Source: CORDIS News

A four year study designed to investigate the environmental and agricultural effects of genetically modified (GM) crops under 'typical farming rotations' has found no evidence of a detrimental impact on biodiversity or farming methods.

The BRIGHT project (botanical and rotational implications of genetically modified herbicide tolerance) was part funded by the UK government and carried out by independent scientists in England and Scotland. It was designed to recreate the normal four year crop rotation cycle in order to compare the performance of herbicide resistant GM oilseed rape and sugarbeet plants with conventional varieties.

Under these conditions, the scientists could find no significant difference in weed diversity or levels of weed seeds between GM and non-GM crops, and also highlighted the potential benefits to farmers of cultivating GM crops.

'What we have shown is that in the case of these two crops, there are ways of managing them which are quite practical, and farmers can deal with them quite readily,' BRIGHT's scientific coordinator Jeremy Sweet told BBC News.

A spokesperson for the UK government described the BRIGHT findings as a valuable compliment to the farm scale evaluations, but stressed that the advisory committee on releases into the environment (ACRE) would evaluate the results as a first step to any further course of action.

However, some objected to the suggestion that the research had been carried out under typical farming conditions. A senior research at Friends of the Earth told BBC News: 'It was done at agricultural research centres, and real farmers never do things in the same way as they are done on research stations.'