The announcement of the decision to award the contracts for the joint UK Government and Scottish Executive programme of farmscale evaluations of the management of genetically modified herbicide tolerant crops to a consortium consisting of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, the Institute of Arable Crop Research and the Scottish Crop Research Institute was made as an answer to a parliamentary question in Westminster, accompanied by a DETR press release, on 15 April 1999.The announcement contained details of the length of the programme, the costs involved, the fact that The Scottish Office, DETR and MAFF were jointly funding the programme and the reasons for the trials.