Environmental campaigners Friends of the Earth are urging villagers to join a protest meeting, following news that genetically modified crops are to be grown in a nearby field.

A crop of GM maize will be grown on farmland near the south Oxfordshire village of Hinton Waldrist.

The herbicide-resistant forage crop, which has been developed by Aventis, is expected to be sown in May at Glebe Farm - between the village and the A420 - as part of 28 farm-scale trials in England and Wales.

The study will examine the impact of growing GM crops on the environment and on local wildlife. It is not thought to be concerned with food safety.

A similar farm-scale trial of oilseed rape at Shirburn, near Watlington, two years ago, was abandoned after the crop was attacked by environmental campaigners during a Stop the Crop rally.

The meeting at the village hall, at 7.30pm on May 2, is being staged jointly by FOE and the Oxford-based pressure group Oxygene.

A spokesman for FOE complained that the trials had been unveiled without any local consultation, and that no consideration had been taken of possible genetic pollution.

He said: "The majority of the British public do not want to eat GM food or risk feeding it to animals.

"Environmentalists are concerned that the farm-scale trials are premature when food safety has not been established.

"Cross-contamination of neighbouring conventional and organic crops is ignored and there will be no compensation paid to those whose crops are adversely affected.

"There is no legal liability for any environmental harm caused by releases of GM crops."