In the first place, of course, it was a surprise for British farmers that so much Starlink could have found its way into the human food channel for which it was not licensed.

In Britain the Assured Combinable Crops Scheme, a voluntary quality assurance program which almost all farmers selling grain for food used have joined, requires the recording of field source and variety for all bins and bulk stored farm grain. And further samples of every ex farm shipment must be taken on loading.

Hence any co-mingling of varieties is recorded and traceable. Also with shorter distances the great majority of grain destined for human food use is trucked direct from farm to the food processor, without the need for co-mingling in merchants’ stores.

For genetically modified crops, still at least two years away for general farmer use, the Supply Chain Initiative on Modified Agricultural Crops (SCIMAC) has set up even tighter controls. This voluntary industry organization, which includes the major environmental groups amongst its membership, will effectively control the supply of genetically modified seeds. As with driving licenses, there is a penalty point’s system for failure to comply with the code of practice and too many points result in removal from the register of licensed growers.

Things are, of course, different in America. After five years of commercial production the industry is trusting of the technology and understandably more relaxed. There clearly was an infraction of end use regulations and this was undoubtedly why the industry went to such great lengths to clear the supply channels of the unlicenced product.

But what was most surprising about the episode was that, during both the Canadian general election and the US presidential and congressional elections, it failed to develop into a major issue.

This is particularly significant for Britain. The outcome of the British debate will likely be decided by public perception of scientific evidence rather than the actual facts. It is, of course, not scientists but politicians who make these decisions.

The British biotech industry is now faced with the onset of the silly season, which will naturally precede the British general election, predicted by political pundits for the spring. To date, much to the frustration of the activists, the government has stuck by its science-based policy.

As deep as individual convictions are, their breath does not appear to be politically significantly. The environmental argument has not featured prominently in the ongoing British fuel taxes debate. And, Tony Blair, the British prime minister, continues to make reassuring comments, recently stating that the Government would not tolerate "blackmail and intimidation" by protesters who try to wreck research projects.

Most surprisingly the Starlink episode has uncovered an apparent change in the attitude of British food retailers. In the past they have played a central role in popularizing the issue with their use of GM-free food promotion in their battle for market share.

Unsurprisingly the British cell of the Friends of the Earth, copying their American counterparts, announced they had found illegal genetically modified content in national and store brand corn chips. It was surprising that the British supermarket chains were not finessed.

They chose not to remove the products, but challenged the Friends to produce the evidence supposedly produced by a German laboratory. The Friends moved quickly onto other issues, as the British Food Standards Agency quashed the claim.

November 20, 2000