A UK government-sponsored national debate about genetically modified crops and foods has found that many people in the UK have reservations about the technology.

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The six-week-long GM Nation? debate also found that the more British people were informed about GM technology, the more sceptical they became about it, reported Reuters.

“Across the different elements of the debate, participants expressed unease about GM,” the report from the government’s steering committee said.

“The mood ranged from caution to doubt, through suspicion and scepticism, to hostility and rejection,” it said.

More than half of all participants said they were opposed to the growing of GM crops under any circumstances. The vast majority (86%) of participants said they did not want to eat GM food, while only 2% said they would be happy to eat it.

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“There is little support for the early commercialisation of GM crops,” the report said.

“They (the participants) seek varying periods of delay so that new information, tests or research can identify and eliminate, or at least reduce to an acceptable level, the potential risks,” the report concluded.

Many participants also said they thought the government had already decided to allow the commercial growing of GM crops, and that the results of the debate would be ignored.

Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Margaret Beckett, said she would not ignore the findings of the debate.

“I will reflect carefully on the findings of today’s report, along with those of the science review and our costs and benefits study, before publishing our response. We said that we will listen, and we will,” she said.