Genetically modified rapeseed may pollute the environment, EU weaves a protective net
If a grain of wheat does not die, there will be no house full of offspring; if a rapeseed does not die, what it brings may be unending calamity.
Not planted, not imported, GM rapeseed still turns up in Switzerland
Out of concern for health and the environment, Switzerland has not planted GM rapeseed since 2008, nor has it imported it. Yet research conducted in 2011 and 2012 by Nicola Schoenenberger and Luigi D'Andrea found that among 79 monitoring stations near railways, 58 showed traces of feral GM rapeseed. Research by Juerg Schulze and others in 2012 and 2013 revealed that, besides along railways, GM rapeseed also turned up near ports, which are likewise transport hubs, and that cases of crossbreeding with non-GM rapeseed had occurred.
Darwin said, survival of the fittest. The Swiss government regularly sprays glyphosate near railways to kill weeds, wiping out ordinary weeds, while GM rapeseed, because it carries a glyphosate-resistance gene, survives, displaying the advantage of evolution.
Even though GM seeds are not “sterile,” to reduce the risk of contaminating traditional varieties they generally have lower reproductive capacity. However, research published by Swedish scholars in 2008 pointed out that ten years after an experimental field was discontinued, GM rapeseed still volunteered in the field.
Schulze and others also believe that the vitality of GM rapeseed exceeds the original assumption, because the train station used as the research subject had not seen any freight containers carrying grain pass through since 2009, so GM rapeseed that accidentally fell and volunteered very likely lay dormant in the soil for several years before sprouting.
A single rapeseed that does not die, quietly surviving for several years before reproducing offspring, not only affects the environmental ecology but also increases the cost and difficulty for farmers who intend to practise non-GM or even organic cultivation.
With neither planting nor imports, how did GM rapeseed take root in Switzerland? Schulze's follow-up research points it out. Durum wheat imported from Canada is the chief culprit.
According to the EU's instructions to laboratories, the proportion of mixed-in GM seeds must reach at least 0.1% for reproduction and spread to be possible. However, in Schulze's research, the proportion of GM rapeseed mixed into durum wheat was only about 0.005%, yet that was already enough for it to escape and volunteer during transport.
What is also worrying is that while there is as yet no commercially grown GM wheat anywhere in the world, GM rapeseed was mixed into wheat and entered Switzerland, evading stricter oversight.
photo credit: cactusmelba Three minutes of field life via photopin (license)
To prevent GM seeds from escaping and damaging the environmental ecology, the EU has set up a protective net
Although Switzerland is not an EU member, it lies at the centre of the European continent and has frequent, close exchanges with neighbouring countries, so research showing that GM seeds spill and escape during transport has raised the alertness of European countries.
Fortunately, Italian environmental expert Domiano Disimine, who has long followed the environmental impact of GMOs, and Christoph Then, a German bioscience expert and one of the authors of the “Global GM Escape Report,” both told NewsMarket that “so far there has been no case in the EU of GM contamination caused by transport.” Then believes the EU had long been aware of the risk and requires companies to carry out environmental monitoring on their own and submit reports every year, including for the transport link, thereby reducing the possibility of contamination.
Under the EU regulations on the cultivation of GM crops and the management of GM food and feed promulgated in 2001 and 2003, in order to reduce the possibility of environmental contamination and ecological damage, when companies apply for approval, besides submitting an environmental risk assessment report they must also attach a post-market environmental monitoring plan that complies with EU standards, to serve as a blueprint for the company's own future monitoring and as a reference for government regulation.
For example, last year the European Commission, equivalent to a country's administrative body, approved Monsanto's application to import GM rapeseed Mon88302 as food and feed, and at the same time approved the post-market environmental monitoring plan it submitted, which includes a monitoring network involving operators in import, storage, transport and processing. As for companies involved only after the GM rapeseed has already been processed and lost its viability, they do not take part in this plan.
The company whose application was approved, namely Monsanto, is the party responsible for environmental monitoring throughout, but it cooperates with European trade, storage and processing associations so as to grasp information more closely and accurately in line with the actual situation. To prevent traders from mixing different GM rapeseeds, the European Association of Bioindustries also helps Monsanto monitor and provide information.
