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BASF potato trial

Derby GM watcher | 18.12.2006 18:52

The farm which was to trial GM potatoes has withdrawn permission.

Farmer who had agreed to genetically modified potatoes being grown on his land has pulled out of the scheme after receiving threats. But no evidence seems to have been made public about where these alleged threats came from.

Yesterday, it was revealed the farmer with whom the company had agreed a deal was not willing to go ahead. A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, condemned the people who had targeted the farmer.
He said: "This gentleman has had some threats made against him and his family and so decided he didn't want to participate.
"It is up to the company to decide whether it will look for an alternative site.
"We think it is outrageous this man has been threatened in this way."
The company did not reveal the location of the trial to try to protect the farmer from opponents of the scheme, who claim GM crops pose a threat to the environment when seeds spread in the wild.

Some residents of Borrowash were concerned about the crops trial. Jackie Flint, of Cole Lane, said: "There were many people who were worried about it going ahead around here, so I think it will be seen as good news that it's been stopped."
Scare tactics used against a farmer who was planning to grow genetically modified potatoes have been condemned by an enviromental group.Friends of the Earth has sympathised with the ideals of those who issued the threats, but disapproved of their methods.
The Borrowash farmer has pulled out of the BASF Plant Science trial after receiving messages that made him fear for his safety.
She said the threats did not come from Friends of the Earth, although she said her organisation had written to the farmer to point out there would be heavy insurance costs as a result of using GM chemicals. "If the chemicals had contaminated other people's fields the farmer would have been liable, not BASF," she said.
Peter Ambler, 60, a member of Ms Skrytek's organisation for 12 years, said a better form of protest would have been to blockade the farm.
"Threats of violence don't solve anything," he said. "But there's no doubt this trial would have been dangerous as it would have killed local wildlife and it only takes one leaf or flower to blow into another field for the area to become contaminated."

Sue Mayer, a founder of Genewatch, a non-profit organisation that aims to ensure GM technologies are in the public interest, said: "These experiments are going ahead despite much public scepticism, but they don't seem to represent any immediate danger to the surrounding area."

BASF is expect to confirm another trial site within two weeks, but could not say if it would be in Derbyshire.

Borrowash was selected as a test area because the chemical make-up of its soil would provide different results to the company's other test site in Cambridge.
This is mainly a cut and paste

Derby GM watcher

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Alarming news

18.12.2006 22:35

Is this the manufacturer of the tapes I have been using? Anyone suggesting manufacturers who are not doing this Satanic work I can switch my purchasing to?

Ilyan