Baroness Young of English Nature is on record as saying of the trialling of GM crops in the UK, It is not being properly regulated or monitored. There is a hole in the regulatory system. English Nature has said that the current design, and scale, of the planned field-scale trials for 1999 makes them scientifically invalid. Michael Meacher, the Environment Minister, does not appear to dispute this, and even AgrEvo has confirmed that English Nature are correct as regards the lack of scientific validity. It criticised the design of such trials, arguing that they could give rise to the very concerns about environmental damage that they are designed to research.
Many scientists are also concerned.
Andrew Davis, a Regional Director of the Country Landowners Association has commented on GM trials, Even if one accepts the claims of the doom-mongers with a healthy degree of scepticism, there still must be risks. It must make sense to continue extensive research, but to confine it to the laboratory and not allow the release of genetically modified material into the environment until we know a great deal more about the potential drawbacks. British Sugar has made explicit that it has no plans to refine GM sugar beet for the foreseeable future. That means that the risks involved in field trials on GM beet, which are obviously increased in this case by scale, are being taken in relation to a commercially useless crop. This seems indefensible.