GM Crops: Plan for GM crop field trials revived
Checkbiotech
By Piyaporn Wongruang
May 4, 2007
Excerpt...
The Agriculture and Cooperatives Ministry has revived a plan to conduct field trials of genetically modified crops.
Minister Thira Sutabutra yesterday said he had told the Agriculture Department to draft guidelines on how the open-field trials should be conducted to ensure the environment and human health were not affected.
The department is expected to complete the transgenic crop trial framework by the end of the month, and the ministry would ask cabinet for approval of the draft next month, he said.
GM crops must pass three levels of biosafety tests _ laboratory, greenhouse, and open field trials _ before being endorsed for mass production.
Mr Thira said experiments on GM crops in the country had so far only been at the greenhouse level.
Open field trials were necessary if scientists wanted to know the possible impact of GM plants on the environment.
Field trials and commercialisation of GM crops were put on hold under a cabinet resolution in 2001, shortly after the spread of GM cotton which raised fears among the public of the adverse impact of GM plants on human health and the environment.
In the past six years, the ministry, which oversees experiments and planting of GM crops, has repeatedly tried to lift the ban, but failed due to opposition from environmentalists and farmers.
Protests against transgenic crop growing resurfaced in 2004, when GM papaya grown at an experimental field inside the department's research station in Khon Kaen were found in non-GM papaya plantations nearby.
Scientists say that genetic engineering technology will help reduce the use of harmful farm chemicals and fertiliser.
Mr Thira said the ministry decided to press ahead with field trials of GM crops because some neighbouring countries have been working on the technology and had yielded research outcomes that could put Thailand at a competitive disadvantage in the farm sector.
He said that many farmers suffered low farm yields from disease and pest outbreaks, which could be corrected by GM technology. ''We care about farmers, and we are not working on this issue without reason,'' he said.
Adisak Sreesunpagit, the Agriculture Department chief, said the department would try figuring out how the open field trials should be conducted.
He said the trials should be conducted under tight controls, while the experimental fields should be located away from other farms to prevent the plants from spreading into conventional crop areas.
If cabinet approves the trial, the potential crops which could be planted would be papaya, tomato, chilli, and pineapple, he said.
Mr Adisak said it was unreasonable to ban GM crop field trials....
Full article at Checkbiotech.
