Mr President, I shall refer to five reports – and two minutes times five makes ten! I readily concede, though, that atomic power and nuclear energy do not affect agriculture to that great a degree if we disregard the wind, which has just been mentioned. I will therefore try to keep my comments brief. It is on the basis of principle that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development regrets that there is no specifically agricultural core area in the Sixth Framework Programme, but that projects are divided up between the chapters on food safety, protection of the environment and development. What makes that all the more regrettable is that we claim to have a multifunctional approach to agricultural policy, with a concern to highlight the interaction between the technical, economic, environmental, social and cultural dimensions. It would be appropriate for it to have a research package to itself as, in terms of extent and practical implementation, agriculture is, along with atomic energy and pharmaceuticals, one of the major areas in which the results of research are put to use. Moreover, research in the area of agriculture and new technologies always essentially has to do with issues of genetic engineering, biotechnology being a much broader area in that it includes the production of both butter and beer. Let it not be thought that research is only just beginning – it was indispensable to past generations' means to live and enjoy life, and indeed to those of our own generation, and that far more so than new technology would have us believe. If we are to talk about food safety in connection with new technologies, then it certainly offers an opportunity to explore the possibilities of the secure supply of safe food and to make a contribution to this. It must be clear to us as well, though, that new technologies can endanger food safety. When there are problems in the food sector, we often find that they have to do with these new technologies. for example, research into the use of seeds is not, or at least not primarily, concerned with the development of resistance; rather, attempts are made to use gene manipulation to bring about the creation of resistance, mainly even to build up resistance to plant protection in the synthetic sector. There is, though, not only the chemical sector, but also the organic sector. If only this were about getting research to investigate natural substances with a view to finding potential ways of protecting plants. If only this were about improving resistance in seed by means of research into the natural process of seed development, and not so much about mapping out core areas in the new field of genetic engineering. On the other hand, we have the problem that the use of the new genetic engineering leads to contamination, which researchers for the firms that operate in this area had initially ruled out. The crossover of genetically modified rape onto a related weed was formerly considered impossible, yet now it has happened. Now, we also find transference from applications in conventional sectors into the organic sector, where it is banned and ruled out by current European Union legislation, and contamination of the latter by the former. Organic businesses are not allowed to work with genetically modified organisms, so more research seems to be needed into how research into genetic engineering can be prevented from contaminating other areas. Little has been done other than to put forward theories. As you can see, agriculture generates a whole lot of issues. Speaking as I do on the committee's behalf, I make it clear that we are very definitely not opposed to new technological developments. We are only against the risks inherent in the application of something that research has produced. I have listed a number of points. What matters is that the risk in the application is not passed on to the farmers and, in the course of food production, on to the consumers. As we have prescribed in the atomic energy sector, there must, rather, also be damage limitation and assessment of the damage and risks involved in practical applications and of what harm biotransfer can do to other sectors, so that we are not always only learning from our own mistakes but benefiting from research that can give us advance warning of potential risks.

Political group: Verts-ALE