ONE man's campaign against genetically modified (GM) maize has won support from all over the UK.

Farmer John Clark, who is a Liberal councillor on Ryedale District Council, has offered to supply organic maize plants for people to grow at home.

They would then have to be consulted if a farmer nearby wanted to grow GM maize in order to avoid cross-contamination.

Mr Clark, of Cropton, near Pickering, North Yorkshire, hopes this threat of added red tape will deter any farmers planning to grow GM maize, or make it impossible for them to do so.

He launched his campaign a week ago and nearly 100 people have registered to take part, from as far away as Penzance and northern Scotland.

He said: "If it is up to 100 in just over a week, it is going to be into the thousands rather than the hundreds.

"I am not that fanatically anti-GM, I just think that we are going into it far too quickly without enough science. If it was a drug, we would be testing it on 10,000 people and leaving 10,000 people without, then comparing the results. We are not doing that."

His campaign was prompted by the Government's decision to agree in principle to the growing of a single variety of GM maize. A website dedicated to the campaign, www.gm freeryedale.org.uk, has been set up.

A Defra spokesman said that regulations regarding distances and cross-contamination have yet to be worked out and that there was still a lot of work to do and questions to be answered before any planting of GM maize was permitted.