www.checkbiotech.org ; www.raupp.info ; www.czu.cz

The operation to sabotage the government's GM potato trial was planned with
care and under conditions of great secrecy by Hugh Muir .
Two hundred and fifty protesters swooped on the 16-hectare site outside
Hull, armed with shovels and filled with indignation.

In less than an hour they had moved to invalidate the trial, planting
thousands of organic potatoes. Mission accomplished. If only they had got
the right field.

Activists from Mutatoes.org yesterday apologised to farmer David Buckton
after it emerged that they wrongly identified his land as the site of the GM
trial. The field they planted was sown with beans.

By the time Mr Buckton was alerted to the protesters on his land, it was too
late to stop the direct action. The protesters were determined to move
quickly on the basis that the land would be rendered unsuitable for the GM
trials once other root crops were in the ground.

In a statement Mutatoes.org said: "With the information that we had and the
short timescale available to us ... we sincerely believed this to be the
correct field. The public were not given sufficient information by the
government, who supplied only a four-figure grid reference for the location
of the trial."

The group said they conducted extensive investigations within the area
specified by the environment department and outside. "While it is
regrettable that the wrong site and farmer were targeted, we would also like
to make it clear ... that people will continue to disrupt the planting of GM
crops despite the difficulties faced by this lack of full disclosure," the
group added.

Yesterday Mr Buckton, 54, said the mix-up was the strangest event to have
befallen his family in four generations of farming. He said the protesters
were accompanied by two police officers on horseback.

"I told the police officers that it was a bean field but they said the
protest seemed peaceful so we'd better let them get on with it. The beans
are just about peeping through. The protesters should have been able to see
that," he said.

Mr Buckton said he had no great enthusiasm for GM crops. "I certainly
wouldn't have been giving up my land to test them, he said." The company
BASF plans trials of GM potatoes at two sites: Cambridge, which already has
government approval, and in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

[www.guardian.co.uk]