Terminator is dead but beware of Zombie GM

Zombie GM crops get their name because farmers will have to pay biotech companies to bring seeds back from the dead - the shock is that they are being developed with British taxpayers' money as part of a £3.4m EU research project.

This is clearly an attempt to get round the worldwide UN ban on GM "terminator technology" - a technology that even Monsanto has said it will not use. Terminator technology was designed to modify crops so that they produce only sterile seeds - and would have forced the 1.4 billion poor farmers who traditionally save seeds from one year's harvest to the next to instead buy new seeds from biotech firms - great for biotech profits, increasing poverty and increasing hunger.

Amazingly since the ban was agreed seven years ago, companies and pro-GM countries have pressed to have that law overturned - the United States and Britain leading the fight - yes Britain is very much at the forefront despite overwhelming opposition to GM from the public. This new technology promises to offer companies an even more profitable way of achieving dominance.

Zombie crops would be engineered to produce sterile seed that could be brought back to life with the right treatment - almost certainly with a chemical sold by the company that markets the seed. Farmers would therefore have to pay out, not for new seeds, but to make the ones they saved viable. The Canada-based Action Group on Erosion Technology and Concentration in their report, "Terminator: The Sequel" call this "a dream scenario for the Gene Giants" - saying: "A scenario in which farmers have to pay for a chemical to restore seed viability creates a new perpetual monopoly for the seed industry."