As an anti-GE rally it was quite satisfactory, but as a source of information it was disappointing. I know almost nothing more on the subject than I have posted on this list, but I didn't pick up a single fact last night that I didn't already know, and several that I knew positively to be untrue. If your computer is equipped with Real Audio, you can access the Guardian web site and listen to all two hours of it, but don't bother. As usual, no one asked whether any scientists anywhere, with agribusiness financing, were working on the enhancing, or even the preservation, of species variety and flavour.
Genes can leap in the most extraordinary and alarming way.
There's no reason to say the same thing cannot happen in genetically modified plants. It only has to happen once. The dangers are really quite real. Christopher Leaver, professor of plants science at Oxford university, claimed GM food was needed in the future for a burgeoning population - set to rise from its current 5.6 billion to 8 billion by 2020. It was also required as a potential source of energy in a world of unrenewable energy sources, while GM plants, resistant to heat and drought, would enable those in the Third World to have a better quality of life.