Genetically Modified Crops Back On Market In Britain
A newspaper reported Monday that genetically modified crops are being grown in Britain for the first time since a year ago when controversial trials were resumed without alerting the public.
The Daily Telegraph said the cultivation of a field of potatoes designed to be resistant to pests was abandoned for over a year when environmental protesters ripped up the crop.
Then, without alerting the public, the project near Tadcaster in northern England has been restarted, prompting warnings from green groups that local farms and residents could be at risk, according to the paper.
One group said that the government was trying to "slip it under the radar."
The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the potatoes would be grown in a safe environment with no risk of contamination. It said they would not be used for human or animal consumption.
The Leeds University trial is testing the potatoes to see if they are resistant to a parasite worm that costs British farmers millions of dollars a year in lost and damaged crops.
Genetically modified crops have genes inserted into them in the lab so they can acquire traits that are useful to farmers.
They are widely grown in North America, South America and China.
However, in Europe they have run into fierce resistance from green groups who say the crops carry risks from cross-pollination, potentially creating "super-weeds" that are impervious to herbicides.
The European Union has approved only a handful of genetically modified crops for cultivation, but of them only MON810 is being grown so far.
This month, France rejected a report by the EU’s food safety watchdog that said a controversial strain of genetically modified corn was safe.
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