Prince accused of ignoring poor

Environment Minister Phil Woolas said that the Government had a "moral responsibility" to investigate whether GM products could help alleviate hunger in the developing world.

"We see this as part of our Africa strategy," he said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph.

His comments follow the Prince's outspoken claim last week that GM was a "gigantic experiment with nature and the whole of humanity which has gone seriously wrong".

Mr Woolas, however, said that it was easy for people in countries where food was plentiful to ignore the potential of GM to raise agricultural productivity and he made clear that the Government would press on with GM trials.

"I'm grateful to Prince Charles for raising the issue. He raises some very important doubts that are held by many people," he said. "But Government ministers have a responsibility to base policy on science and I do strongly believe that we have a moral responsibility to the developing world to ask the question: can GM crops help?

"It's easy for those of us with plentiful food supplies to ignore the issue but we have a responsibility to use science to help the less well off where we can."

Mr Woolas challenged the Prince to produce the evidence to back up his claim that GM crops were linked to climate change.

"I'm asking to see the evidence. If it has been a disaster then please provide the evidence," he said."I don't understand the reasoning behind the assertion that this is dangerous for climate change."

He stressed that the Government had yet to decide whether it should relax the controls on the cultivation of GM crops.