What are the risks to the British countryside?
The British public rejected GM crops five years ago, for environmental and health reasons. Since then, trials have indicated that GM causes more damage to farmland wildlife than conventional crops – there would be fewer weeds to provide seeds for birds, for example. Our wildlife needs all the help that it can get after decades of intensive farming, but a GM world has been described as “green concrete”. In other words, it would be sterile and lifeless apart from the crop. There is also the threat of GM pollen being carried by bees and butterflies to conventional or organic fields. In our small country, organic and GM could not co-exist, unlike the US with its vast grain prairies separated by hundreds of miles. Country Living verdict We have always had world hunger and we have always had solutions, but these have been thwarted by corrupt governments, civil strife and climatic conditions. We need to address the basic problems of irrigation, soil erosion and appropriate technology. If ther
