Military security for GM field trials
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The British government is drawing up plans to conduct field trials of GM crops on military installations. Depending on which newspaper you read, this is either intended to "thwart saboteurs", or to "defy critics" of GM crops.

Ellen Widdup of the London Evening Standard says that, as an additional precaution to "thwart saboteurs",  the military installations would not be identified, and that police could also be asked to target opponents of GM crops in the same way they have clamped down on some animal rights protesters.

Andrew Grice, political editor of The Independent, says the measures would "defy critics with secret GM crop trials".

Under current rules, scientists must disclose the location of trials on a government website, thereby making it easy for anti-GM protesters to find them. No experiments are currently underway in Britain after 400 potato plants were destroyed on a farm run by the University of Leeds in June. Almost all of the 54 GM crop trials which have been conducted since 2000 have been targeted by opponents and vandalised.

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