By Christopher Lyddon

LONDON - Concerns over the safety and potential ubiquity of genetically modified GM foods are driving British consumers increasingly into the arms of organic producers.

And the supporters of organic methods, farming using no artificial pesticides or fertilisers, have been quick to push organic food as the only sure-fire way of avoiding transgenic material in food.

"There's a real choice," said Douglas Parr, a campaigner with the environmental group Greenpeace. "The choice is whether to go down a genetically modified future or a sustainable organic future."

"The future belongs to organic farming and less-environmentally damaging patterns of consumption," said Benny Haerlin, Greenpeace International's Netherlands based Campaign Coordinator.

ORGANIC FOOD MUSHROOMS IN POPULARITY

Organic food does not appear to need much encouragement. It has soared in popularity in Britain, with sales rising from 100 million pounds ($162.3 million) in 1993 to 260 million in 1997, according to the Soil Association, which predicted a further 40 percent growth in 1998.

Government is eager to promote organic farming, if only for balance of payments reasons. "We want to see more farmers come to organic production. We import 70 percent of organic food," food minister Jeff Rooker told a press briefing earlier this year.

ORGANIC STATUS AND GENETIC MODIFICATION SEPERATED

Organic status for crops and genetic modification are completely mutually exclusive, organic campaigners say. As a case in point the Soil Association cites last year's refusal by environment minister Michael Meacher to order the destruction of a crop of GM maize bordering a Soil Association registered organic crop.

"The Soil Association regrettably had to inform the farmer that the organic status of his sweetcorn would have to be removed if there was any evidence of contamination from the GM maize."

"The only way that the government can fulfil its promise to protect organic farmers (and indeed conventional farmers) who wish to provide a GM-free choice for consumers is through a ban on the growing of genetically engineered maize," said Patrick Holden, Soil Association director.

Not everybody agrees. Professor Mike Gale, director of the Johm Innes Centre and a leading researcher into genetic modification, posed the question, "what could be more organic than DNA?," in an interview with Reuters.

And there were questionmarks over organic produce. "Maybe the rest of us should refuse to eat vegetables that have had sewage sludge put on them," he said.

FEARS OVER CROSS POLLINATION

Organic campaigners say that GM crops can cross-pollinate other crops at a distance.

"In conditions of moderate wind speeds the rates of cross-pollination at 200 metres (656 feet) would be in the order of one kernel in 93," according to research by Doctor Jean Emberlin of the National Pollen Research Union, commissioned, and quoted in a statement, by the Soil Association.

Government scientists had put the rate much lower. "At a standard separation distance of 200 metres between the organic sweetcorn and the GM maize the likely cross pollination would result in no greater than one sweetcorn kernel in every 40,000 being a GM hybrid." ($1=.6163 Pound).