Nature magazine reported that wild maize, contaminated with genetically modified (GM) materials, had been discovered in a remote Mexican region. The contaminated plants were separated by some 60 miles and several years from the last recorded GM plantings in California.

Maize originates from Mexico and all commercial varieties were originally bred from this wild stock.

Closer to home, we learnt that the biotech company Aventis allowed uncontrolled GM oilseed rape plants to flower in a field in Lincolnshire, risking GM contamination in both non-GM rape and wild brassicas. By blatantly allowing these contaminations to take place, the biotech industry has proved itself to have utter disregard for plant genetic resources and the future of agriculture.

But then they are not the ones taking the risk. As always it will be the farmer that carries the can. UK farmers cannot get insurance against GM contamination and attempts to introduce a GM producer-liability regime have been blocked by the industry which is pursuing the GM field scale trials.

The evidence shows the biotech industry has gone too far, too fast and is now out of control. The Government must call a halt to the dangerous experiment of GM field trials and Aventis must be made to accept the legal and financial burden of clearing the contamination from our fields, including paying substantial compensation to our farmers for any loss of GM-free status.

Madeleine Parkyn,

BSc Botany,

Palace Hill,

Scarborough.

Updated: 09:32 Saturday, December 08, 2001