From Brian Johnson, Head of Biotechnology Advisory Unit, English Nature
Vivian Moses, writing as chairman of the CropGen Panel
(30 September, p 52),
seems to have misunderstood the result that Andrew Watkinson and his colleagues
at the University of East Anglia derived from their modelling exercise (9
September, p 3) on the decline of the skylark. They showed that the spraying
regime for fields of sugar beet genetically modified to be tolerant to herbicide
was likely (no more than that) to significantly cut weeds used as food by
seed-eating birds. They acknowledged that farmland bird populations had already
fallen, but the model predicted the introduction of these beets could cause a
further decline.
Contrary to Moses’s assertion, farmers do not “fight an unending battle
against scavenging by birds”. They have not done so for decades, because most
birds have been unintentionally eliminated from intensively farmed arable fields
by the use of herbicides and pesticides. The few birds that remain often feed on
weed seeds in autumn beet fields. Skylarks and other small birds feeding in this
way have absolutely no impact on beet production and probably help farmers by
reducing weed seeds in the following crop. As Moses says, farmers still put
scarecrows in fields—not to frighten skylarks, but to deter pigeons and
rooks from eating newly sown crops. Most farmers we meet are concerned about the
lack of other farmland birds and want to help to increase their numbers.
It might help CropGen’s case if they followed the excellent coverage of the
university’s paper in New Scientist by presenting the research in a
more objective way, rather than giving a distorted view of the plight of
farmland birds and the possible role of GM crops. Far from meeting its stated
aim “to bring some sense into a public debate”, Moses’s letter looked to me like
lobbying.
Taunton, Somerset
