With the lifting of two moratoria on genetically modified crops in Australia recently, so did the inevitably polarised debate take off. Those for and against are unlikely to change their minds and, unfortunately, some scientists are now afraid to speak theirs.

Claims by anti-GM activists that the Victorian government and Bayer CropScience are putting farmers' livelihoods at risk, by keeping secret the locations of genetically modified canola trials, have been scotched with the revelation that they have known the location of at least one participating farm for more than a year.