IT’S BEEN a bad week for biotechnology. First, environmentalists in Britain
were affronted to discover that honey contained genetically modified pollen from
test fields sown with altered varieties. Then it came to light that thousands of
hectares across Europe have been inadvertently planted with oilseed rape
containing a modified variety
(see p 4).
But perhaps the most worrying development came in the form of a radio lecture
given by Britain’s highest-born organic farmer, Prince Charles. His talk laid
into plant biotechnology on the grounds that it has wandered too far into God’s
territory. Sadly, it also attacked science as…
