MARGARET Beckett's announcement yesterday allowing the first commercial planting of genetically-modified maize is extremely disappointing.

We are not green Luddites who wish to stand in the way of progress. We see many potential benefits of GM crops - particularly if the global businesses that are pushing them are prepared to donate drought-resistant varieties to the starving of Africa.

We also realise that it is also true to say that, in one way or another, every plant has had its genes tampered with, either through the natural selection of the fittest or by seedsmen artificially choosing to grow plants that bear the largest fruits.

However, when the science is so incomplete, the public so unconvinced and the regulation so un-thought out, now is not the time to be letting the GM genie out of the bottle. Once out, it cannot be put back in - in the US, two-thirds of non-GM crops have already been contaminated by GM ones grown nearby.

As the Environment Audit Select Committee pointed out last week, the science upon which Mrs Beckett has based her judgement appears badly flawed. In the tests, GM maize was only found to be kinder to wildlife than conventional maize because the conventional maize was blasted with a weedkiller - atrazine - that is so dangerous that Europe has since banned it.

Surely if widescale GM planting is to be allowed, the science that supports it has to be sound.

And surely its impact on organic farming has to be considered. Organic farming is one of the few areas of growth in agriculture - 75 per cent of all babyfood is now organic - but with GM pollen wafting on the wind, its future is uncertain.

While organic farming is increasingly popular, there is no demand among the public for GM crops. Supermarkets are not stocking GM products and 90 per cent of the public is opposed to them.

In the face of such opposition, Mrs Beckett's decision may be seen as brave - or foolhardy. She would have been better delaying it and conducting tests that the general public can have confidence in.