Behaving somewhat incongruously with his position, Pecoraro Scanio has been denouncing GM foods while research institutes within his ministry conduct agbiotech research. The minister's inconsistent behavior was publicly exposed in mid-July, when the European commissioner Margot Wallström, in an effort to end the moratorium on GM crops, urged European Union countries to approve the new, stricter 90/220 directive for release of GMOs into the environment (Nat. Biotechnol. 18, 705;MEDLINE). Although Romano Prodi, president of the European Commission and former premier in Italy, publicly supported Wallström, Pecoraro Scanio stated in several television interviews that the ban must stay because GM products represent a threat to health, the environment, and traditional Italian agriculture. However, on national news on July 19, a researcher from the National Research Council (Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche; CNR), Roberto Defez, showed the public that researchers in institutes funded by the agricultural ministry were filing patents on GM crops. He revealed a document signed by the agriculture ministry on July 16 authorizing an application for the international extension of a patent on parthenocarpic GM melons and tomatoes.

Even though soon after taking office Pecoraro Scanio had ordered all research units within his ministry to notify him of every GMO experiment, to avoid public embarrassment, he claimed he was unaware of what was going on and announced an "investigation" into the institutes' activities. Moreover, on July 20, the agriculture ministry sent a letter to the researchers involved stating that it would only cover expenses for patenting if there was "a clear promise not to use this patent."

Defez is astonished. "That's really amazing: we'll give you the money providing you don't exploit the invention! This is a self-evident example of Italian schizophrenia˜while new university courses in biotechnology are established, scientists are prevented from accomplishing their objectives and from getting results," says Defez. "Probably politicians can behave like this because there isn't an economic lobby able to oppose." He points out that, as it is, Italy is not represented among the top 60 revenue-generating biotech companies in Europe.

Moreover, a few days earlier on July 11, the agriculture ministry had sent a separate letter to Francesco Salamini, coordinator of research projects throughout the ministry, stating that agbiotech funding is tied to the promise that field trials of GM crops will not be carried out.

"The agriculture minister evidently thinks he is exempt from the provisions of European law, which allows [field trials] with due precaution," says Agostino Falavigna of the Istituto Sperimentale per l'Orticoltura (Experimental Institute for Horticulture). "The little money he gives us this way is wasted, since laboratory experiments have a limited meaning." Although Pecoraro Scanio will be in office for only one year, Falavigna thinks he's causing long-term trouble. "The damage he is causing to the Italian agbiotech research is probably irreversible," he says.

Pecoraro Scanio's hostility to agbiotech has been evident since his appointment in April: a few days after taking office, he removed his ministry's support of the International Biotechnology Congress held in Genoa in May, banning his officials from taking part in the meeting. His new constraints come when Italy's public funding of agbiotech is already limited and the industry struggling. There has been a 75% cut of financial resources for research inside the agriculture ministry in the last two years. The government's long-term plan, the National Plan for Vegetal Biotechnology, had intended that the agriculture ministry allocate $4 million a year for agbio research, but even this was stopped two years ago as a result of Italian economic problems; in 2000, $2 million must be shared among 200 agbio projects. In addition, GM field trials have fallen from about 40 in 1999 to 26 this year, many being halted because of pressure from local authorities. "The precautionary principle is turning out to be a 'no experimentation principle'," says Defez.

"The agriculture minister says he wants to protect Italian traditional products, but to reach success we need innovation" points out Enrico Porceddu, of the Società Italiana di Genetica Agraria (Italian Society of Agricultural Genetics). "Italy has an important past in this field [particularly development of cereal varieties], but now we are already losing the market of flowers and, without a turnabout, we will be forced to buy seeds produced abroad."

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