The environment minister, his forgotten biology lessons and GM crops.

On the BBC news website last week it was reported that Mr Owen Paterson, the Environment minister had said he thought that the UK should 'lead the way' with introducing GM crops to the UK and Europe.

Mr Paterson should really talk to his cabinet colleague, Mr Gove.  Why?  Because Mr Paterson appears to have forgotten all of his 'I' level,  GCSE or 'O' level Biology, but more of the importance of seed distribution later.

Fortunately for the UK and our European partners it is no longer necessary to debate the wisdom or otherwise of using GM crops.  Our kind colonial cousins in the United States have been running one for us over the last 10 years or so, and the results are readily available for anyone to see.

Have US farmers benefited from this new seed technology?  Have they seen an increase in profits as their yields rise and costs fall?  No.  What they have seen is a promise unfulfilled.  The big companies who produce these seeds have come up with a cunning plan that even Baldrick from Blackadder would proud of, the plants that grow from the seed they produce, grow, flower and produce seeds of their own but these seeds are infertile.  The farmers cannot, as farmers for centuries have done, keep part of their crop back for planting next year.  They must return to the companies who produce the seed, and who hold the patent for it.

Worse yet, these large companies have promised the farmers that they are producing seeds for crops that are 'herbicide resistant'.  The theory being that because the plants can withstand the common herbicides used in farming they can be sprayed more regularly, killing more weeds which cannot therefore compete with the crop for nutrients and light.  Never mind where the herbicide that the plant absorbs so easily ends up (in your food), but this is a great advantage to the farmer who should get more crop for less chemical.  Or so runs the theory.

Mr Paterson is not alone in forgetting his basic biology lessons.  Apparently the clever scientists working at these large companies have also forgotten some of theirs.  They don't appear to remember that clever chap called Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution.  About 95% of the weeds are killed by the chemicals, which are (conveniently) produced by the same companies who produce the GM seeds.  The 5% which survive however, go on to reproduce.  They have survived one lot of chemical, and are more resistant than before.  Very soon nature catches up with science.

Worst of all some scientists (who do appear to have remembered their basic biology lessons) working in Cambridge have produced a high yielding crop by the traditional methods of cross pollinating and selective breeding.  These crops have, in initial tests out-performed the GM crops produced by the big companies busy producing solutions to a problem most farmers were unaware they had, and their seed is fertile and can be sown for next year's crop.

Mr Paterson tried to reassure the British public that GM crops were 'safe' and wouldn't spread to where they weren't required.  This is so reassuring.  There was I worrying that bees would visit the flower of a GM plant, and then visit a non-GM plant, thereby producing a seed which is half GM and half natural.  I was further worried that the wind or birds would help to distribute this seed randomly about the countryside.  Luckily Mr Paterson appears to have all this covered, because he says this can't happen.  He must have attended some biology lessons I missed.