New biotech crop trials are blossoming in the EU amid hope and controversy
Ghent, BELGIUM – To reach the experimental maize field, visitors first pass through a locked gate tucked between a railway line, a motorway and a school. The entire site is enclosed by fencing.
The location – Wetteren, on the outskirts of Ghent – is public by law, explains Hilde Nelissen, a plant biotechnologist at Ghent University. But it is not meant to be easy to access.
“You either know the code, or you’re trespassing,” she says.
Beyond the fence, neat rows of young maize plants barely rise above the soil. They look unremarkable. Yet small plots of land like this have been at the centre of one of Europe’s fiercest debates over agricultural biotechnology for years.
