UK Guardian: GM crop trial locations may be hidden from public

[seafan]

GM crop trial locations may be hidden from public

Ian Sample, science correspondent
February 16 2008

Genetically modified crops may be grown in hidden locations in Britain amid fears that anti-GM campaigners are winning the battle over the controversial technology, the Guardian has learned.
Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed they are looking at a range of options to clamp down on vandalism to GM crop trials, after intense lobbying by big crop biotech companies. The firms have warned that trials of GM crops are becoming too expensive to conduct in Britain because of the additional costs of protecting fields from activists.

.....

But fears of vandalism have forced many companies to shift their crop trials abroad. Last year, only one trial went ahead in Britain, a blight-resistant GM potato developed by the German company BASF. Two activists were arrested for damage to the trial site, which was later almost completely destroyed in a night raid.

BASF plans to repeat the trial this year, at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany in Cambridgeshire. Another trial is planned by scientists at Leeds University.

A group representing the major biotech companies has asked the government to oversee specific changes to the GM trial process that would make fields of crops harder for activists to locate. Under existing laws, full details of every GM crop trial must be disclosed in advance on a government website, with a six-figure grid reference identifying the precise location of the field.
The group has asked Defra to keep details of locations on a register, which would only be shared with people who apply and who can prove they have good reason to know. Another option is to release only a four-figure reference for the trial site.

.....

Some GM companies fear future crop trials are in greater danger because of what they claim is a "broadening out" of anti-GM activists to include anti-globalisation and possibly animal rights campaigners. British anti-GM activists have also developed links with European groups that hold training camps to share tactics, such as crossing police lines and gaining access to fields. In France and Germany, crop trashings have increased substantially as farmers have taken to growing GM crops.

People around the world are uniting in protest of genetically modified crops, enraged by the ravages on the environment, the loss of small family farmlands, the hijacking of farmers' seed supplies and livelihoods and the known and unknown health effects of these manipulated foods.

The people will win.



http://image.guim.co.uk/Guardian/environment/gallery/2008/feb/07/1/[e-mail]
An environmental campaigner from the direct action group Southern Union of Resistance to Genetic Engineering wears a grim reaper outfit and prepares to destroy GM-modified maize crops at a trial site in Over Compton near Sherborne, Dorset. Picture taken in 2000
Photograph: PA

http://image.guim.co.uk/Guardian/environment/gallery/2008/feb/07/1/[e-mail]
Protesters on the 'tractors and trolleys' parade and rally in London, in 2003, demonstrate their opposition to GM crops and food
Photograph: David Levene

http://image.guim.co.uk/Guardian/environment/gallery/2008/feb/07/1/[e-mail]
Anti-GM crop demonstrators rip up trial oilseed rape crops in Warwickshire, Britain
Photograph: Nick Cobbing/Rex

[orleans]

1. "The people will win." (let's hope so.) n/t

[seafan]

2. "Key players"

Key players

February 16, 2008

Hilary Benn

The environment minister says his approach is guided by scientific evidence. He believes there is no suggestion that GM crops are unsafe to eat, but adds it will be some years before they are grown in Britain.


Robert Watson

The government's chief environment scientist believes GM crops have potential in Britain, but says there are safety questions over the spread of genes from modified crops.


Julian Little

The chairman of the industry's Agricultural Biotechnology Council claims GM crops are the most rigorously tested of all and sees them as crucial for meeting rising food demand. Says the benefits include better yields, reduced costs and less environmental damage.


Jürgen Binder

A professional bee-keeper and co-founder of the German anti-GM group Gendreck Weg, he has been charged with calling for civil disobedience after inviting others to join him in cutting down GM crops.

[Bozita]

3. I've got two beautiful (in appearance) plums sitting in the kitchen right now.

They've been there for eight days.

I bought three, ate one ... well, a part of one anyway.

NO flavor. Zip. Nada. None.

My dogs love asparagus, corn on the cob, nectarines, and green beans.

They won't touch these plums.

Oh yeah, they're more beautiful than the wax version. Taste is similar.

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. "Genetically modified crops may be grown in hidden locations" - say it all

.
.
.
It's just GREED

Seems to me that the family farms did ok.

Sure they weren't rich, and worked long hours.

BUT THEY HAD REAL FOOD!

But then the corporations took over.

Works well, no?

(sigh)

[cedric]

5. Give the people want they want

and as has consistently been shown the British public do not want GM crops. Yet the New Labour government keeps trying to push it down our throats as all they pander to is business interests.