A VICAR has spoken out in favour of controversial genetically modified foods - but has criticised the motives of some of the companies that produce them.

The Rev David Ashforth, of St Leonard's CE Church, Balderstone, said: "There is nothing more frightening in producing cash crops resistant to pests than there is in a rose grower producing roses resistant to mildew."

The vicar, who trained as a scientist and keeps sheep next to his vicarage, spoke out as Prince Charles has dismayed Prime Minister Tony Blair by backing anti-GM food scientists who have dubbed the crops "Frankenstein foods".

Mr Ashforth previously condemned the cloning of Dolly the sheep by Scottish boffins but in his parish magazine, he says genetically modified plants are already commonplace.

He said: "All strawberries are genetically modified.

"They used to be a tiny American fruit hardly worth picking until somebody crossed two types.

"People have been eating these genetic variations on wild strawberries for 160 years without adverse effects." He said the 1960s "green" revolution had saved thousands of people from starvation after scientists irradiated seeds to improve their yield.

And he claimed the new GM programmes were just a more controlled version of the same thing.

But he criticised seed companies who built a "terminator" gene into their seeds so that they would only produce one crop before dying, instead of going on to produce more seeds for the next year's harvest.

He said: "It is a cynical attempt to keep third world farmers chained to the seed companies who supply them.

"But Christian Aid could always beat that racket by snipping out the terminator gene and distributing improved plants with sustained fertility."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.