Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Downing Street office was obliged to defend environment minister Phil Woolas after groups like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace attacked his remarks.

Speaking to The Independent newspaper, Woolas said: "There is a growing question of whether GM crops can help the developing world out of the current food price crisis.

"It is a question that we as a nation need to ask ourselves. The debate is already under way. Many people concerned about poverty in the developing world and the environment are wrestling with this issue."

Clare Oxborrow, of Friends of the Earth, lashed out at the comments, saying they played into hands of bio-technology companies, who make huge profits from GM products.

"In the UK, the public have rejected GM food and extensive trials have showed that GM crops are more damaging for farmland wildlife than their conventional equivalents," she said.

"Instead of helping the GM industry to use the food crisis for financial gain, the government should be encouraging a radical shift towards sustainable farming systems that genuinely benefit local farmers, communities and the environment worldwide."

For Greenpeace, Jan van Aken added: "I am appalled that the GM industry is abusing the misery of millions of hungry people around the world, using it as propaganda to sell a product by claiming it would reduce hunger.

"By all means the government can have a look at it, but it should look at the facts and then drop it," he said.

A spokeswoman for British charity Oxfam added that the "present food crisis needs more than a technology fix."

"Science and technology have a vital role to play but more focus is needed on sustainable farming technology that the 400 million smallholder farmers can use to improve their productivity," she said.

Brown's office defended the minister's comments. "It has always been the government's position, and continues to be the government's position, that GM crops could offer a range of benefits over the longer term," said a spokesman.

"As Phil Woolas has also reiterated, it is also our position that safety is the top priority and that GM crops are to be considered on a case-by-case basis, based entirely on the science."

Britain has no blanket ban on GM crops -- which generate fierce debate with critics labelling them "Frankenstein foods" -- but ruled in 2004 that commercial planting could only go ahead on a case-by-case basis.

The British premier was expected to raise the issue of GM crops at a two-day European Union summit starting in Brussels Thursday, in particular looking at reforming EU rules on biotechnology with a view to cutting soaring food prices.

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