Fields of genetically modified potatoes will be grown in Britain next spring under plans approved by the government yesterday.
The German chemicals company BASF has been granted permission to conduct two field trials of potatoes modified to resist late blight, the fungus that devastated Ireland's potato crop in the 1840s famine. The trials are expected to last five years and will be the first in Britain since the government's field-scale evaluations in 2003 to examine the environmental impact of herbicides used with some GM crops. The potatoes will be planted in April on single-hectare plots at sites in Derbyshire and at the National Institute for Agricultural Botany in Cambridge.
The decision by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has dismayed opponents of GM crops, who branded the trials a waste of money. Friends of the Earth's GM campaigner, Clare Oxborrow, said: "These GM trials pose a significant contamination threat to future potato crops. We don't need GM potatoes and there is no consumer demand for them. Even the county council and the food industry have raised concerns about the impact of these trials."
The trials are a testing of the water by GM crop companies after research was pushed out of Britain by negative public opinion and trashing of trials by anti-GM activists in the 1990s. None of the potatoes grown in the trial will go into the food chain, but if the tests are successful, BASF will consider seeking permission to market, grow and sell the potatoes in Britain.
Defra approved the plans after consideration by the government's GM independent advisory committee on releases to the environment (Acre). "This is great news for UK science, because government have made an objective decision based on sound scientific principles," said Barry Stickings of BASF. "We all want a sensible debate about GM which is based on real evidence rather than tabloid headlines or out of date information."
Late blight (Phytophthora infestans) inflicts huge losses on farming, costing about £50m a year, despite preventive measures costing more than £30m.
All the potatoes in the trial must be dug up and transported to laboratories in secure vehicles for testing before being incinerated. The next season any remaining potatoes are uprooted. Chris Pollock, Acre chairman, said it accepted that the main considerations - that potatoes would not enter the food chain, the trial tubers would be destroyed and pollen would not cross with other potatoes - would be met.