The decision today by Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for the environment, food and rural affairs, to give the go-ahead to the commercialisation of GM maize in the United Kingdom, and Welsh Assembly Minister for the environment, countryside and planning, Carwyn Jones's failure to act against this decision will change the face of Welsh agriculture forever, according to Plaid Cymru.

Responding to today's statements from the Labour Governments in Westminster and the National Assembly, Simon Thomas, Plaid Cymru MP for Ceredigion and the party's parliamentary spokesperson on the environment said:

"Today, the principle of a GM free Wales has been breached and the Labour Assembly Government has failed to do anything different to Westminster.

"It is not the case that we have to agree to the commercialisation of this crop. It would be perfectly legal for the Welsh Assembly Government to refuse to allow it as the tests were done with a herbicide which is about to be banned.

"There are still no rules on coexistence or liability. Who, therefore, who will pay compensation to farmers whose conventional organic crops have been contaminated by GM sources?

"The image of clean and green farming in Wales has well and truly been shattered by Margaret Beckett's decision and by Carwyn Jones's failure to act against it."

Jill Evans, Plaid Cymru MEP said:

"This is appalling decision-making and recklessness of the first order. Carwyn Jones's statement this afternoon is yet another example of Labour in the Assembly failing to stand up for a GM free Wales.

"Ninety per cent of the 37,000 people surveyed during the UK-wide debate on GM opposed the commercial cultivation of GM crops and today's decision flies in the face of the overwhelming anti-GM public opinion in Wales."

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