Police were yesterday called to the Hertfordshire research centre, where a controversial trial of genetically modified wheat is being grown, following a break-in.

The trial of ‘wiffy wheat,’ which has been modified to repel aphids by releasing a hormone the pests read as an alarm signal and attracts predatory wasps, is the first of its kind being grown in the open air in the UK; it has attracted criticism from those who believe the wheat may pose a threat to the environment.

The scientists behind the trial had urged sceptics to stay their hand as a mass ‘decontamination’ had been threatened by protestors who said the potential danger of out-crossing posed by the wheat is unacceptable. The researchers claim their wheat, if found to be successful, could reduce the amount of pesticides used in agriculture.

However, anti-GM campaigners have said the £1.3 million trial is a waste of money, as aphids will become resistant to the wheat and the money could therefore have been better spent on researching agroecological methods, which have been recommended in a number of influential reports into world agriculture, and which are more sustainable in the long term.

Following a heated debate on the BBC’s Newsnight programme on Thursday and ahead of a planned protest by GM sceptic group Take the Flour Back, scheduled for Sunday May 27th, police were called to Rothamsted on Sunday following a break in to the trial. One man has been arrested in connection with the incident.

The arrestee is suspected of having spread wheat seed on three of the trial plots. Some plants had also been cut off and removed from the site. However, a Rothamsted spokesperson said the 50-year-old had “failed to disrupt the experiment.”

Rothamstead Research Institute’s director, Maurice Moloney, this morning said, “This act of vandalism has attempted to deny us all the opportunity to gather knowledge and evidence, for current and future generations, on one possible technological alternative approach to get plants to defend themselves and therefore reduce pesticide use.”

He pointed out that the wheat being trialled trail had been approved for release by the government’s Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment (ACRE) last year.

Professor Maloney also levelled accusations at critics in the Take the Flour Back group, although there is no suggestion the group was involved in yesterday’s break-in. Take the Flour Back said it had "no information about this incident".

A spokesperson for the campaign group, Elizabeth Walker, said, “Cases of damage to GM crops in England have repeatedly resulted in aquittal, because the courts found that such actions were necessary to 'prevent the greater crime of damage to others' property'. In the decade or so since those cases were heard, the evidence from countries which have grown GM confirms that the co-existence of GM and non-GM crops is untenable, that the technology is inherently unpredictable and that pesticide use has increased. GM is a scam which has repeatedly failed to deliver on its promises and which has fed the profits of agrochemical corporations at the expense of the hungry. It's unsafe, unnecessary and unwanted.”

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