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GM potato trials could be held in Carlow

The Agriculture and Food Development Authority, Teagasc, is seeking a licence to grow GM potatoes in order to examine the potential impact on Irish ecosystems.

IRELAND’S AGRICULTURE AND Food Development Authority is seeking permission to begin trials on genetically modified crops in Ireland later this year.

Teagasc yesterday announced its application to obtain a licence from the Environmental Protection Agency in order to plant GM potatoes at its research centre in Oak Park, Co Carlow. The authority said research had confirmed that GM late blight potatoes had the potential to “significantly reduce the fungicide load on the environment”, as well as providing an economic benefit to farmers.

The proposed research, which would take place over four years, would examine the possible long-term impacts that GM potatoes crops could have on Irish ecosystems. “It is not enough to simply look at the benefits without also considering the potential costs,” said Teagasc researcher Dr Ewen Mullins.

The authority said the agronomic and economic benefits of using GM crops “to deliver novel control strategies for late blight disease” were evident – but that the public’s need to receive impartial information on the issue was clear.

“Pandora’s box”

However, environmentalist groups have voiced strong concerns over the application. Tony Lowes, one of the directors of Friends of the Irish Environment, said that the issue of introducing GM crops to Irish soil presented a “Pandora’s box situation” – saying that once GM organisms were introduced to an ecosystem they could not be removed.

“We are opposed to any GM materials being grown outside a laboratory,” Lowe said. “Mistakes are common – they have caused exceedingly complex problems all over the world.”

Lowes added that there would be a “concerted effort” to oppose the application by Teagasc.

Study “not about testing commercial viability”

Head of crops research in Teagasc John Spink said that the proposed field study would be isolated from the conventional potato growing programme at the Oak Park site, which has been on-going for the past 40 years. He insisted that Teagasc’s work was “not about testing the commercial viability of GM potatoes,” adding:

The GM study is about gauging the environmental impact of growing GM potatoes in Ireland and monitoring how the pathogen, which causes blight, and the ecosystem reacts to GM varieties in the field over several seasons.

Teagasc says the same pathogen that was responsible for the Great Famine in the 1840s remained a “very real threat” to Irish potato growers today, with the arrival of as new – more aggressive – strains into the country over the past four years. Mullins explained that farmers were responding to this by applying more fungicides – but that this situation was not sustainable, particularly in light of new EU laws demanding a reduction of the amount of chemicals applied to crops.

Read: EU proposes to harmonise GM food tolerance policy>

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54 Comments
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    Mute Martin Sinnott
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    Apr 7th 2013, 8:50 AM

    Send them the report in the Irish language !

    62
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    Mute Ian Crowley
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:40 AM

    Irish is considered an official language in the EU.

    AFAIK, all EU documents eventually get published (printed???) in every language for dissemination to the other member states.

    Not taking the piss but I believe there are a series of robots that deliver documents through out the EU building in Brussels that follow pre-programmed paths. The look like a cross between a shopping trolly and a 1950′s Sci-Fi “Future-Dog”.

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    Mute Keith O'Brien
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    Apr 7th 2013, 11:54 AM

    Wrong Council. Official COE languages are English and French.

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    Mute Damocles
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    Apr 7th 2013, 8:54 AM

    Of course they don’t care about the badgers, badgers aren’t bondholders. ;)

    55
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    Mute skerriesred
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    Apr 7th 2013, 8:58 AM

    I thought that nobody knows who the bond holders are.
    Why couldn’t it be the badgers?

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    Mute Little Jim
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:02 AM

    I thought that was the wombles of Wimbledon common.

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    Mute Dilcos
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:30 AM

    Do Bondholders carry TB as well?

    26
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    Mute Damocles
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    Apr 7th 2013, 12:27 PM

    “Why couldn’t it be the badgers?”

    Because then the government would be falling over backwards to help them.

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    Mute JibberIrish
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    Apr 7th 2013, 10:53 AM

    I think the Irish motorways are culling enough badgers.

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    Mute Dermot Fennelly
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    Apr 7th 2013, 8:39 AM

    That’s the least of our worries , I’m sure our friends in Europe have filed very detailed analysis

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    Mute Pádraig O'hEidhin
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    Apr 7th 2013, 8:46 AM

    Next they’ll want detailed analysis on the amount of tiddly-winks played on an annual basis.

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    Mute Figo murphy
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    Apr 7th 2013, 10:03 AM

    It’s not the least of the Badges problems

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    Mute Vinnie Bonar
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    Apr 8th 2013, 12:14 AM

    It’s an island… Why do they care?

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    Mute Maureen Ellen McGill
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:55 PM

    article is about badger culling though one wouldn’t think so from the comments. Science has proved that killing badgers does not stop Bovine TB from spreading so let’s just give these guys a break and clean up best practice and hygienic farming.

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    Mute cormac
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    Apr 7th 2013, 11:57 AM

    European law my ass. Free trade across the eu? I just paid €3000 in vrt to bring a car in from the UK. We can choose which laws to enforce or not. I am not worried about a badger law. I’ve never seen as many of them in my life.

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    Mute Keith O'Brien
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    Apr 7th 2013, 12:12 PM

    It’s highly worrying that a secondary school teacher can’t distinguish between the EU and COE …. especially when that person claims to be interested in politics.

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    Mute Íde Mhic Gabhann
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    Oct 19th 2013, 9:25 AM

    Especially when the article refers to Bern

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    Mute Tom Kiely
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    Apr 7th 2013, 10:06 AM

    Next ill be telling Europe how many squares if toilet paper I use….but us as nation of sheep..I say no more

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    Mute Clifford Brennan
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    Apr 7th 2013, 11:19 AM

    Im sure we recently learned that EU wide agreements dont necessarily mean anything.

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    Mute John Burke
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    Apr 7th 2013, 1:06 PM

    I met a badger last night in the local, not bad looking either

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    Mute OU812
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:25 AM
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    Mute Dermot Fennelly
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:30 AM

    Let’s send them that

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    Mute Ian Crowley
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    Apr 7th 2013, 9:42 AM

    Thats fantastic. Nothing will ever be the same again….EVER!

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    Mute RP McMurphy
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    Apr 7th 2013, 12:00 PM

    ‘Russian dancing men’ also catchy!

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    Mute John Anthony Duignan
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    May 22nd 2013, 8:10 PM

    There is huge debate about this, the farming lobby think that these creatures spread TB to cows, many of us think that this a simplistic take on things. The debate is really that of industrial scale farming that has encroached up and indeed nearly wiped out the majority of Irish wildlife in the name maximizing profit per square meter of land, the hell with the cost to the natural environment and the diversity of wildlife that lives in tune with it. We on the environmental side of the debate feel that this kind wonton destruction has no justification whatsoever. Unfortunately the farm lobby is powerful in both finance and in terms of governmental representation and it is a bit of a battle.

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