The UK Farm Scale Evaluations - the effects of GM herbicide-tolerant crops on farmland wildlife.

Abstract

The Farm Scale Evaluations (FSEs) were a four-year programme of research designed to compare the effects that the weed management practices associated with four genetically modified herbicide-tolerant (GMHT) and conventional crops would have on farmland wildlife in the UK. They were initiated in response to concerns that the introduction of GMHT crops might further exacerbate declines in farmland wildlife that had been observed over the 20th century. About 60 fields were sown for each of the crops, maize, beet and spring and winter oilseed rape (canola); one half-field with a conventional variety and the other with a GMHT variety. Treatment effects on the abundances of plants and invertebrates within cropped fields and in field margins over three years were recorded. In GMHT beet, spring and winter oilseed rape, weed populations (particularly dicot species) suffered large declines which in some cases persisted for at least two subsequent years. These negative effects had adverse effects on other organisms at higher trophic levels and would most likely impact upon farmland birds if the crops were introduced. Contrastingly, maize showed the opposite pattern. Subsequent work has focused on the effects of changes in herbicide regimes, modelling and measuring longer term plant dynamics, effects on higher trophic levels and statistical considerations of the overall design and results of the experiments.

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