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OXFORD - Genetically modified crop developers are vowing to stay put in the U.K. despite the government's disclosure of precise locations of four new field trials planned for testing winter oil seed rape.

U.K. press coverage last week suggested that companies like Monsanto Co. (St. Louis, Mo.), Novartis Group (Basel, Switzerland) and AgrEvo GmbH (Berlin, Germany) might immediately ship their research to other European countries as a result of the government's action, which is highly likely to result in environmental activists trashing the trials. However, the companies see the U.K. market as too important to abandon, and while the destruction of trials hinders getting approval for the crops, they told BioCentury that no amount of activist interference will stop them conducting the research...