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The first potato genetically modified to resist blight may soon be grown in Britain.

It was engineered in a three-year project that saw genes from a wild South American potato inserted into a normal Desiree.

Scientists say it is fully resistant to blight, caused by the organism Phytophthora infestans, which destroys up to half of British crops in a bad year.

The disease was responsible for the Irish famine of 1845 and remains potato farmers’ greatest enemy, costing them £60 million a year.

However, critics say tampering with genes in crops to create ‘Frankenfoods’ could damage natural ecosystems and affect human health, and insist shoppers would never knowingly buy GM products.

The results of the latest research, published today in a Royal Society journal, show 100 per cent of non-GM plants in a trial were infected by blight, while the new variety was fully resistant.

The researchers, at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Norfolk, hope to use the technology on the Maris Piper potato, which makes up 15 per cent of the British market. Desirees make up 2 per cent.

Consumer fears have so far kept genetic engineering out of British farming. No GM products have ever been commercially grown in this country, and only one – a pest-resistant maize – is authorised for cultivation in Europe.

Currently all GM foods have to be labelled, but meat, milk and eggs from farm animals fed on GM products do not, and campaigners are worried about political pressure to accelerate research in the field.

Environment Secretary Owen Paterson has warned that Britain risks becoming the ‘museum of world farming’ if it does not embrace the technology.

But Emma Hockridge, head of policy at the Soil Association, said: ‘There is no market for GM potatoes in the UK.

‘Growing any GM potatoes in the UK could lead to contamination in the supply chain, resulting in massive loss of markets for UK farmers.’

Liz O’Neill, director of the GM Freeze campaign group, said: ‘Experience shows that the UK doesn’t want GM in its shopping basket and British farmers are far too smart to grow something they can’t sell, so just who is this new potato being developed for?’

The campaign group GeneWatch UK accused the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, which funded the trial, of wasting taxpayers’ money.