Common interest

scientific and medical advice. That is what we are looking for from the work of this review group. " Barroso told EU leaders that food price rises had added " a new dimension " to the public debate about GM crops. He admitted people were worried about GM organisms in food and farming, but he said the EU was probably one of the biggest importers of GM feed as its livestock industry was highly dependent on imported plant proteins. The current aim of GM crops is to produce a better yield and profit for farmers and the crops' developers. But a report earlier this year, carried out by researchers at the University of Kansas, noted that farmers had reported yields lower than optimum from GM soya compared with conventional soya. Barney Gordon, of the university's department of agronomy, began the study because of anecdotal reports of farmers achieving lower yields with the GM variety. Reporting in the journal Better Crops, he found a 10 per cent lower yield with the GM variety compared with a conventional variety. He was able to improve the yield of the GM crop with the addition of manganese, but the yield still did not exceed the conventional crop. While some American growers may be concerned about yields from their GM soya, a survey of Spanish farmers growing the only commercial GM crop in Europe, GM maize, were largely very happy with the variety. They found that the variety produced higher yields and earned $100 per hectare more than conventional maize varieties. And, while US cotton growers have largely been impressed with the performance of GM cotton, which contains an insecticide that kills the larvae of one of the main pests of the plants, reports from India suggest that there some growers of the variety find that it needs pesticide treatment against secondary pests and delivers lower yields, raising questions about its value in this environment. A major new study, launched last month by Britain's Royal Society, looking at how science can help secure the world's food supply may provide welcome new evidence to the increasingly divisive debate over GM crops. gradually back into the heathland that existed at the site before the base was built. Animals and plants that once occupied the site began to return. In 1997 a newly formed Greenham Common Trust bought the airbase, immediately selling the open common land to the …