JAMES REYNOLDS


A FIELD of genetically modified crops which has provoked a storm of protest in the Highlands has been vandalised, police said last night.

The Northern Constabulary said about five acres of GM oilseed rape was destroyed on Saturday night at Roskill Farm, Munlochy, on the Black Isle in Easter Ross.

The site has been the focus of campaigners’ simmering anger since it was first earmarked for GM crop trials by the seed company Aventis in August 2000.

Police said they were investigating the matter and appealed for any witnesses to come forward.

The incident comes only days after a Scottish parliamentary committee called for the crop trial, which had just started to flower, to be ploughed up.

A total of 4,000 protesters based on the Black Isle handed a petition to the transport and environment committee expressing their opposition to the crop trial.

A meeting of the parliamentary committee on Wednesday of last week voted five to four in favour of a motion, proposed by Robin Harper, the Green MSP, calling for an end to the trial.

Mr Harper claimed evidence indicated that GM oilseed rape was the most likely of all experimental crops to cross-pollinate with non-GM crops, and could do so at greater distances than allowed for in the current trials.

The vote was a blow for the rural development minister, Ross Finnie, who has claimed that there is no new evidence of any safety hazards that could affect Scottish trials.

He has said that, under existing European and domestic law, a moratorium or refusal to grant deliberate release consent for a trial would be illegal “unless based on sound scientific evidence” of potential harm.

In a letter to the committee, Mr Finnie said: “ACRE [the UK’s Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment] remains satisfied that no new information has come to light which has implications for the safety of the trial being carried out at Munlochy, or other field scale evaluation sites in Scotland.”

Last night, Mr Harper described the news of the vandalism as a “cause of dismay”.

“I am very sad that this has happened,” he said. “I fully understand their frustrations but I rather hoped that it would not come to this as there is still a little bit more to run in terms of confronting the Executive.

“I requested on Thursday to put in a message to the Executive asking if they would give a justification for allowing the plants to flower and an absolute assurance that it would not be a danger to the environment. I would have very much liked to give them a chance to reply to that, unfortunately that may not be possible now.”

Anthony Jackson, of the Munlochy Vigil, which has campaigned against the oilseed rape trial, said the group had no knowledge of the incident: “We have no plans for direct action.

“We are heavily involved in the political process and that is the way we will continue to operate.”

In March this year, Donnie MacLeod, an organic farmer from Ardersier, became the first Scot to be given a prison sentence over GM crop protests on the Black Isle. He admitted damaging a field of GM oilseed rape in Munlochy when he appeared at Dingwall Sheriff Court as a witness in the case of another man accused of the same offence.

But Mr MacLeod, who is the chairman of the Highlands and Islands Organic Association, was found in contempt of court and jailed for 21 days by Sheriff James Fraser when he refused to identify others involved.

Mr Macleod, 53, has said he is prepared to return to prison and he is due to appear at the court in Dingwall again as one of 11 protesters charged with aggravated trespass at the trial field last year, and he could end up with another jail sentence.