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1 April

Well, well. Some good news at last: no GM crops are likely to be grown in Britain for five years or so, it seems, following Bayer CropScience's decision to give up trying to commercially grow its variety of GM maize, Chardon LL, in Britain. According to Bayer, it was forced to do so because of the 'constraints' placed on its plans by the government - pesky things like consulting local farmers, monitoring environmental impacts, informing communities etc. Democracy, in other words.

Bayer says it 'remains highly committed to the further development of plant biotechnologies in the UK', but it's quite possible that this could be the death knell for commercial planting of GM crops in Britain, at least for a long while. There's simply no market for them, and the government - which has had to respond to the huge upswelling of public opposition to the technology - has been forced to impose conditions which, while not as strict as some environmentalists would like, are still strict enough to make life difficult for Bayer and its fellow agri-corps.

Expect some whingeing from the biotech corporations and their various flunkies in the press (watch out for dutiful appearances by Philip Stott, Melanie Phillips and anyone from the Institute of Ideas) about how legitimate and vital scientific progress has again been scuppered by scare-mongering eco-fascists, intent on preventing those nutritious GM crops from reaching the poor world, where people need them so desperately. Ignore it all; it's the bleating of losers. Celebrate, instead, the fact that the further corporate takeover of farming, and consequently of food itself, has been set back further by this decision.

Posted by paul at April 1, 2004 04:38 PM

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