Letter: Sainsbury hits back

Sir: The governments of this world must unite to put an end to the American-led onslaught of genetically modified organisms into our biosphere.

When the BSE crisis broke, the big guns in the UK beef industry, agribiz and government lined up to bully the British public, EU regulators and consumers worldwide. Fortunately they lost and the subsequent ban on British beef forced the British beef industry to get its house in order.

With GMOs we have an unregulated biotechnology industry backed by the most powerful country in the world bullying the rest of the world to consume food which could be unsafe to the environment as well as the consumer. Bullying and greed should not be tolerated. The US might threaten a trade war over GMOs, but I doubt they'd send in the battleships over a product that no one wants.

If our government has its hands tied by some dubious trade agreements and can't (or won't) ban GMOs, then at least we should have proper labelling of our food. That way we can have the freedom to vote with our wallets on an issue that our government is too cowardly and feeble to tackle.

RORY CARGILL

London SW11