Volunteer French farmers back GM tests

1.00pm - By ALEX DUVAL SMITH in Paris



A new front has opened up in the controversy over genetical-modified organisms in food with the surprise emergence in France of a group of radical rural campaigners claiming to be in favour of open-field experiments.

In a maize field near Marsat in the Puy-de-Dome at the weekend, gendarmes intervened after anti-globalisation campaigner Jose Bove and 500 of his supporters came to blows with a new group describing itself as "volunteer farmers and researchers in favour of GMO tests".

The clash came amid growing signs that the French authorities are wavering in their opposition to open-field tests of GM crops, the seeds of which are developed in laboratories to be resistant to certain pests or to herbicides.

In recent weeks even the conservative French wine-growing industry has announced it wishes to keep an open mind over the possible benefits of GMOs.

The weekend clash, which resulted in two arrests, was the first physical confrontation between the two camps.

France - where anti-GMO campaigners trample experimental crops most weekends - has become Europe's main battleground over the issue but police rarely intervene and most confrontations to date have been confined to courtrooms.

Mr Bove, the former spokesman of the Confederation Paysanne small-scale farmers' union, has called on his supporters - known as "the volunteer reapers" - to step up their campaign of civil disobedience ahead of an EU Commission decision on the issue due this autumn.

The Commission, which in May for the first time authorised the planting of a genetically-modified maize seed manufactured by Swiss company Syngenta, is deeply divided and must decide by November whether to authorise US chemical giant Monsanto to sell its transgenic NK603 maize in the EU.

Mr Bove's "volunteer reapers" said yesterday the emergence of a group campaigning in favour of open-field tests was an attempt by the GMO industry to give a "grassroots flavour" to its efforts to win over public opinion.

Green MP Moisette Crosnier said: "Eighty per cent of Europeans are against GMOs in their food and 75 per cent of French people are opposed to open-field experiments. We have to keep up the pressure on the government and remind it of the will of the people."

So far only 21 open-field GMO tests have been authorised on 48 plots totalling 7.3 hectares.

However, the "volunteer reapers" have strong grassroots support and have convinced 3,000 French mayors to ban GMO tests in their area. One mayor, in Bax, Haute-Garonne, is now facing court action by the prefect of his department who wants to overrule him.

Last year, Mr Bove served six weeks in prison for destroying GM crops and he is due to be interviewed by police next week over an incident in Haute-Garonne at the end of July.

The "volunteer farmers and researchers in favour of GMOs" are led by Pierre Pagesse, a farmer and the managing director of French biotechnology firm Biogemma.

He claims to have launched his group because the "continuing destruction of crops is playing into the hands of France's competitors".

He said: "At this rate European farming will fall behind. To have sustainable agriculture you first of all need to sustain the farmers."

Mr Pagesse is president of Limagrain, a leading European seed company of which Biogemma is the research arm. Despite popular opposition to GMOs, the farming industry and French scientists are increasingly arguing that the phenomenon is unstoppable.

The French agriculture ministry has launched a process of public consultation by internet and a report by the French food security agency, AFSSA, last month claimed GM maize and cotton, as well as beatroot and rice, showed health benefits.

- INDEPENDENT