They have just occupied an agricultural test site where genetically engineered crops are being grown and are busy transforming it into an organic garden with an information centre focusing on the global dangers of genetic engineering. Their next stop will be the City of London, home of major international companies, banks, and businesses.

"We are going to visit the offices of Monsanto and other big seed companies and ask them why they are destroying us," explains Omkar Singh, a mustard farmer from Haryana state and a member of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, a major northern Indian farmer's union.

Resistance to genetically engineered crops has spread like wildfire around the world. In India, farmers have launched "Operation Cremate Monsanto" to burn genetically engineered crops which they say have been planted illegally by the company, one of the world's largest agricultural corporations.

In England and France major supermarket chains have banned genetically engineered products from their shelves amid fears about the safety of food produced from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). South Korean students have blockaded government funded biotechnology greenhouses, and the Danish and Norwegian governments have announced a national ban on the planting of all genetically engineered crops. Here in Thailand a storm of controversy has erupted over plans by Monsanto to co-operate with the Population and Development Association (PDA) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in a pilot project aimed at reorganising farming methods in Buri Ram province, amid fears that the company is preparing the way to introduce its genetically engineered products into the country.

Why has this wave of protest developed? Just why are the chemical and agribusiness companies so keen to push genetically engineered products? What are the risks in growing genetically engineered plants, and why have farmers, consumers, and environmentalists around the world united so determinedly in opposition?Genetically engineered seeds are produced using modern biochemical techniques, which insert genes from another organism into them so that they show new characteristics that do not exist in the original plant.

Genetic engineers claim that the new seeds are to all intents and purposes the same as the original seeds, except that they have been "improved"-for example, to produce a higher crop yield, be resistant to herbicides, or be dependent on a fertiliser for their growth. Proponents of genetic engineering assert that genetic engineering will revolutionise agriculture and feed a starving world by increasing crop productivity and making food production easier.

Critics of the new technology say that this is simply not true, and that there are too many risks associated with genetic engineering. It is impossible to be certain what will happen once genetically engineered seeds are released into the environment.

There is the possibility that wind-blown pollen from the modified seeds may fertilise related plants outside the growth area. If the modified plant contained, for example, a gene for herbicide resistance there are fears that a new strain of "superweeds" could result.

Similarly, we cannot predict what secondary effects the modified plants may have on other organisms. Genetic engineers have bred new strains of many plants which contain a gene from a bacterium which makes them resistant to insect pests.

But there is evidence that the crops may have an impact not just on the pests, but on beneficial insects such as bees, lacewings, and ladybirds and the birds that eat them.

On the defensive about the safety and environmental impact of their crops, the "gene giants"-Monsanto, Du Pont, Novartis, and the other huge multinational companies who have invested in biotechnology-have now launched a public relations blitz to persuade the world's citizens that genetic engineering is needed to help provide secure sources of food for the developing world. But again, the evidence suggests otherwise. Solving the problem of hunger is not simply a matter of developing new technologies. There is more than enough food in the world already to provide everyone with a nutritious and healthy diet.

The reason people are hungry is not that there is not enough food to feed them-but that the world's poor do not have the land or water necessary to produce food or the money necessary to buy food.

A recent report published by Christian Aid, an international development agency, says that instead of ending world hunger, the move towards genetically modified crops could lead to more famine. Power over food supply is becoming concentrated in the hands of a few major companies who dominate the world's seed market. These companies sell a relatively small range of varieties of commercially bred patented crops, which usually need fertilisers and pesticides to help them grow and are dangerously susceptible to outbreaks of disease, poor weather, or attack by pests.

Christian Aid says that sustainable organic farming techniques based around land reform, simple irrigation techniques, and natural pest management methods have resulted in increases in crop yield in India of 50%, compared with just 10% from planting genetically engineered crops.

The battle over GMOs is really all about control of the world's hugeagrochemical market, valued at $30.9 billion each year. The top ten agrochemical companies control 85% of the global agrochemical market. The top five companies control virtually the entire market for genetically modified seeds and are struggling to control even more by buying stakes in seed companies around the world.

Enormous power over the world's food supply has been grabbed by very few hands. "They have taken away ownership of seeds and resources and made us dependent," says Neeru Shrestha, one of the Indian farmers demonstrating in Europe.

The so called agricultural "Green Revolution" of the 1960s and 1970s was based around the use of "high input" agricultural systems, requiring the use of pesticides and fertilisers and industrial farming techniques to grow commercially developed hybrid seed varieties which had high yields but were less hardy than indigenous types.

Although the new strains undoubtedly helped to increase production, the price has been high.

The environment suffered from the misuse of chemicals; natural landscapes were flattened, drained, and cleared of trees and bushes to allow the use of tractors and combine harvesters; and soils have been exhausted of their fertility.

At least 75% of the world's food varieties have been permanently lost as farmers were encouraged to concentrate on mass production of crops for export, and many communities lost the traditional skills and knowledge of low impact farming methods which had been passed down through many generations.

Despite increases in food supply more people than ever went hungry in developing countries as food was produced and exported for sale overseas.

The green revolution has resulted in farmers becoming dependent on agricultural companies for their livelihood, and the gene revolution will accelerate this trend. Today 70% of genetically modified crops are engineered not to improve their food value but to make them dependent on the seed companies. "Suicide seeds" that contain a terminator gene have been developed so that the next generation of seeds becomes sterile, forcing farmers to buy new seed every year from the gene giants.

Currently 80% of crops in the developing world are grown each year from saved seed. The cost of buying expensive new seeds every year will spell economic ruin for many small farmers.

This culture of dependency is why the Buri Ram pilot project should be examined closely.

Will farmers be encouraged to use agrochemicals and technologies and trained to move away from small scale, traditional farming methods towards unsustainable intensive farming methods? Will they be promised quick results and an easy life, but be told nothing of the negative impacts that may follow?Food is a basic right, for the poor as well as the rich, and it should not be in the hands of companies whose prime motive is profit rather than the good of humanity.