I DO think we all need to take what Prince Charles said about GM very seriously.

It has certainly attracted a response from our government, in that they are on the point of accepting GM into this country.

I have been very wary of GM since I heard the ‘scientists’ say the pollen would not travel far in the trials. (These must have been running in the late 1990s).

I am only a lowly gardener, enjoying growing vegetables as well as flowers, but I knew bees travel quite a long way. It was not a good start to the pro-GM campaign.

Until the government starts treating the public with some degree of intelligence it will always be finding barriers to its ideas.

There is so much evidence out there in the wide world that the continuation of small scale trials in this country has been a mystery to me.

The only thing I could imagine was that once the GM gene was in our plant population then there was no turning back.

An article in the Farmers Guardian (July 29, 2005) showed that a GM gene had indeed been found in the wild, in charlock, which had cross-fertilised with GMHT rape.

There was only the one weed found to have done this, so the argument went, it is nothing to worry about because it does not happen very often.

However, this cross-fertilisation came from a small scale ‘safe’ trial. What will happen if grown commercially all over the country?

So the debate has gone to the EU where they have been trying to work out what percentage GM contamination the organic consumer will accept. A rather strange thought, as organic works so hard to have no contamination.

I would like to ask our government if it is under any ‘pressure’ from trade rules, or any other country, to accept GM? With the Freedom of Information Act I hope it might answer this.

Doing my own research, as we are given very little information from both sides of the argument from the government, I find there is information out there from the United States and other countries.

The Soil Association, as you might imagine, has a good deal on its website.

So not only do GM genes move between plants and do not increase yields, they have also been blamed for some allergic reactions. This is before we talk about small local farmers being absorbed into multi-national companies and the climate change debate of agricultural methods.

I really do hope all your readers take this issue very seriously.

Barbara Mark, address supplied.