German chemical giant BASF is awaiting EU approval for commercial cultivation of one of its latest breakthroughs, an inedible potato called Amflora. Unappealing as it sounds, the GM spud will make a key contribution to renewable resources across Europe, says Thorsten Storck, global project manager at BASF Plant Science. The crop has been modified to produce a type of starch useful in paper production.

The company claims that Amflora starch will have economic and environmental advantages over standard potato starch, which contains a mixture of 80 per cent amylopectin and 20 per cent amylase. Both these compounds are glucose polymers, but they have very different physicochemical characteristics.