An experiment with GM crops has been “secretly restarted” in the UK a year after protestors destroyed it.

GM trials in the country have proven hugely controversial, with many plants being destroyed by environmentalists. Last year potatoes at a trial in Yorkshire run by Leeds University were destroyed and it is these that have apparently been replanted.

Researchers aim to establish if the GM potatoes are effective at resisting nematodes, says the Yorkshire Post. The Daily Telegraph claims the trial has been “secretly” restarted as the research started up without informing the public.

Michael Jack, chairman of the UK Parliament’s Environment and Rural Affairs Select Committee select committee, defended the trial. He told the Western Morning News, “We agree that there are risks and uncertainties involved in GM technology, but this seems like an argument for further research, rather than an argument for dismissing GM technology out of hand. We believe that the potential of GM technology in the context of sustainable food production should be explored further.”

However a spokeswoman for the Friends of the Earth group accused the UK’s Department for the Environment Food and Rural Affairs of “trying to slip it [the Leeds trial] under the radar”.

In Europe, a GM trial has recently started in Belgium, the first GM field trial since 2002 according to European Biotechnology News.

Image: a non-GM potato, yesterday / Punchstock