GM Crop Farm Scale Evaluations:
Scientific Steering Committee Minutes
February 8th 2000
| Attending: | Members: | Professor Chris Pollock (chair) (IGER) Dr David Gibbons (RSPB) Professor Mick Crawley (Imperial College) Dr Alastair Burn (EN) |
| Assessors: | Dr Brian Johnson (EN) Mr Dave Bench (MAFF) Dr Toby Willison (SERAD) Dr Linda Smith (DETR) Dr Nick Brickle (DETR) |
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| Contractors: | Dr Les Firbank (ITE) Professor Joe Perry (IACR) Dr Geoff Squire (SCRI) Dr Peter Rothery (ITE) Dr Mark Hill (ITE) Dr Alan Dewar (IACR) |
Apologies for absence
Apologies for absence were received from Dr Nick Sotherton (GCT), Mr Jim Orson (Morley Research Centre) and Dr Nicholas Aebischer (GCT), however all submitted written comments.
Minutes of last meeting
The minutes of the last meeting have already been approved and are publicly available on the farm-scale evaluations web-site.
Update on current situation
The secretariat and the chairman outlined the main reasons for holding this additional meeting, namely concerns raised regarding the draft site selection protocol, the provision of sufficient sites, and the addition of government funded farm-scale evaluations of GM beet. The items discussed at this meeting will feed into the scheduled steering committee meeting on March 10th.
Site selection issues
The consortium outlined their proposals for communicating with SCIMAC over site selection, for obtaining information from prospective farms by use of a questionnaire and for randomising allocation of treatments to field halves.
The SSC were content with all three protocols. Slight adjustments were suggested for the questionnaire. In particular questions relating to average past yields were recommended. It was noted that the questionnaire could be improved in future years by feedback from the first year.
Once sites have been provided by SCIMAC, and information on them gathered by means of the questionnaire, a representative selection of farms will be picked by the consortium.
Representativeness
Concerns had been raised that the farm selection protocol should be sufficient to take account of the fact that a small number of unintensively managed farms may support a disproportionately large abundance of wildlife. The SSC and the consortium agreed that this was statistically equivalent to a possible interaction between treatment and farm intensity. Other potential interactions could include geographic location and soil type.
The consortium then made a presentation that weighed the merits of an approach that represented farms in the sample roughly in proportion to their occurrence in UK agriculture as a whole, or an approach that skewed the sample to 'over represent' the extremes of management practice or geographical location.
The consortium proposed that farm intensity and geographic location were among the most important factors in selecting farms, and that statistically, the best sample of farms would be one in which the range of practices and geography was included and the extremes were somewhat over represented. Farm intensity and geographic location would then be included as covariates in the analysis This approach was agreed by the SSC. Possible measures of farm intensity were discussed and it was agreed that a measure of past yield was most appropriate.
Other important covariates, such as soil type, could also be brought into the analysis later, but farm intensity and geographic location would initially be used as the main considerations in the selection of farms.
Number of fields
At the last SSC meeting it was agreed that a representative selection of 25 fields would be sought for each crop in 2000. SCIMAC would need to provide the consortium with an excess of possible sites in order that 25 farms fitting the selection criteria could be picked.
An update provided by the consortium suggested that the number of fields that has been provided by SCIMAC has so far fallen short of this total for all three crops. The committee was therefore asked whether a reduced sample size in 2000 could be tolerated.
The group agreed that only using a very small number of fields in the first year, and then trying to compensate with a very large number in subsequent years was not appropriate - both from a statistical and logistical standpoint. It was unanimously agreed that SCIMAC would need to provide sufficient farms for the consortium to select a minimum of around 12-15 farms, representing a range of intensities and geographical locations. This would also include some redundancy for operational problems. This would allow the number of farms to be increased slightly in subsequent years, and also allow any minor imbalances in the range of farms selected for year one to be redressed.
The committee agreed that for spring oil seed rape SCIMAC need to provide sufficient sites for selection by the consortium by 1st March in order that the legal process of notification can be completed in time for the crops to be sown at their normal time. For Fodder maize, which has a later sowing date, SCIMAC need to provide sufficient sites for selection by 10th March. If sufficient sites were not provided by these dates for either crop then the situation will be reviewed at the March 10th SSC meeting. The ecological studies on either crop may not be able to proceed this year.
The implication for investigating the effect of the management of the GM crop on wildlife in following crops could be discussed at future meetings. It was agreed that an insufficient number of farms in year one could potentially be compensated by extending this specific aspect of the study.
Farm-scale evaluations of GM Beet
The SSC had previously been asked to consider Danish fodder beet studies and were asked to comment on whether this study was collecting data of a sufficient standard to the UK farm-scale evaluations. The response of the scientific steering committee was unanimously that the Danish studies fell short of the level of monitoring being undertaken in the UK farm-scale evaluations of oil seed rape and maize. As a result the UK government is proposing to fund an equivalent programme of farm-scale evaluations on GM beet that would take over from the pilot scale studies performed in 1999 by SCIMAC.
The secretariat discussed the desire to include both GM Fodder beet and GM sugar beet in a programme of ecological studies. Fodder beet and sugar beet are the same species and the GM varieties will be managed in an identical way. In many ways conventional fodder beet and sugar beet represent extremes of management of the same crop.
The consortium proposed to study a roughly equal proportion of fodder to sugar beet in the first year, and to use the data collected to decide whether a similar approach was appropriate in years two and three. As the evaluations would be investigating a potentially broader range of management practices than for the other crops, and an additional covariate would be present in the analysis (for beet type), it was agreed that 30 fields should be grown in each year for the three years. These should be drawn from a range of farm intensities and geographic locations using similar selection criteria as agreed for the other crops.
As with oil seed rape and maize, if sufficient sites were not forthcoming this year then a slightly reduced number could be tolerated, providing they fitted the selection criteria. SCIMAC will need to provide the consortium with sufficient sites to enable them to pick a minimum of 20 representing a range of farm intensities, geographic locations and a roughly equal division between fodder and sugar beet.
It was agreed that SCIMAC should have until the 1 March to identify sufficient farms to allow the consortium to select a representative set. If insufficient sites were provided by that date the future of the ecological studies investigating beet should be reconsidered at the next steering committee meeting.
Pesticide advice
Concern has been raised about the transparency of pesticide advice given to farmers in the farm-scale evaluations. The SSC agreed that SCIMAC should be allowed to be involved with pesticide advice on the GM crop, as this would follow normal practice for a new crop variety, but that they should be allowed no involvement with the advice given to the non-GM crop. However, all parties agreed that further openness must be achieved and the consortium were encouraged to come to the next meeting with specific proposals.
The SSC were fully committed to ensuring that advice given on the use of herbicide on the GM crops is appropriate for efficient cost-effective weed control and can be validated to pre-existing guidelines.
Agenda for next full meeting on March 10th
The agenda for the next meeting was briefly discussed. Substantive items are to include further consideration of site selection/number of sites issue, and ways to achieve greater transparency in the provision of pesticide advice. New projects starting shortly on gene flow and birds and mammals would also be discussed.
All of the draft protocols discussed at this meeting will be published following the scheduled March 10th meeting in the second interim report.
Next meeting
March 10th 2000
Page published 18 February
2000;
Page last modified
25 February, 2003