Soil Association: GM field trials a complete waste of tax-payers’ money

Following the announcement that a field trail of GM potatoes is taking place at a secret location in Norfolk to monitor whether the genes work against blight, Emma Hockridge, Soil Association policy manager, said: "This GM field trial further highlights just how far behind GM technology is compared to conventional breeding. A blight resistant potato variety (Sarpo) has already been bred using conventional methods and is commercially available. The fact that this GM potato variety is still at the field trial stage – after 10 years, no significant results and 1.7 million £ of tax-payers’ money later – clearly demonstrates what a failing and old technology this is.“
 

Ms Hockridge continued that in the same way that they were calling for the Food Standards Agency to stop wasting money on what was effectively a PR exercise for GM food, this field trial should also be halted. Research should instead be focused on conventional breeding which was showing much better results at a far cheaper cost. The IAASTD report, the largest scientific farming study ever conducted and produced by over 400 scientists from across the world, concluded that in a world faced with climate change and resource depletion, agro-ecological farming methods like organic need be utilised, rather than throwing more money at GM crops.
 

Soil Association