Andrew Grice
UK - Ministers are drawing up plans for genetically-modified crops to be
grown in secret and more secure locations to prevent trials being wrecked by
saboteurs.

They may ask the police to target opponents of GM crops in the way that they
have cracked down on animal rights protesters. Another option is for the
controversial crops to be grown at a secure government site such as Porton
Down near Salisbury, which carries out military research and includes a
science park where they could be securely developed away from the public.

The Independent disclosed in June that the Government wants a new public
debate on whether GM foods could hold the answer to global food shortages
and rising prices. Gordon Brown is moving cautiously, saying he will be
guided by scientific experts, because of strong public opposition to
previous trials ? notably from young mothers.

However, no experiments are currently underway in Britain after 400 potato
plants were destroyed on a farm run by the University of Leeds in June.
Almost all of the 54 GM crop trials which have been conducted since 2000
have been targeted by opponents and vandalised.

Under current rules, scientists must disclose the location of trials on a
government website, thereby making it easy for anti-GM protesters to find
them. Ministers are now ready to scrap that rule. A review of the security
arrangements has also been ordered by Hilary Benn, the Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs Secretary and Lord Mandelson, the Business Secretary.

Mr Benn said: "We need to see if they [GM foods] have a contribution to make
and we won't know the answer about their environmental impact unless we run
controlled experiments. It's important to go with the science."

A government source added: "We need to review the security arrangements. The
rules are a charter for people who want to stop the experiments. A lot of
information has to be put in the public domain and that makes it very easy
for people to trash them."

Lord Mandelson backs the Cabinet's decision that GM policy must depend on
science but is anxious to prevent Britain's biotechnology industry falling
behind its overseas competitors.

He was a supporter of GM foods in his previous job as a European
commissioner, where he tried to change the EU's cautious approach to GM
licensing. In a speech last year, he argued: "Safe biotechnology has a
crucial role to play in agriculture and agricultural trade both in Europe
and the developing world."

Lord Mandelson urged governments, the Commission and the biotech industry to
do a better job of setting out the issues. "While technology determines what
is possible, consumer demand determines what is economically viable. Public
fears may be misplaced, but they cannot and should not be dismissed," he
said.
www.checkbiotech.org
Leeds University plans to make one final attempt to conduct its field trial.
It will ask the Government to foot an estimated ?100,000 bill for installing
fences, security cameras and guards on its farm so that the trial is not
sabotaged by opponents.

Professor Tim Benton, research dean at its Faculty of Biological Science,
said yesterday: "We need to find a way to do crop trials in a safe way and
to minimise the environmental risk. We cannot carry on for the next 20 or 30
years saying it's too scary, the public is too frightened, it is politically
too dangerous. There is absolutely no way we can move towards a world with
food security without using GM technology. The amount of food we need could
double because the population is growing, climate change will reduce yields
and we will take land out of food production for biofuels."

Ministers, who have been lobbied by the biotechnology industry to improve
security at trial sites, are drawing a parallel between anti-GM protesters
and opponents of experiments on animals. The law was changed in 2005 to give
police new powers to prosecute activists after Huntingdon Life Sciences was
targeted and attacked by animal rights extremists.