Thought that the GM crops industry in the UK had given up and gone away? Well think again. In spring 2004 Bayer CropScience finally threw in the towel and abandoned their plans to grow commercial GM crops in the UK. However, after over two years of licking their wounds the biotech industry has reared its ugly head again. In early December 2006 chemical multinational BASF was granted permission by the UK government to conduct a five year research and development trial of GM blight resistant potatoes, at two locations, between spring 2007 and autumn 2011.

The first trial site at NIAB (National Institute of Agricultural Botany) near Girton just north of Cambridge has gone to plan and was planted on 19th April. However, the second trial has met with problems. First planned for a farm near Borrowash, Derbyshire, the original host farmer backed out of at the trial in late December 2006. An alternative site was announced in spring 2007 at Hendon, near Hull. Planting has been abandoned this year due to opposition from neighbouring farmers.

In April over 150 people attempted to disrupt the Hendon trial – a field they thought was about to be planted with GM potatoes was sown with organic potatoes. As it turned out they got the wrong field (but it’s the thought that counts). As one of the spud planters said 'Despite a mistake being made we believe it was far better that we went ahead and challenged the GM trials than stood by doing nothing. Although the wrong field was targeted we still demonstrated that the British pubic are resolutely opposed to GM crops and will take action to resist their reintroduction into the UK'.

Planting of this second site has now been abandoned due to opposition from neighbouring farmers.

BASF (or Badische Anilin und Soda-Fabrik of Ludwigshafen) is a large German chemical company with interests in chemicals, plastics, performance products, oil and gas as well as agro- chemicals and GM crops. It is also a leading manufacturer and developer of nanomaterials. The company claims to be the largest chemical company in the world. In 2005 it was the 3rd biggest seller of pesticides in the world. Along with Bayer CropScience, Dow Agrosciences, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta BASF is part of the UK GM crops industry front group the ABC (Agricultural Biotechnology Council)

For more information on the potatoes see www.gmfreeze.org/uploads/GM_Spudsoverview_webbriefing.pdf

For more information on the campaign to stop BASF’s mutatoes see www.mutatoes.org

For details of where the potatoes are planted see www.defra.gov.uk/environment/gm/regulation/pdf/trials.pdf