AS ARGUMENTS continue to rage in the US over whether or not genetically
engineered crops kill monarch butterflies, a potential British victim flew into
view last week. The skylark could be a casualty of herbicide-tolerant sugar
beet, warn Andrew Watkinson and his colleagues from the University of East
Anglia in Norwich.
For the agribiotech companies that make the herbicides and modified seeds,
the timing of this finding couldn’t be much worse. The British government is
carrying out trials on farms to find out if herbicide-tolerant crops harm
wildlife. Environment minister Michael Meacher has warned that he will ban crops
if…
