The crop of genetically modified wheat destroyed by Greenpeace activists in Canberra today was rated by the federal government regulator of genetically modified organisms as posing a “negligible” risk to either people or the environment. This is in contrast to Greenpeace’s claims that the crop consisted of “untested and potentially unstable GM organisms”. The crop was part of a CSIRO study of wheat and barley genetically modified to suppress the function of endogenous genes resulting in an altered starch compositions.