Britain and the United States have decided to block attempts to ban genetically modified organisms by India and other developing countries who want to protect their traditional farming methods and the food supply of the poor.
Tony Blair and the European Union are backing the US position that a ban on GM crops on those grounds is a restraint of free trade.
Under a new international treaty, a ban on GMOs would only be justifiable on scientific grounds if it were shown traditional crops or local plants were likely to be wiped out or damaged by mutant intruders.
Britain and the US believe their biotechnology companies specialising in GM products will lose exports if developing countries ban them on social or economic grounds.
Meanwhile, the Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, disclosed yesterday that three test sites growing GM food have broken rules on their development. In a Commons written reply he said a Health and Safety inspector found breaches of regulations by Nickersons Biochem at Holton-le-Moor, Lincolnshire, and by the Scottish Crop Research Institute at two sites in Invergowrie, Dundee. Nickersons Biochem had planted GM oilseed rape less than the approved 400 metres from non-GM oilseed rape, while the SCRI had grown field beans instead of barley after testing GM potatoes.
News of the rule breaches, which took place in 1997, came as Mr Meacher disclosed in another written reply that GM crops could have greater potential to affect the environment than non-GM crops.
He told MPs that in one laboratory study in 1998 there was a higher likelihood that lacewing flies fed on moth caterpillars that had been fed on GM maize would die.
That is exactly the kind of issue that a new international agreement on controlling the import and export of live genetic material is to cover. The final negotiating session between 170 countries starts in Colombia on February 14, but there is wide disagreement over what it should contain.
India and African states believe that if multinational companies like Monsanto are allowed to control the seed supply, their traditional agriculture - in which part of the crop is saved by farmers for sowing the next year - will be in jeopardy. If Monsanto have patented the seed or included a terminator gene so crops cannot reproduce, then traditional agricultural practices on which their economies are based would end.
The row over the right to ban GM organisms which might damage local crops or traditional agriculture must be resolved before the protocol can be finalised for signing in New York in three months.