GMO Wheat in UK: Feeding a Hungry World – or Meddling with Laws of Nature?

As scientists at Rothamsted's GM trials plead with activists not to sabotage their work, Michael McCarthy visits the battle field

May 25, 2012 | Source: The Independent | by Michael McCarthy

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Three senior scientists made impassioned appeals yesterday to anti-GM campaigners not to destroy a field trial of GM wheat which is the culmination of several years’ work.

The trial involves a wheat strain modified to be resistant to aphid pests, but an ad hoc group of activists, assembled in a campaign entitled Take The Flour Back, have said they will march to the trial site this Sunday and attempt to destroy the young crops.

The activists say the trial, at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, is a threat to agriculture because pollen from the GM wheat could contaminate non-GM plants outside the trial boundary, and they believe GM is in general a dangerous and inappropriate technology for agriculture. But the scientists say cross-contamination from the site is virtually impossible, and that the new strain of wheat they are producing, besides being a boost to food security in an ever-hungrier world, itself has significant environmental benefits, as it will mean the input of pesticides is considerably lessened.