IT was inevitable, given the circumstances, that conventional oilseed rape crops and probably maize too, would be seriously contaminated by GM varieties, despite the public's aversion to genetically modified foods.

The Government is seemingly unconcerned, even apathetic, about something which was clearly just a matter of time before it happened.

I wrote to David Lock and others asking what the Government would do in the event of GM escapes, what their plans were to confine something which might prove detrimental to bio-diversity and the wider environment. I also asked why, if we have to have such trials of GM crops, they were not conducted on islands, naturally isolated from the mainland.

No satisfactory answers were forthcoming because, of course, there aren't any.

There never was a satisfactory strategy to deal with contaminated seed or pollution such as GM pollen in honey.

English Nature, the Government's statutory environmental and ecological advisory body, has recommended that all oilseed rape GM-contaminated plants be destroyed.

The Government ignores the warnings of their own environmental scientists, lending instead an ear to those involved in disseminating GM.

In France and Sweden, similarly affected by the same Advanta Hyola strains, farmers have been ordered by ministers to rip out tainted crops.

British farmers, already in bad odour with the public, are also in a hole over BSE, salmonella, e coli and the like.

If you think there was hysteria before, you "ain't seen nothing' yet".

AW JORDAN

Comberton Park Road

Kidderminster