creating a new UK public body that would test crops with new traits to see if they work and benefit society. “PubGM” would also accept research ideas from the public. The idea is to shift GM science away from multinationals. Opponents of GM crops are sceptical. Even if PubGM successfully tested beneficial traits, multinationals could still buy up the patents, says Helen Wallace of GeneWatch UK.