Fury as genetically modified potatoes given go-ahead in UK

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GM trial given go-ahead, but first food crop is 10 years away

Ministers have been accused of ignoring consumers and risking contamination of the countryside after giving the green light for genetically modified potatoes to be grown in the UK.

The Government granted permission for the GM variety to be cultivated at two trial sites, prompting claims that they are stealthily trying to reintroduce the technology after previously being forced to back away from it by public opposition.

See also:

• History of genetically modified food

Plans to grow Britain's first commercial GM crop - a bioengineered maize - were abandoned two-and-a-half years ago in the face of consumer protests.

Dr Arpad Pusztai, the nutritionist who prompted the initial furore over GM crops said the move showed Britain was a 'soft touch' because Tony Blair believes the 'moon shines out of the backside of the biotech industry'.

Campaigners said the new trials were pointless because food firms had already rejected GM potatoes.

But the Environment Department said trials of a new GM potato would go ahead at two sites - one in Derbyshire and one in Cambridgeshire.

The crop has been engineered so that it includes a gene from a wild species of potato in a bid to make it resistant to blight, a disease that costs growers £70m a year.

Although the GM potatoes have been trialled in Germany and Sweden, they have yet to be planted here.

German biotech company BASF Plant Sciences will start growing the GM potatoes in spring 2007.

As many as 450,000 GM potato plants can be cultivated at the two sites near Borrowash, Derbyshire, and Girton, Cambridgeshire, over the course of the five-year project.

The first commercially available crops could be on the shelves within a decade.

Chris Wilson, of BASF, said: 'The trial is to evaluate the new blight-resistant GM potato under UK farming and climate conditions.

'Nothing from these trials will be eaten. The potatoes grown will be tested under carefully controlled conditions and then destroyed.

'The possibility of a food crop from it is maybe ten years down the line.'

Ministers said independent experts had advised that the trials posed no risk to human health or the environment.

GM potatoes present a low risk of contaminating other plants because they cannot cross with any wild species present in the UK, they said.

The land will be left fallow and unploughed for two years after the trials in an attempt to prevent the GM varieties contaminating an ordinary crop grown later on the same site.

But Lord Melchett, of the organic industry body the Soil Association, said: 'The Government is ignoring what consumers want to eat and their health and safety.

'Even in America, McDonald's, McCain, Pringles and Burger King, rejected GM potatoes years ago. The chances of anyone in the UK willingly buying GM potato crisps or chips are zero. This trial is a monumental waste of time and money.

'Worse than that, GM potatoes are one of the GM crops where there is scientific evidence of potential risks to human health.'

Friends of the Earth GM campaigner Clare Oxborrow said despite the reassurances, the trials posed a 'significant' contamination threat to future potato crops.

'We don't need GM potatoes and there is no consumer demand for them,' she said.

'The Government should promote safe and sustainable agriculture, not this half-baked GM potato plan.'

For the Tories, shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth said: 'Given that the public shows no appetite at all for GM food, this trial seems somewhat academic.'

Ministers were also accused of letting biotech companies off the hook over any environmental harm caused by GM crops.

Campaigners said proposed protections also unveiled yesterday were the 'weakest possible' and would fail to protect many important sites and species, including butterflies and moths.

Dr Sue Mayer, director of the pressure group GeneWatch, said: 'These proposals are too weak to be effective and are dangerous because they create the impression that laws exist when they are a sham.

'It is highly unlikely that a biotechnology company or person using GMOs would be required to pay for remediation of any environmental damage that may arise unless they were proven to be negligent.'

Environment Minister Ian Pearson said: 'Our top priority on this issue remains protecting consumers and the environment, and a rigorous independent assessment has concluded that these trials do not give rise to any safety concerns.

'Based on the independent advice we have received, appropriate conditions have been specified for the conduct of the trials, and our GM Inspectorate will ensure that these are met.

'As the GM potatoes are being grown for research purposes, they will not be used for food or animal feed.'

Campaigners complain that the Government is continuing to attempt to foist GM technology on Britain despite the total lack of appetite for it from voters.

Dr Pusztai said the latest approval for more trials looked like an attempt by ministers to sneak commercial cultivation in 'by the back door' after waiting for a period in the hope that opposition would die away.

Last month, it emerged that rice being imported from America was widely contaminated with GM material.

One in ten samples of American long grain rice tested at British mills was found to contain GM varieties.

Selling GM rice is illegal in Europe because it has not been cleared for human consumption.

Last year, the European Commission also cleared imports of genetically modified maize produced by the US biotechnology firm Monsanto for use as animal feed, despite safety concerns.

 

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