All members of the monitoring network must comply with EU rules on GMO labelling, traceability and documentation; besides labelling in accordance with the law as GM, they must also state that it is “not for cultivation,” and members communicate intensively and exchange information to survey where risks exist. Once a problem arises, Monsanto must immediately notify the European Commission.
In this network made up of multiple parties, the trade associations taking part in monitoring must inform members of points to note; beyond the general ISO and HACCP guidelines, they must especially restrict the spillage and overflow of viable seeds, particularly during loading, unloading and transport; and they must regularly inspect and remove volunteered feral GM rapeseed. Once regular removal cannot stop it, it is regarded as a potential hazard. Besides regularly submitting reports every year for Monsanto to compile, any hazard discovered must be reported immediately.
In order to uncover hidden risks, the monitoring plan also stipulates that relevant scientific research and expert reports must be gathered. The EU reviews the monitoring reports Monsanto submits every year, and experts and civil society groups may also apply to inspect them. After the ten-year approval expires, the monitoring reports from previous years are one of the reference materials for evaluating whether to grant approval again.
GMOs have many uncertain factors, calling for more rigorous monitoring
Although the protective net woven by many parties strives to screen out risk threats, the net of the law is wide but inevitably has gaps. After reviewing the materials, the EU's environment and ecological protection unit pointed out in 2013 that the post-market environmental monitoring plan still fell short in implementation.
The main purpose of post-market environmental monitoring is to make up for the shortcomings of the environmental assessment at the time of application and to predict risks more precisely, because laboratory and small-scale field trials cannot predict the many variables once released into a large environment. However, in the vast majority of applications, the EU ignored the uncertainties of GM crops, such as the scale of environmental impact and post-hoc recoverability, just as the above GM rapeseed case only required “general monitoring” and did not require the stricter, tailor-made “special case surveillance” for that crop.
The EU's environment and ecological protection unit reminded in a joint recommendation: “Genetically modified organisms will persist and accumulate in the environment for a long time and may spread over long distances without control; besides the GM crop itself, one must also observe the impact of its pollen, residues and derivatives on the environment.” To obtain such data, rigorous surveillance models, sampling designs and qualified laboratories are needed, and the resulting research must be comparable before further comparative analysis is possible.
Pandora's box opened, a risk that cannot be called back
Although Monsanto repeatedly complained that the EU's regulatory procedures were annoying, in the end it still submitted the plan in accordance with the law, but Then said, “We are recommending that the EU revoke the approval of GM rapeseed Mon88302.” Rapeseed has many wild relatives, strong vitality and a high crossbreeding rate, and the Swiss example is a recent warning.
Not only cultivation, but sale and transport can all pose threats; when the impact of volunteered feral GM crops lasts a long time, covers a wide area and involves many variables, a meaningful risk assessment is almost an impossible task. Then believes the solution lies in strengthening the “precautionary principle.”
At a meeting of the “Convention on Biological Diversity,” he launched a campaign to “stop GM escapes”: “If GMOs, after accidentally escaping, will invade the environment and persist; if after a period of time they still cannot be removed; if their risk has long been known, then GMOs must be prohibited from being released into the environment.”
The EU has so far reported no case of GM contamination caused by improper transport, but there have been several cases of contamination caused by experimental fields; the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) is also the world's most efficient institutional design for stopping GM products from passing off as something else, having repeatedly detected, earlier than others, Thai GM papaya and American GM maize that had not obtained sales approval, and, when no country in the world had yet approved commercial rice cultivation, it also frequently detected GM rice from the United States and China.
However, under the great banner of science, GM experimental fields enjoy considerable autonomy; some GM cotton, because it is not used as food or feed, does not enter the rapid alert system, and both are fish that slip through the wide net of the law. In addition, GM salmon and others are waiting to storm the dinner table, and GM mosquitoes and GM fruit flies are already flying about in experimental fields.
Once GMOs are introduced, whether experimentally or commercially, in cultivation or trade or processing, it is like opening Pandora's box, and the vague threat cannot be shut away.