A group of well-known scientists in the Czech Republic have published a report (in English) which is a comprehensive presentation of experimental work done on GM-crops in that country (1).

The scientists themselves summarize their findings as follows (2):

The regulation of agricultural biotechnology has both immediate and long-lasting socio-economic consequences and affects the sustainability of agro-ecosystems. Policymakers are responsible for formulating the regulations while scientists must provide data necessary for prudent decisions.

All human activities bear a certain risk; a zero risk never exists but relative risk can be estimated when two following conditions are observed:

• Risk is a probability of damage; the probability term, by definition, expresses the uncertainty, i. e., reflects the fact that certain information is not available. The adherence to the “precautionary principle” reflects unwillingness to consider or incompetence to perform a fair risk evaluation.

• Risk assessment must be accompanied by benefit assessment performed under the same conditions and with identical methodology. The ratio benefit/risk is essential for the identification of acceptable risk as crucial information for decision making.

The risks and benefits of GM crops can be assessed only by comparison with conventional non-GM varieties grown with the use of standard procedures, including applications of insecticides, herbicides, etc. The absence of adequate control renders the data obtained for GM-crops meaningless.

Agriculture has inevitably converted natural, diversified ecosystems to monoculture-based agroecosystems that are sometimes exploited to the point of irreversible damage. Evaluation of the environmental impact of new technologies is dictated by the need to mitigate this damage for the sake of agriculture sustainability. GM-crops should be scrutinized as for any other technology in respect to possible effect on the communities of organisms in the ecosystems, in particular on species that are either essential for “ecological services” (control of pests, soil aeration, humus formation, etc.) or serve as indicators for the maintenance of biodiversity.

New cultivars bring to the ecosystem a new genetic setup; the possible transfer of the introduced or modified genes to sexually compatible plants should be examined in all of them.

Care should be paid to discriminate between the impact of plant varieties and that of agriculture per se, i.e. including methods of field management, applications of chemicals, crop selection and rotation, etc.

The impact of new technologies can be either positive or negative; there is no reason to classify some technologies a priori as negative and risky. Numerous scientific studies have been performed with GM-crops and no adverse effects exceeding those of standard agriculture were found. GM-crops were recommended for the organic farmers.

Scientific data are neglected in the regulations of GM-crop deployment. The attitude of policy-makers to GM-crops depends on their personal ideological opinions and is affected by political trade-offs, provisions such as taxes and subsidies, economic outputs and inputs of national agriculture, the level of unemployment, assessment of international trade with agricultural commodities, mood of the electorate and others.

There are no scientific data showing an exceptional position of GM-plants compared with “classical” breeding techniques. Separate regulative measures for GM-crops were possibly justified by the novelty of this technique a decade ago but have now become obsolete.

The European regulation of GMOs is comparable to that of toxic chemicals, explosives and narcotics; this implies to the general public and many politicians that GMOs present a similar level of danger. The public should correctly be informed about the nature of various breeding methods as well as about the principles of ecological science. Only properly educated citizens are able to contribute to the discussions concerning safety measures and GM-crop deployment.

Scientifically unjustified bans on the deployment of GM-crops slow down agricultural output, deprive farmers of the right to chose what they want to grow, reduce EU competitiveness in terms of global trade and indoctrinates EU citizens with the view that new technologies should best be avoided. This is a very dangerous legacy to future generations.

The socio-economic factors affecting GM-crop deployment include pressure of various interest groups. All these issues are very volatile and hard to control. Decisions based on these factors should be clearly declared as political and should not pretend to have a basis in science.

The deployment of GM-crops has spread rapidly outside Europe. Cooperation with developing countries in agricultural research should be expanded with a focus on the risk assessment of newly deployed technologies.

This Declaration summarizes suggestions by Czech scientists with practical experience of genetic modifications (GM) applicable to, or already exploited in, agriculture. In conclusion, the Czech scientists issued a call:

Scientific evidence and long experience with the cultivation of GM crops have demonstrated their safety to the environment and human health, but EU legislation petrifies unjustified opinions and neglects the current situation. We therefore appeal to the EU and national policy makers to consider the following rules:

Decisions concerning genetic modifications should not contradict scientific evidence.

• Breeding techniques, including genetic modifications, should primarily be evaluated in respect to the outcome rather than the process itself.

• The precautionary principle should be replaced by serious and robust risk/benefit assessment applied to all innovations in agriculture.

• Risk assessments should always include the benefits of a technology and comparison of parallel technologies with all their components (e.g. GM crop deployment, standard agriculture with pesticides, and organic farming with permitted plant protection measures).

• Economic assessment should also be done by comparison with parallel technologies.

• If Member states are allowed to ban technology permitted elsewhere in the EU, they should also be allowed to use a technology that has not yet been approved by the EU.

Sources:

1. Martina Cermáková (17.6.09). Scientists: GMOs are safe. New study advocates fewer restrictions for modified crops. Prague Post (http://www.praguepost.com/news/1518-scientists-gmos-are-safe.html)

2. Frantisek Sehnal and Jaroslav Drobník (editors) (2009). White Book – genetically modified crops; EU regulations and research experience from the Czech Republic. Biology Centre of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v. v. i. C¹eské Bude¹jovice and NGO Biotrin, Praha (http://www.bc.cas.cz/doc/mobitag/White-Book-on-GMO.pdf)

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