The discovery that unapproved genetically modified seeds had been planted in a trial site in the UK should not really cause much surprise. The whole history of the efforts of the breeders to get genetic modification established in this country and in the countries of other EU members, has been littered with incompetence and muddle.

Genetically modified seeds have been accepted and grown widely in the United States, Canada and many South American countries for a good number of years now.

The products produced from these crops are widely eaten and accepted in those very large markets and abroad. The US, as we all know, believes that nothing it does can possibly be wrong.

It has a real difficulty in working out why everyone does not embrace the American way with the same enthusiasm as they do themselves. It is hardly surprising that the large companies, most of them based in the US, were just not ready for the levels of opposition which they met when they tried to introduce the technology over here in Europe.

They were, however, entitled to expect that the trials, upon which the UK government rightly insisted, would be carried out in a rigorous and competent manner.

They were entitled to expect that they would not be interfered with by terrorists who were determined that the only outcome would be one of which they approved.

Do these people never admit of the possibility that they might be wrong?

My understanding, from farming sources, is that growing genetically modified crops does not cost all that much less than growing unmodified crops.

The charm is that a smaller range of chemical weed control is needed. I suspect that the truth is that the claimed benefits will not all be delivered. In such cases the benefits are not normally all delivered.

So even if the option to grow genetically modified crops were to be allowed, the take up might not be very large. Here at home we are producing pigs with food guaranteed to have no genetically modified ingredients.

The demand for such pigmeat does not seem to be particularly strong. Could it be that the actual buying public, with their purses doing the weekly shop, don't really care?

The hysteria which greets every announcement about genetically modified seeds does not help the atmosphere in which scientific decisions are made.

Ours and other governments rely on scientists to give considered answers to the questions they are asked.

If they are being simultaneously pursued by members of the press with their own agendas and beliefs, it is difficult to get to the truth.

The saddest part of the whole sorry genetic modification debate, though it is far from being a debate in any recognisable form, is the way that those opposing the use of such crops have stolen the agenda.

In Southern and Central Africa, where very substantial numbers of people face starvation, appeals have been made for food aid.

We all know that food aid is not ideal, because it only solves the problem in the short term. The USA immediately offered and sent aid in the form of grain.

Because there is every chance that these grains are genetically modified the governments of those countries are not going to allow them to be used. I hope that the starving understand.

I know there are other reasons for famine in Zimbabwe, where those suspected of not supporting Mugabe somehow do not receive food aid.

I hope the well-fed liberal establishment in this and other European countries can live with their consciences.

I know I couldn't live with mine.

Updated: 11:20 Tuesday, August 20, 2002