UK politicians, academics and farmers yesterday rounded on Prince Charles, heir to the throne, after he claimed that a -global shift towards gen-etically modified crops would destroy the earth's environment.

The prince, who started an organic food brand 18 years ago, argued in an interview with the Daily -Telegraph newspaper that increased global planting of GM crops would lead to "disaster".

He said "clever genetic engineering" by "gigantic corporations" would "cause the biggest -disaster environmentally of all time".