Agricultural biotechnology and the UK public

It might be an exaggeration to claim that UK agriculture is in a state of crisis, but it is certainly a time for decisions. Uncertainties abound: the implications of growing free trade; a steady reduction in subsidies; the ongoing drift of people to towns and what some regard as the stranglehold of retailers both on food prices and on what the farmer gets. To all of this has to be added the backwash of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), and the advent of new technologies, especially those based on modern genetics.