Rome called on to end GM ban

A lobby of 1,500 of Italy's most eminent scientists, including two Nobel prizewinners, has protested at a government ban on genetic research for agricultural products. The scientists also called for a higher level of spending on general scientific research.

Only 1 per cent of Italy's gross domestic product is devoted to research and the country's international scientific profile is steadily diminishing.

The scientists' main target was agriculture minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, of the Green Party, who recently issued a directive banning all open-field experiments with genetically modified produce.

After talks with prime minister Giuliano Amato, the scientists came away with a compromise: a go-ahead for open-field experiments, but only on a single site, after a watchdog committee has been created and guidelines are established. But with general elections just three months away the government's concession held the bitter taste of an empty promise.

The scientists' activities in Rome created a serious rift in the centre-left coalition that supports the government. The Greens have threatened to pull out of the already fragile coalition if government promises to halt agricultural research are not respected.

Opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi, who has high hopes of winning the April elections, promised a delegation of scientists research freedom, funding and the institution of an annual research day if he becomes prime minister.

The issue of scientific freedom and funding has become entangled with the election campaign, with politicians, the media and public opinion lumping together issues as diverse as agricultural research, research on foetuses, uranium shells and mad cow disease.

Rita Levi Montalcini, winner of the 1986 Nobel prize for medicine, attacked the government, using terms such as "obscurantism" and "neo-Luddites".

As several scientists have noted, the debate in Italy takes place in the context of two-sided "ideological" hostility to technological innovation. On one side, the Catholic church condemns any experiments involving human embryos or genetic manipulations. On the other, the environmentalists and part of the political left identify new technologies with United States-controlled multinationals.

Agrobiologist Francesco Sala, who works in China and India, said: "If I were a director of Monsanto I would thank the Greens for hindering agricultural research in Europe, so leaving the field open to the American and Asian multinationals."