GM potato trials given go-ahead

A plan to grow genetically modified potatoes on two trial sites in England has been approved by the government.

Defra granted permission for BASF Plant Science to grow the vegetables at field sites in Cambridgeshire and Derbyshire.

The crops have been modified to include a gene from a wild species of potato in a bid to make them resistant to blight, a disease costing growers £70m a year.
But the Soil Association said it was "a stupid decision" and warned other crops risked contamination by GM.

BASF aims to develop potatoes resistant to Phytophthora infestans , a fungal organism that produces late blight. The plant breeder says it has found a trait in a wild potato from a remote valley in the Central American Andes that causes resistance to the fungal organism.

The biotechnology firm applied to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to hold trials at the headquarters of the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) in Cambridge and on a farm at Draycott in Derbyshire.

The GM potato crops are to be planted next spring, and trials will last several years. BASF said the investigations would take up a maximum of one hectare within a plot of two hectares at each site per year.

BASF corporate communications manager Chris Wilson said: "Nothing from these trials will be eaten. The potatoes grown will be tested under carefully controlled conditions and then destroyed.
"The possibility of a food crop from it is maybe 10 years down the line."

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