2012-05-15
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Last month scientists at Rothamsted offered to meet and talk to the protesters at a neutral venue to debate their GM wheat trial. But leaders from Rothamsted say they have not had any official response back from Take the Flour Back. ”We have offered them dialogue. We have offered them a public debate,” said Maurice Moloney, director and chief executive of Rothamsted Research. ”We came up with the idea of hosting a debate with a neutral chair. A nationally-known journalist could act as a chair, but we haven’t heard a word back.”
2012-05-15
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AN INFLUENTIAL committee of MPs has called on the Government to refrain from licensing genetically modified crops until their benefits have been proved. The Environmental Audit Committee challenged the Government’s promotion of the ’sustainable intensification’ model of food production – ’the need to produce more form less’ - in a report on Sustainable Food, published over the weekend. This included questioning its support for GM technology. The committee said it received some evidence arguing that GM crops could be ’part of the solution for a sustainable food system’. But it also heard other evidence that food shortage problems could be ’better addressed through other means’, for example by tackling the 30 per cent food grown globally that is lost or wasted.
2012-05-10
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A Welsh farmer says he is willing to risk being arrested when he joins a group of activists at a protest near Luton aimed at destroying a trial crop of genetically-modified wheat. Gerald Miles, a critic of GM crops since trial plots were planted near his organic farm in Pembrokeshire in 2001, said stopping the trial at Rothamsted Research had to be a priority. “I would rather not risk being arrested, but myself and others are being forced to take that risk because we have no other means of preventing this crop from contaminating other crops and spreading across the country,” said Mr Miles.
2012-05-10
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AROUND 4,000 people, including high profile celebrities, MPs, farmers and scientists, have signed a petition urging protestors not to destroy a genetically modified wheat trial. The petition, run by Sense About Science, represents the next stage in the campaign to stop protestors operating under the banner, ‘Take Back the Flour’, carrying through their threat to destroy the trial at the Rothamsted Research institute, in Hertfordshire, on May 27. The highest profile signatory is actor and radio and TV presenter Stephen Fry, while other supporters include local MP and former Minister Peter Lilley, BBSRC chief executive Douglas Kell and writer Matt Ridley.
2012-05-09
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The MP for Hitchin and Harpenden has shown his support for the genetically modified wheat trails that are currently taking place at Rothamsted Research. The controversial experiment, which is taking place in Harpenden, has received mixed reactions from people across the UK. Peter Lilley said: “I strongly support the invaluable work being carried out at the Rothamsted Research Institute on developing GM crops and their very responsible approach to eliminate any risk of premature release of plants they are developing – risks which are in any case much exaggerated.
2012-05-07
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The first prostate cancer vaccine could be a step away after ministers gave their approval for a human trial of a new genetically modified therapy. The treatment, which uses viruses carrying human DNA to direct the body’s natural defences against cancer cells, is the first prostate cancer vaccine ever to reach late stage ”phase three” trials in Europe. No vaccines have yet been approved in Britain to treat any type of cancer, and scientists believe it could not only double the survival rate of prostate cancer sufferers but give way to a new range of similar treatments for other tumour types.
2012-05-02
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Scientists in the United Kingdom are hoping that a direct, impassioned appeal to protesters who have threatened to destroy a field trial of genetically modified wheat later this month might save their research project. In a letter and video message released earlier today, scientists at Rothamsted Research in Harpenden respond to a group called Take the Flour Back, which has said that if the scientists don’t remove the plants by 27 May, protesters will do so.
2012-05-02
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Crop scientists have appealed to anti-GM protesters not to trash a field trial of genetically modified wheat at a day of action later this month. Researchers wrote to campaigners on Tuesday and also recorded a video plea, making a move to address the concern of campaigners and thus save their experiments. The plant biologists at Rothamsted Research, the government-funded agricultural centre in Hertfordshire, invited protesters to discuss their objections instead of uprooting the crops on 27 May.
They took the unusual step of filming an appeal after campaigners, with the slogan “Take back the flour”, pledged to pull up the wheat plants. One welcomed the offer to meet, but said the scientists had already made their position clear by planting the crops in the first place.
2012-04-26
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Professor George Lomonossoff has been named BBSRC Innovator of the Year 2012 for his work with Dr Frank Sainsbury to develop a system for producing vaccines and pharmaceutical proteins rapidly in plants. The system could allow vaccines to be produced much more rapidly for emergency vaccination programmes in the face of disease pandemics. [...] Social innovator: Professor Richard Mithen, Institute of Food Research, Norwich - Beneforte broccoli - a consumer product from UK plant research
2012-04-23
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GENETICALLY-modified crops could be grown in Suffolk within a decade as severe water shortages grip the region, it has been claimed. Suffolk farmer Richard Wrinch says he can foresee drought-resistant crops being introduced to help counter predicted cuts in water levels. [...] Paul Hammett, senior policy adviser at the National Farmers Union (East Anglia), said: ”I think it’s really important that there is some serious consideration given to the development of drought-resistant and drought-tolerant crops. Not withstanding the current public reticence about genetically-modified crops they could really make a big difference. ”I don’t know whether they will be [introduced] sooner or later but the whole genetically-modified thing needs to be debated and thought through.”
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