Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales Euro MP Jill Evans has welcomed the news that no GM crop trials of oilseed rape and beet will be held in Wales this spring.

Responding to the government’s announcement that 44 sites in England and Scotland are to be used for the last year of three years of farm trials Ms Evans said:

"Following last year’s protests in Pembrokeshire and Flintshire I hope that the government has finally realised that Wales will not tolerate being made a GM crop guinea pig again. Plaid Cymru - The Party of Wales campaigned strongly against the GM crop trials last spring and we are ready to do so again if necessary."

"I am concerned that three of the sites announced today are in Shropshire which could affect Wales."

"In Canada a farmer whose crop was found to be contaminated with patented genes was recently sued for illegally using a patented invention, and U.S. farmers have lost contracts to sell identity-preserved soya because they were found to be unknowingly contaminated with GM soya. We don’t want to see conventional and organic farmers in Wales facing possible ruin because of GM contamination and patent infringement."

"Nevertheless, our focus now turns to the proposed sites for GM maize crops which will be announced in March. It was made perfectly clear last year that the public do not want any GM crop trials in Wales. We hope that the Labour government has listened and that they will decide against holding any trials here this year."

Jill Evans MEP chaired a public debate in the European Parliament last week looking at two of the major concerns highlighted during the GM protests in Wales last year - GM contamination and patent infringement. She also played a prominent part in the campaigns against GM crop trials in Pembrokeshire and Flintshire last year and will be involved in the European Parliament debates on GM food labelling in the next few months."

DIWEDD/END.

Background Notes

Eight of the field-scale trials will be held in Norfolk, six in Lincolnshire, five in Gloucestershire, four in East Yorkshire, three in Shropshire, three in Dorset, two in Durham, and two in Aberdeenshire. The others will take place in Fife, Cumbria, North Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Hertfordshire and Sunderland in Tyneside. According to DEFRA sowing of the crops is expected to begin on 15 March.