A FARMER has defended a return to growing genetically modified (GM) crops.

John Richardson's farm at Hutton Magna, near Barnard Castle, County Durham, has been selected for the next round of GM trials.

He will grow oilseed rape as part of national farm-scale evaluations of herbicide-tolerant crops.

A farm at Oakenshaw, near Willington, County Durham, has also been selected for trials.

Mr Richardson's farm made the headlines in 1999 when five activists destroyed oilseed rape as part of an earlier GM trial.

But the 45-year-old says that experience has not put him off having GM crops on his land.

"I was annoyed when the people destroyed the crops because they were being very short-sighted," he said.

"The protestors had asked for these sort of trials to take place, but they still pulled the crops up."

Mr Richardson said he has read most of the arguments for and against GM crops and believed there is no danger.

He said: "If we don't grow these crops in this country, we will be at a big disadvantage to other countries where they do, in so far as the crops are grown considerably cheaper and the yields are higher."

Aventis CropScience UK, which is carrying out the trials, said the general purpose of the work is for research.

At the end of the trials, the plants will be destroyed and not be put into the human food or animal feed chain.

But this has failed to deter anti-GM campaigners, who are calling for local people to oppose the crop trials.

Friends of the Earth claims the test sites could contaminate surrounding crops.

Carol Kearney, GM campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "The countryside has suffered enough over recent years, and the biotech industry must not be allowed to gamble with its future."

The five protestors who destroyed the GM crops on Mr Richardson's farm were found guilty of causing criminal damage, at Darlington Magistrates' Court, in November. They were conditionally discharged and ordered to pay £1,500 in costs.

District judge Paul Firth stopped short of ordering them to pay £2,000 compensation and accepted they believed they had positive motives