The Soil Association has accused the John Innes Centre (JIC) of misleading the public by overstating the significance of its research into the control of nitrogen fixation in leguminous plants by genetic manipulation.

According to the SA the JIC’s claim that the research published tomorrow may reduce the global need for nitrogen fertilisers is inconclusive.

The research centre announced that in conjunction with the University of Washington its scientists had managed to trigger nodulation in legumes without the bacteria normally necessary.

It said these findings could be an important step in reducing the need for inorganic fertilisers in transferring nodulation and nitrogen fixation in legumes.

But the SA countered the claim, saying such GM research was “an unrealistic way of spending public funds to achieve very little”.

SA policy manager Gundula Azeez, said: “Rather than being a serious and helpful contribution to solving the problem of agriculture's dependency on fertilisers, the researchers' chances of actual success are remote and unlikely.

“They have only managed to control one small stage of a complex process and in a legume which naturally fixes nitrogen anyway and which is also apparently "amenable to genetic transformation". This only highlights how far they are from identifying and managing to control and transfer the complete nitrogen fixation process to non-leguminous plants.”

Azzez added that even if the projects are eventually technically successful, the researchers are ignoring the fact that the inevitable problems of contamination of non-GM crops will make the growing of the GM varieties in the open environment unacceptable.

And any viable GM crops produced would be unlikely to have a market, as all supermarkets and most food manufacturers have non-GM policies based on the overwhelming public rejection of GM foods, she said.

According to the SA organic systems already address the problem, by harnessing

natural nitrogen fixation processes by growing legumes in rotation with crop production and livestock grazing.

In so doing it has already managed to do away with the use of nitrogen fertilisers, halving the amount of energy needed to produce the same amount of food as non-organic farming.

The SA said research should be concentrated on speeding up the move away from the use of nitrogen fertiliser, produced from fossil fuels in an energy-intensive process, which contributes to climate change.

It also criticised the researchers in this instance for publicising their work the day before the official publication date in Nature which meant their claims could not be confirmed or the implications discussed in depth.

“This is an unscientific and unacceptable way of releasing the results of publicly funded research,” Azeez said.