In advance of a planned ‘day of action’ at Rothamsted Research, which will see protestors descend on the Hertfordshire institute later this month to demonstrate against an open-air trial of a controversial new genetically modified wheat strain being grown by researchers there, the two camps will meet tonight for a televised debate.

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Representatives from Rothamsted and the ‘Take the Flour Back’ campaign opposing the trial will appear tonight on BBC current affairs programme Newsnight to discuss the £1.28 million research programme. The debate will feature Peter Lundgren, who farms in Lincolnshire, and Dorset farmer Jyoti Fernandes.

The conflagration began in September last year, when Defra approved the trial of a plant diaphanously nicknamed ‘whiffy wheat’; wheat modified to repel aphids by releasing an alarm hormone, which deters the pests and attracts their natural predators.  The wheat was planted at Rothamsted in early March, since which time the debate over whether it poses an unacceptable risk to the environment or represents the future of farming has grown in intensity.

The Rothamsted researchers believe their trial of GM Cadenza wheat could reduce the need for pesticide use in the future, though protesters have claimed there are risks of it out-crossing into the wild.

Often the debate over the pressing need to make farming more sustainable becomes overshadowed by the question of genetic modification. Although exponents of the technology believe it is a useful response, if not a magic bullet solution, to the threats posed by rising populations and climate change, a number of reports, including the exhaustively researched ISTAAD report of 2008, have posited that agroecological farming methods, working with nature rather than against it to create resilliant, low-input, locally suited systems, hold the key to future food security and that the GM debate should be a relatively minor affair.    

However, as often happens with such disputes, where emotions run high on both sides, the chance to discuss the matter scientifically is slipping away as the argument descends into farce and becomes little more than a tit-for-tat media circus; this week Rothamsted director Maurice Maloney generated ill will by claiming to have invited the Take the Flour Back protestors for a neutral debate and received no response.

In fact, following the release of an open letter earlier this month by Rothamsted scientists, which was posted on social media site Youtube, the campaigners invited researchers to join them in debate “On neutral ground, with a neutral chairperson, for an open exchange of opinions and concerns.”

Earlier this week, the UK government’s Environmental Audit Committee, an influential committee of MPs, released its Sustainable Food report in which it criticised the government’s food policy and efforts to create a sustainable food supply chain. Amongst the criticisms levelled at government policy makers was their unequivocal support for GM over research into other genuinely sustainable methods and without the support of the wider public.  

Upon the report’s release, Joan Walley, the committee’s chair, stated, "Until there is clear public acceptance of GM and it is proven to be beneficial,  the Government should not license its commercial use in the UK nor promote its use overseas."

The MPs call on the Government to establish an independent body to research into the impacts of GM starting with "The scope for, and risks of, the co-existence of GM crops with conventional and organic farming regimes."

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