The Guardian | Paul Brown, Environment Correspondent | November 6, 1999
No genetically modified crops will be grown commercially in Britain until at least the spring of 2003, to allow time for a panel of independent scientists to assess trial plantings and see whether they damage the biodiversity of the wider countryside, Michael Meacher, the environment minister, said yesterday.
The agreement to hold off on commercial planting, made jointly with the GM industry, is a victory for the government's official advisers, English Nature, and the environment lobby. They fear that heavy doses of insecticide and herbicide used on the GM crops will kill all other plants and insects, and that GM crops may cross pollinate with native plants.
The government had originally intended to press ahead with commercial planting without any research into the environmental effects, but the outcry from the organic farming and green lobby caused it to think again.
