Biotech giant Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of German chemical and health care group Bayer, has decided to stop its UK trials of genetically modified crops.
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The company, which was the one remaining company carrying out GM trials in the UK, said it might resume trials when conditions were “more favourable”, reported the Observer.
Bayer CropScience said the move to halt its UK trials followed the recent decision by UK Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett to continue to require all companies to make public details of locations of GM crop trials.
The Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment had said allowing companies to give a more vague location of their trials was “acceptable in terms of risk assessment”, but the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) told Bayer it would not support this change to the rules, the paper reported.
“In the absence of any moves to ensure the security for trials, Bayer CropScience has no choice, therefore, but to cease its variety trial activities in the UK for this coming season,” a company official was quoted by the Observer as saying. “It is disappointing the criminal activities of a small minority of people have prevented information on GM crop varieties being generated.”
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