The Icelandic biotech company ORF Líftækni hf. has applied to the Environment and Food Agency (EFA) for a new licence to extend its crop trials of GM pharmaceutical barley outdoors at Gunnarsholt in the southern part of Iceland. If the EFA rules in favour of ORF one can assume that within two years GM pharmaceutical barley will be growing on up to 30 hectares of land in the middle of Iceland´s largest and most fertile agricultural region.

ORF was granted its first crop trial licence in February of 2003, authorizing outdoor growing of the GM pharm barley during the period 2003-2008, from 40 sqm in the first year up to 20 ha during the last three years of the period. The new application is for a 200 sqm trial plot this year, increasing to 10 ha during the period 2007-2009. See EFA´s website. ORF´s application indicates that this operation is not confined to crop trials only, but also production for processing and/or marketing of products.

Europe does not grow GM pharmaceutical crops, because of the considerable risk involved, and because of the general opposition to GM products among the European public. In Iceland, licences for the deliberate release of GMOs are still granted under the auspieces of a regulation from 1997 which is markedly less strict than present EU regulations. (Iceland belongs to the EEA and will soon adopt the EU regulation.)

In countries where GM farming has been allowed containment of GM plants has proved impossible. GM pharm crops contain biologically active compounds intended for use in medicines and industrial products. This is why demands are growing for such plants to be grown indoors and in non-food and non-feed types of crops only.

In Iceland barley is increasingly grown for livestock feed and for human food products. If outdoor growing of GM pharmaceutical barley is allowed, there will be a real possibility that medically active substances will be released into the environment and that they will contaminate feed and food, posing inevitable risks to human and animal health. See further information on risks associated with GM pharmaceutical and industrial crops here.