The theory is that plants such as sugar cane, maize (corn, to Americans), oilseed rape and wheat take up CO2 during their growth, so burning fuels made from them should have no net effect on the amount of that gas in the atmosphere.
A Monsanto oilseed rape (canola) is now in this process.
"It brings tears to my eyes whenever I see another field of camelina," he says an oilseed crop, like safflower and sunflowers.But Mr Schweitzer's real passion these days is "coal to liquids" (CTL): diesel fuel from gasifying coal.
Indeed, we rejected GM oilseed rape and GM beet following our own farm-scale trials, which showed they damaged the environment.Our top priority is to protect human health and the environment through robust regulation of GM crops on a case-by-case basis, consistent with the precautionary principle.
And organic farmers are insistent that their products must be protected from the slightest whiff of GM pollen.The danger of modified crops (particularly oilseed rape) seeding in nearby fields has been overstated.
The lack of rain so far has raised concerns that rice, sugar cane, oilseed and cotton crops could suffer.
But in its recent economic review, Britain's Cabinet Office noted that the financial benefits that might accrue to British farmers from planting, say, herbicide-resistant oilseed rape are unlikely to compensate for the lack of a market should their main customers shun the stuff.
It is also in talks with Cargill, an American grain and oilseed giant, about yet another plant at west-coast Saint-Nazaire.In Britain, though half of all motor fuel sold is diesel, biodiesel use has been tiny.
A single splash of yellow oilseed rape interrupts the green meadows.
He grows camelina, a type of oilseed, to make biodiesel.
The other uses genes also from bacteria and gives plants resistance to particular herbicides, such as glyphosate.The main GM crops soyabeans, maize, cotton and oilseed rape are now grown commercially in 16 countries and tested in a dozen more (see chart 1).
