Free Republic

Government plans clampdown on vandalism after lobbying from biotech firms Genetically modified crops may be grown in hidden locations in Britain amid fears that anti-GM campaigners are winning the battle over the controversial technology, the Guardian has learned. Officials at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) confirmed they are looking at a range of options to clamp down on vandalism to GM crop trials, after intense lobbying by big crop biotech companies. The firms have warned that trials of GM crops are becoming too expensive to conduct in Britain because of the additional costs of protecting fields...

HOLTON, England -- Britain scrambled to contain its first outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu in domestic poultry yesterday after the virus was found at a farm run by Europe's biggest turkey producer. About 2,500 turkeys have died since Thursday at the Bernard Matthews farm near Lowestoft in eastern England. The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said all 159,000 turkeys on the farm would be culled. "We're in new territory," National Farmers' Union Poultry Board Chairman Charles Bourns said. "We've every confidence in DEFRA, but until we know how this disease arrived,...

Fury at Defra delays on farm hit by bird flu By David Harrison, Sunday Telegraph Last Updated: 12:35am GMT 04/02/2007 More than 2,600 turkeys have died, all from the same shed. All 160,000 on the farm will be slaughtered There was mounting anger over the official response to the outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm last night after it was confirmed that the strain of disease is the deadly H5N1 virus. As scientists verified that the virus at the Bernard Matthews farm was the deadliest strain, it emerged that the first 71 birds died last Tuesday. But the...