Twenty eight members of Greenpeace stand trial for theft and criminal damage at Norwich Crown Court on Monday April 3, 2000 for their role in damaging a GM maize crop at Lyng last July. It will be an interesting encounter.

That the court regards the issue as being more than one of trivial hooliganism was apparent last summer when Lord Melchett, the executive director of Greenpeace UK, was initially denied bail following the incident. The activists' agenda for the summer may also be influenced by the penalties handed down if the activists are found guilty.

Greenpeace's last public event in Norwich was in early February when they hosted one of a series of imaginative and constructive farm meetings. They flew in three US farmers who were more or less opposed to growing genetically modified crops. Their purpose was probably to convince British farmers that if North American farmers were cool to the reality of the technology, British farmers should not even consider it.

Lucklessly for Greenpeace, the American farmers had agendas beyond the technology, including concern over the natural status of organic production, the role of multinational corporations in the development of the technology, and price prospects for GM crops after harvest, with which farmers were better able to associate.

Later in February the Friends of the Earth tried another angle in raising the issue of the potential liability of farmers growing GM crops arising from claims of neighbouring farmers. This also came to very little, probably because the Friends underestimated the trust that has been built up over the years between farmers and chemical and seed companies the source of much new technology for the industry.

Towards the end of February Greenpeace created a very striking photo opportunity off the north coast of Wales by boarding an ocean vessel carrying GM soya beans from America and hanging a banner from the deck. It was, however, unable to prevent the same vessel discharging it cargo a few days later in Liverpool. And without the visual appeal this was largely ignored by the press and media.

More recently Greenpeace announced that they had persuaded two, and possibly three, farmers to withdraw from the field-scale environmental GM crop trials. Their attempts to claim this as a victory sounded desperate.

As a multinational organization with annual revenues in excess of US$100 million, Greenpeace must have been disappointed that it was only able to influence two of thirty odd publicly identified farmers. The reality here is that Greenpeace had probably, by its previous actions, turned these farmers off to its concerns.

The failure of the activists to prevent the crop trial proceeding will not, however, deter them from attempting to disrupt the trials in the future. They are managing to keep the issue alive and importantly for them is the financial support that this generates.

It is, therefore, most unlikely that they will pass on the opportunity for publicity provided next week at the Norwich Crown Court. Quite how this will effect the deliberations in the court is difficult to predict. And they will have plenty of opportunity as the case is expected to take weeks rather than hours.

They will undoubtedly provide a reminder that they will not be easily deterred from the type of action on which they stand accused. We will, however, probably have to wait several weeks to discover how the issue of deterent stacks up against that of right of expression in the view of the court.

April 1, 2000