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GM Crop Farm-Scale Evaluations

Autumn GM Oilseed Rape Crop Trials 2001 - Individual Site Assessments

Objective

Aventis Crop Science Ltd has a licence (Deliberate Release consent) to carry out the release of the particular line of genetically modified oilseed rape in the farmscale evaluation programme in England. Supplied in the original consent application was Aventis's generic risk assessment and this was considered by a body of independent expert scientists - the Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE), before permission was granted for this programme of work to proceed in England.

Aventis's application and risk assessment are such that the GM oilseed rape in the farmscale evaluations would be planted in areas where conventional oilseed rape would be normally grown. Aventis notified the Department of proposed locations for these releases indicating that the original risk assessment was applicable to these sites.

Officials from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) have carried out a statutory risk assessment of each of the proposed sites to verify and check that there are no local factors which alter the risk assessment.

Factors such as location and size of the site, the description of the site ecosystem and in particular whether the trial is situated in an oilseed rape growing area, were considered together with the proximity of each site to sites of special scientific interest (SSSI's). These assessments can be found in the pages that follow [See Note] and are arranged alphabetically by county.

Site assessments

Most of these assessments can be done within Defra using databases and detailed environmental mapping systems. A Global Information System (GIS) database was used to check the grid reference against each site. In all cases there was satisfactory correspondence. Also checked was the name of the civil parish in which the release was to take place. The proposed acreage of planting was checked to ensure it corresponded to that permitted under the terms of the consent.

Proximity of SSSI's in relation to each release site were checked by English Nature (the statutory conservation body in England). Two locations were identified where a SSSI or part of a SSSI was located within 1 km of the release site. English Nature has indicated that they are satisfied that these release sites do not pose a risk to the SSSIs in question.

The Health and Safety Executive is content that none of the releases pose a risk to human health.

Each assessment is accompanied by a description of the site ecosystem. This was determined by calculating the density (ha/sq.km) of different land cover types within 5km of each release site using the 1 km square version of the 1990 Land Cover Map. Where figures for the tilled land and managed grassland were low (below 20 ha/sq.km) using this approach (Dorset and Nottingham), officials visited these sites to take a closer look to check that the selected fields were in an arable ecosystem and that there was a history of oilseed rape cultivation in the area (and was compliant with the risk assessment). Other locations were also visited but these were selected at random and not because the studies suggested a closer look (Thorganby and Hinton Waldrist are examples). During site visits, a handheld Global Positioning System (GPS) was used to verify the location of the field in relation to the field grid reference supplied by Aventis.

Conclusions

All sites were found to be compliant with the information submitted by Aventis Crop Science Ltd and the overall risk assessment as detailed in consent 01/R33/11.

FARM SCALE EVALUATIONS- AUTUMN 2001

Note: remaining scctions of this document have been made available in Adobe Acrobat format (90kb) for downloading. Page numbers in the following table refer to pages in the Acrobat document.

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Page published 3 September 2001;
Page last modified 10 August, 2002

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