SO much for the Government's desire for openness on the GM debate. Growing somewhere in North Yorkshire at this very moment are secretly-planted genetically modified crops. Under duress the Ministry of Agriculture has admitted the experiments are taking place. It will not reveal their precise locations.

Apparently even environment minister Michael Meacher does not know. If the man supposedly in charge of GM crop trials is in the dark, this invites the question: who sanctioned this highly controversial work?

It smacks of scientific arrogance, underwritten by big business. Some scientists have barely-hidden disdain for ordinary people who are against GM technology. Our fear is based on ignorance, they loftily believe, and can be safely dismissed.

That attitude has only been hardened by the response to public GM trials. Green campaigners have destroyed many of the crops. Such protests were apparently given the legal green light after a jury cleared Lord Melchett and fellow Greenpeace members of criminal damage after they destroyed GM maize.

GM experts view these developments as modern day Ludditism. It is not. It is democracy in action.

The public is greatly concerned about the safety of GM crop trials. People want a moratorium on this technology while a full debate takes place.

The supermarkets have responded by reducing their reliance on GM ingredients. The Government, under pressure from multi-national bio-science firms, has apparently responded by hiding its GM experiments.

This is unacceptable. These crops are being grown on our doorstep. It is our environment that is being affected; our farmers whose crops could be contaminated. We are now left to wonder whether the publicly-advertised trials of GM crops were only a smokescreen to divert attention away from the real, clandestine experiments.

Ministers said they were levelling with voters on this issue. They were not. Today's revelation simply confirms that proponents of GM technology have something to hide.