DEFRA has published details of a proposed site for a genetically modified potato trial in Yorkshire.

The site, which will test the effectiveness of the GM potato's resistance against UK strains of late potato blight, has been proposed by agrochemical company BASF. It is needed, the company says, to replace a site in Derbyshire that pulled out in December 2006.

It will now have to undergo an approval procedure with DEFRA. This has begun with the department calling for any interested parties to make representations about "the risk of environmental damage posed by the GM trial".

"The deadline for representations to be made is 20 April 2007. The new location is in the District of East Yorkshire, at Ordnance Survey grid reference TA1729," a DEFRA official said.

Proposed trial area

"BASF will be informing the relevant local authority in Yorkshire about the proposed GM trial in its area and had already placed an advert in The Times to highlight the new trial location.

"But the first advert had referred to the wrong location," the official admitted.

"BASF placed an amended advert highlighting the correct site details in The Times on 28 February," he said.

Junior DEFRA minister Lord Rooker gave a robust defence of the GM potato trials when questioned on the subject at this week's NFU annual conference in Birmingham.

The fact that it involved inserting the blight-resistant gene of a wild potato into another potato was hardly controversial, he suggested. "It's still a potato," he said.

Earlier, former Conservative agriculture minister John Gummer told the conference that GM technology had a key role to play in meeting the growing demand on crops for biofuel without creating food shortages.

"If we're going to have biofuels without shifting the capacity of temperate agricultural land, people who currently don't have enough to eat will find their food getting more expensive." This was already happening in Mexico as pressure mounted to grow more maize for biofuel rather than for food.

But the chairman of Jordans Cereals, Bill Jordan, warned against any rush into growing GM crops. "If GMs are introduced in such a way that harms the integrity of British food, many farmers and processors will suffer the consequences."

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