On July 18th six men and women set out to uproot
genetically modified (GM) plants at a GM release
site on Manor Farm near Banbury in Oxfordshire.
After removing a small number of plants the farmer
arrived and said the oil seed rape was not genetically
modified but hybridised. He said that although
Perryfield Holdings had grown GM crops on his land
last year, when he they found out that they were GM
he refused to allow any more to be grown.
The farmer at Manor Farm had been sent a letter to reassure him of the campaign's peaceful nature and of the intention to remove GM crops from the environment. No reply was received. There were no arrests and the action ended amicably.
Andrea Needham, one of the people taking part in the
action said:
"The reason we thought this was a GMO [Genetically Modified Organism] site was that it's listed on the GMO register as a release site in the Banbury area; there was also a notice in a Banbury Newspaper two years ago saying GMO's would be released at this farm over the next three years; and in addition to that I actually rang up Perryfield Holdings yesterday, which is the company that applied for the licence to release GMO's and I asked if they were concerned that a genetiX snowball action might happen at this farm, I named this particular farm and the spokesman said 'Yes, I'm very concerned at that' and one would have thought that had there not been any GMO's here he would have said 'No, we're not worried because there aren't any of them'"
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