The following is an edited excerpt.
Ewen Mullins is a plant scientist whose work on a genetically modified potato inherently looks to the future.
From his laboratory and greenhouse in a research farm outside Carlow, 42-year-old Mullins deals daily with a disease that not only afflicts his native land but haunts it: the potato blight, a pernicious rot caused by a fungus that still thrives in Ireland’s wet, cold climate.
“There’s a lot of public interest” in his work, Mullins said. Not all of it is friendly. Genetic engineering remains highly controversial in Europe, and the research in Ireland has spawned a campaign against it.
View the original article here: Genetically modified potatoes are studied, criticized in Ireland
