John Innes Picnic Protest

On Saturday 24th October, activists brought the genetics campaign to the John Innes Centre in Norwich. Despite torrential rain, over 20 people marched to the site to eat a picnic of organic food.

The John Innes Centre is possibly the UK's leading institute for the genetic engineering (GE) of crops. They have recently signed a L50 million contract with biotech company Zeneca to develop GE wheat, possibly modified with Zeneca's own version of terminator technology, which prevents farmers from being able to save their seed between harvests. Despite this, they portray themselves as publicly funded independent scientists, and put the case for GE foods when sitting on government regulatory and advisory panels.

The event attracted good media attention, including a 5 minute article on the local television news.

Norwich Genetic Information Network: 01603 624021. Full details of John Innes and their corporate bedfellows: http://members.tripod.com/~ngin.