Anti-GM activists hijack Economist debate on biotechnology and agriculture

British news and analysis magazine, The Economist, has announced the results of its recent debate on biotechnology and sustainable agriculture finding a majority of voters in opposition of the motion, yet suggesting that technical difficulties and a coordinated effort by anti-GM activists has skewed the result.

The debate, part of The Economist's regular series, put forth the following motion: "This house believes that biotechnology and sustainable agriculture are complementary, not contradictory."

The final result was 62% against and 38% for the motion.

Read more about Australians' opinions on biotechnology and genetically modified food.

However, the vote tally was seen to fluctuate dramatically over the course of the week-long debate, suggesting irregularities.

According to a blog post on The Economist website, these irregularities were caused both by technical difficulties and an organised campaign by "opponents of genetic modification in its current form."

The technical difficulties resulted from The Economist's internal-use staging debate server becoming accessible to the public, with votes posted there and on the official live debate site.

However, because the staging server was not set up to handle the load of public traffic, the volume of votes cast there crashed the server.

The volume of traffic, in turn, was due to the staging server addressing being circulated in anti-GM circles, encouraging activists to vote on the debate.

The final result tallied by The Economist was a composite of the two servers. The original server saw 46% in favour and 54% against, while the staging server reported 35% yes and 65% no.

The Economist's public debate website is currently offline.