TEST CROPS SLASHED BY ANTI-GM ACTIVISTS
http://www.thisisnorthscotland.co.uk

ALISTAIR BEATON
P&J,  13 May 2003 

Environmental protesters have claimed responsibility for an attack on
field-scale test crops in Aberdeenshire. Anti-GM activists said they took
the action on Sunday night to prevent cross-contamination between flowering
genetically modified oilseed rape and commercial acreage.

A swathe of around 150 yards of oilseed rape crops growing at Teuchathaugh
Farm - between Drum of Wartle and Oldmeldrum - lay slashed to the ground
yesterday.

A four-strong team from the Scottish Crop Research Unit was at the farm
throughout the morning, but refused to comment on the damage across a
10-yard-wide sweep of the field.

Grampian Police were at nearby New Craig Farm and understood to be speaking
to farmer Shirley Harrison about the damaged crops.

Later, a police spokesman said that no complaint had been lodged.

He also confirmed that no police action was being taken over the incident.
Mrs Harrison could not be contacted yesterday.

She recently unsuccessfully contested a Grampian Police move to revoke her
firearms and shotgun licences.

Her appeal at Aberdeen Sheriff Court last month was told that police had
confiscated shotguns and rifles, along with ammunition, after Mrs Harrison
threatened a BBC journalist filming damage to crops by anti-GM protesters
last autumn.

Mrs Harrison started a three-year field trial of GM oilseed rape on her land
in 2000. The controversial trials are due to end in August.

In a statement yesterday, protesters said the latest attack on the GM crop
took place on Sunday night.

"The genetically modified crop was cut down at the flowering stage, to
prevent cross-pollination with non GM plants, by people opposed to the
growing of genetically modified organisms in the open," the statement said.
"In the field next door to this experimental crop, ordinary commercial
oilseed rape is growing, which will be sold as normal and find its way into
the human food chain. This is reckless disregard of public health and
environmental health."

The protesters' statement also calls on the Scottish Parliament and the new
environment minister to make Scotland GM free.

The protesters claim the growing of the crops in the farming heartland of
Aberdeenshire poses a threat to the right of consumers to choose whether to
eat GM foods, to normal functioning of ecosystems, to public health near GM
crop trials, and to the independence of farmers, both organic and
conventional, from multinational companies.