GM crop sites are still being kept secret, despite repeated government assurances of increased openness.
Four more unpublicised sites were used to test modified maize this summer, and their locations have been kept so confidential that even ministers do not know where they are.We have also learned that similar tests have been conducted, in secrecy, since 1995, and that more are planned for next year.The revelations have astonished politicians and environmental groups. Tim Yeo, the shadow agriculture secretary – who says he is “absolutely staggered” by it – is to write to Michael Meacher, the environment minister, to ask whether there are any more secret trial sites that have yet to come to light.Meanwhile, Britain is opposing a European Union proposal to set up a public register of land used to grow GM crops when they are farmed commercially.Today’s disclosure blows a new hole in the credibility of the Government’s constant protestations of openness over GM trials. Ministers repeatedly take the credit for giving detailed map references for the 25 farm-scale trials being undertaken into the environmental safety of the crops and allowed the impression to grow that these were the only tests taking place.But two months ago this newspaper revealed that the Ministry of Agriculture had authorised a further five tests. Mr Meacher said he had “no information” on them and it was extremely difficult to find out where they are.Finally, after a major row, Nick Brown, the Agriculture Secretary, put the names of the parishes in which they were located – Histon in Cambridge-shire, Stoke Talmage in Oxfordshire, Ercall Magna in Shrop- shire, Brockley in Somerset, and Bramham cum Oglethorpe in Yorkshire – on his ministry’s website.But today’s revelation show that there is another series of even more secret sites. Aventis, the biotech company, tested herbicide-resistant maize on four sites, the size of tennis courts, between April and October this year. They were used to try out different varieties of maize with the gene, and the effectiveness of weedkillers.The company is under no legal obligation to tell the Government or the public where the sites are, as the genetic modification they are using – the same on as in the Ministry of Agriculture tests – has been approved by the EU.The Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions says it does not know where the sites are, but believes that three of those used this summer were next to sites where publicised trials took place.Chris Mullin, a junior environment minister, says that the department is “discussing with industry” whether they wished to make the locations public but adds, “given the recent vandalism of such sites they may be reluctant to do so”.

Aventis confirmed late last week that the trials had taken place, but refused point blank to identify the sites, citing the “extreme levels of pressure and intimidation” suffered by some farmers testing GM crops.The company declined even to name the counties in which the trails took place. But Roger Turner, chairman of the Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Agricultural Crops, the industry’s umbrella body for GM trials, urged openness.While stressing that it was a matter for Aventis, he said: “We have got nothing to hide. There is no point in keeping things secret because we know that people like you will find out.”Tim Yeo said; “I am absolutely staggered that you have found yet more sites, after all the publicity there has been. I will write to Michael Meacher to ask how many more there are.”Patrick Holden, head of the Soil Association, added: “We were under the impression that all the test sites had been put in the public domain.”Secrecy may grow in future as Britain has been resisting EU plans, proposed by France and Italy, for a public register of all commercial GM crops. Negotiations on the plan resume this week, but the Department of Environment will only say the issue is “under review”..

Greenpeace and other global environment campaigners will this week take the drastic step of sanctioning the use of the notorious banned chemical DDT, after admitting that it remains the most effective tool for combating malaria – an illness which still kills more people than Aids. Greenpeace and other global environment campaigners will this week take the drastic step of sanctioning the use of the notorious banned chemical DDT, after admitting that it remains the most effective tool for combating malaria – an illness which still kills more people than Aids.
World experts meeting this week in Johannesburg for the last round of United Nations talks on how to control some of the world’s worst pollutants admit that the ban on DDT in Britain and other countries in the 1970s set back the Third World’s fight against malaria. Partly as a result of developing nations’ aid being tied to a cessation in DDT spraying, malaria rates are now higher than they are ever known to have been, especially in Africa.The mosquito-borne parasite is said to kill 200 children under the age of five every hour in the developing world and up to 2.5 million Africans every year. According to the latest figures from the UN, 2.4 million people will die this year in Africa from Aids.Every year, up to 500 million people all over the world fall ill with malaria, resulting in an untold impact on developing economies, and some epidemiologists believe that the harm it does in turn makes people more vulnerable to the human immunodeficiency virus that causes Aids. Yet research spending on malaria amounts to just $42 (£30) per fatality, against $3,274 (£2,340) for Aids.According to Rajendra Maharaj, manager of South Africa’s national malaria control centre, southern Africa is in the grip of an unprecedented malaria epidemic.