GREEN campaigners yesterday praised Prince Charles after he warned the development of GM crops risked creating "the biggest disaster environmentally of all time".

GREEN campaigners yesterday praised Prince Charles after he warned the development of GM crops risked creating "the biggest disaster environmentally of all time".

In a passionate intervention on the issue of genetically modified food, the prince accused multinational corporations of conducting an experiment with nature which had gone "seriously wrong".

He said relying on gigantic corporations for the mass production of food would threaten, not boost, future food supplies. He warned that we would end up with "millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness.

"I think it will be an absolute disaster."

Friends of the Earth's campaign director Mike Childs said: "Prince Charles has hit the nail on the head.

"GM crops will not solve the food crisis and forging ahead with an industrialised farming system will continue to fail people and the environment around the world. Global political effort must be channelled into securing long-lasting, green farming solutions that put people, not corporations, at their heart."

GM Freeze, a coalition of organisations including Action Aid, the Soil Association and Unison which has concerns about the long-term implications of GM crops, also supported the prince.

But Dr Giles Oldroyd, a plant genetics researcher, said: "Prince Charles seems to have an antipathy towards GM crops. Small-scale farmers can buy GM seeds and benefit from it."

Dr Julian Little, chairman of the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, said the prince's views did not seem to be based on "any solid evidence".