Case not proven

No wonder Monsanto is leaving the country. Just a day after the US company closed its UK cereal business, the government's field trials into GM technology found that Monsanto's genetically modified sugar-beet product produces fields with fewer butterflies, bees and weed seeds than conventional crops. The results cannot be easily discounted. They also found that GM spring rape, this time sold by another multinational Bayer, reduced wildlife and wild vegetation where grown. The one piece of good news for the industry - that that GM maize might attract more wildlife than its unmodified equivalent - was undermined by the fact that more work was needed to confirm this. If the government wanted more reasons not to embrace commercial cultivation of genetically modified crops then it need look no further than yesterday's findings.

What the field trials demonstrate is the price of farming practices which intensify production. The crops tested in the field trials were designed to be herbicide-resistant - allowing weeds to be killed even among standing crops. But the last few decades have seen less space for wild plants and wildlife, which means less habitat and less food for animals and birds. This is an irreplaceable loss to the countryside which once teemed with the sights and sounds of creatures on and above the ground. Given that a government study has already cast doubt as to whether there are are any positive economic benefits to farmers or consumers from the current batch of GM crops, there appears to be a better case to give up than go on with the technology.

Certainly when the Guardian broke the news of these field trials last week, the European health commissioner made it clear that any threat to wildlife would be enough reason to keep Britain's moratorium on growing GM crops. Such a move would be popular - given the depth of public hostility to GM. Retaining the ban for the two GM crops with proven malign effects on biodiversity seems easily within ministerial grasp. Yet the government, led by a prime minister who is sympathetic to GM technology, is still pondering the subject. Ministers could justifiably argue that since we are in the middle of a process they would not want to pre-judge its conclusions.

It must be clear to anyone weighing the evidence for and against GM what the judgment should be. Maybe the reason government is only inching towards a decision is that it is being pulled in two different directions at once. In Europe and at home, the public is antipathetic to the idea of GM crops. In the US, the opposite is true. As a result the EU has not seen commercial growing of GM crops since 1998, while America is the world leader in biotech crops. The result of Europe's moratorium is that American farmers cannot export their seeds or their model of agribusiness across the Atlantic. They are becoming increasingly determined to do so.

This week the EU's environment commissioner Margot Wallstrom accused US biotech interests of trying to "force" GM crops on Europe. Caving in to American trade threats will certainly not inspire consumer confidence. Nor will industry-inspired research or slick PR campaigns by big business. Ministers have to realise that new technologies make people uneasy - especially in agriculture where their track record is patchy. People worry about food safety and are concerned about constant change that overturns all that went before. It is also true that nothing can be completely safe and introducing too many safeguards carries a risk that useful innovations are discarded. The government has yet to find an argument that has convinced the public that GM is a green revolution that we can ill afford to miss out on. Until ministers do so GM crops will remain a much talked about idea, but never an eaten foodstuff.