http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/26/ngm26.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/02/26/ixhome.html

GM industry to be liable for damages claims

By Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent
 (Filed: 26/02/2004) 

The biotechnology industry will be liable for any compensation for damage or 
contamination caused by genetically modified crops, leaked Cabinet minutes 
reveal.

According to minutes of a recent Cabinet committee meeting, the Government has 
decided that damage caused by GM crops "would be funded by the GM industry".

The proposal, if adopted, is likely to derail the Government's plans to 
license at least one GM crop this spring.

Paul Rylott, chairman of the industry-backed Agricultural Biotechnology 
Council, warned yesterday that if the industry was made liable for 
compensation, GM crops would become too expensive for farmers to plant.

He said there was a "finite limit of money" to be gained by planting GM, which 
was at "risk of erosion" if the Government made the industry liable for 
losses.

He said that if the financial benefits of GM were threatened, then "there will 
not be any point in planting GM crops because there will be few benefits to 
farmers".

The minutes say "the difficulty of proving that a particular farmer was to 
blame for GM contamination should not be underestimated".

By making the industry responsible, it would be necessary only to identify the 
GM variety, which could be easily traced back to the consent holder - the 
biotech company that developed the GM seed.