LONDON: The first commercially grown GM crops can be planted in Britain this spring, the scientific committee set up to advise UK ministers on releases to the environment said on Tuesday.

The advice gives the Blair government only a few weeks to decide whether to allow Britain to go GM or bow to public opinion and block the introduction of the controversial crops - a decision bound to be taken by the full cabinet because of its political implications.

The announcement appeared at first sight contrary to the results of three years of farm-scale trials of GM crops announced in October. It brought a hostile reaction from politicians of all parties, among them the former UK environment minister Michael Meacher.

The UK's advisory committee on releases to the environment (Acre) evaluated the farm-scale trials and came to the conclusion that in carefully controlled circumstances the commercial planting of GM crops could go ahead without any risk to the environment.

In particular, the scientists said Bayer GM maize, which already had a licence for commercial planting granted in 1998, before the trials, could be planted this spring.

The trials had shown that the existing methods of growing conventional maize were even more damaging to the environment than GM maize, and so on that basis commercial planting of GM maize would be reasonable. The only potential hold up was the approval for commercial use of the herbicide to be used on it and the acceptance of the GM seed on to the national list - both licences being in the last stages.

The scientific results for spring-sown oilseed rape and fodder and sugar beet had shown GM crops to be more damaging to the environment than conventional crops. Acre thought this problem could be overcome if mitigating measures, such as wide field boundaries for wild flowers and insects, were adopted.

Jules Pretty, the committee's deputy chairman, said one of the most important results to come out of the trials was the extent to which modern agriculture of all types damaged the environment. Growing of both conventional and GM maize was very damaging to biodiversity:-Dawn/The Guardian News Service.