Agriculture ministers have turned on their allies in the genetic modification industry to try to save Europe's largest organic farming research centre.
In an unprecedented volte-face they are pressuring the industry to abandon an officially sanctioned trial of GM maize which -- as The Independent on Sunday exclusively revealed two weeks ago -- is two miles from the Henry Doubleday Research Association's organic farming centre at Ryton near Coventry. They have the backing of Tony Blair, another committed supporter of GM crops.
The industry -- which was on the point of sowing the maize, at Wolston, early in the week -- has been thrown into confusion by the way its patrons in the Government have switched sides and has spent days dithering as to how to respond. It believes that whatever it does will now endanger its plans for growing GM crops commercially in Britain.
Senior sources at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Maff) agree with environmentalists that the industry deliberately sought to pick a fight by choosing the site. The row is developing into a crucial showdown between the industry and environmentalists, one that it seems likely to lose.
The row became an election issue yesterday when the Conservatives described the choosing of the site as "bizarrely insensitive'' and promised to stop the trial if elected. The research centre lies in one of the most marginal seats in the country where Andy King, the Labour MP, is defending a majority of just 495, making it eighth on the Tories' hit-list.
Neither the Government nor the Scientific Steering Committee, which approved the site, were informed of its proximity to the centre when they gave it the go-ahead last month. When he was told, Michael Meacher, the Environment minister, called it "highly provocative'' and wrote to the committee, Aventis (the firm responsible) and Scimac, the industry body conducting the trials, to ask them to abandon it.
Professor Chris Pollock, the committee chairman, wrote to Mr Meacher on Wednesday refusing to withdraw the committee's approval. That provoked one member, from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to threaten to resign. The industry was also ready by midweek to reject Mr Meacher's appeal, confident that he would lose his job after the election, but has been astounded to come under pressure from Maff and the Prime Minister, on whose support it has always been able to count.
Industry sources privately recognise that it is now in deep trouble whatever it decides. If it submits to the pressure and scraps the trial it would set a damaging precedent. Research by Greenpeace and the Soil Association show that 36 organic farms lie within two miles of trial sites all over the country. And if it was accepted that no GM crops could be grown that close to organic produce it would become impossible to grow them commercially in Britain.
On the other hand, if it ignores the pressure it will provoke the Government's anger and cause the RSPB and possibly English Nature, the Government's official wildlife watchdog, to resign from the committee, destroying its credibility and undermining the trial programme. And if the crops grew they would be bound to be destroyed by protesters later in the year.
Aventis blamed "election fever'' for the crisis and accused the Government of "changing the rules'' on the trials. Scimac said that the scientific procedures followed in choosing the site should be kept "sacrosanct''.
Tim Yeo, the Conservative agriculture spokesman, has written to Mr Meacher to say that going ahead with the trial "would send out a signal to the world that the British Government has no regard for the integrity of Britain's organic produce". He called on the Government to abandon the trial and said that the RSPB would be "entirely justified in resigning should it go ahead''. --- 'Topics banished to the back of the manifestos, such as genetic research, conservation, animal welfare and poverty, appear to be those engaging growing numbers of the public. And, as our survey clearly demonstrates, these are matters embraced not just by the young, educated middle classes. It is the older age groups who are most concerned about the plight of the countryside, while GM foods concern the lower socio-economic sections of society as much as the ABC's.
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