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Lord Melchett is arrested during last week's Greenpeace `decontamination' of a field of genetically modified maize at Lyng in Norfolk. Photograph by Nick Cobbing Three weeks ago, Lord Melchett, executive director of Greenpeace, found himself addressing a wary audience of middle-Englanders at a village hall just 30 miles from his estate in north Norfolk.
The residents of Lyng had come to hear what they thought would be a debate over the pros and cons of a trial of genetically modified (GM) maize at Walnut Tree Farm on the outskirts of their village. What they got was an impassioned call to arms.
Warning them that organic farming methods were under threat, the green peer urged them to take a stand against AgrEvo, the biotech company behind the trial, and `rip up' its experimental T25 maize.
`This stuff is alive, it will get out and it will make organic farming in this country impossible,' Melchett said.
According to Karly Graham, a local mother who helped organise the meeting, Melchett was `very persuasive'. But following his decision to lead a 28-strong force of Greenpeace shock troops in an invasion of farmer Brigham's field last week, the villagers and the British public are not so sure.
`We all agreed to keep it peaceful, and then Greenpeace came storming in,' says Phil Godfrey, who manages Lyng's electrical shop. `We were not part of this demonstration and don't want to be associated with it.' Following his release from prison on Thursday, even Melchett's allies in the environmental movement are beginning to question his judgment. The invasion, they believe, may turn out to be as big a blunder as the Brent Spar affair, in which Melchett was forced into a humiliating public apology after Greenpeace miscalculated the amount of oil left on the Shell drilling platform.
Both the Soil Association, which has been campaiging with Greenpeace to promote organic alternatives to GM foods, and Friends of the Earth (FoE) privately believe that Melchett was wrong to invade Brigham's field, allegedly damaging AgrEvo's crops. In so doing, they argue, Greenpeace risks losing the argument...