Despite the deep concerns of the public, genetically modified foods — once the stuff of science fiction — are becoming a disturbing reality in our lives.

The big producers, biotech companies and retailers, driven by their own vested commercial interests, keep pushing for the acceptance of these foods.

Across the Western world, governments and food agencies are proving too supine to challenge the spread of GM technology.

New product? The Aquabounty salmon grows twice as fast as a normal fish. Two same-age salmon are pictured - a genetically modified salmon, rear, and a non-genetically modified salmon, foreground

Brave words about protecting the consumer have turned out to be empty. Resistance to those who wish to manipulate what we eat and drink is giving way to collusion.

This week it was revealed that authorities in the U.S. may be on the verge of granting approval to the world’s first GM fish, the Aquabounty salmon, which has had its genes altered so that it grows twice as fast as a normal fish.

A decision by the world’s biggest economy to sanction the sale of the first scientifically engineered animal would represent a giant leap into the dark.

As usual, supporters of such a move insist it is necessary to feed a growing population. But this ignores the potential problems of food safety, animal cruelty and environmental damage that introducing GM animals into the food chain could cause.

Aquabounty salmon is produced through the insertion into the eggs of wild Atlantic salmon of a growth hormone gene from Chinook salmon, as well as a gene from a different type of fish called the ocean eelpout.

This makes the salmon produce growth hormone all year round, rather than just during the warmer months.

Though Aquabounty salmon are intended to be raised in tanks on land, once they are in commercial production, when their eggs will be transported to multiple production sites, their eventual escape into rivers and oceans is inevitable.

We have lived through a wave of food scandals: the crisis over salmonella in eggs and the horse-meat fiasco, to name but two. Most have been caused by the intensification of the meat production process.

It is increasingly obvious that mass industrialisation of animal husbandry is cruel and dangerous. That is why the EU is imposing a ban on the sale of eggs from battery chickens

Yet now we have the American authorities moving in precisely the opposite direction, preparing to sanction the scientific manipulation of animals on an epic scale without, I believe, any real acknowledgement of the risks.

The nightmare of battery chickens will pale beside that of battery-farmed GM salmon, pumped up with hormones and genes from other species. Approval for this type of fish will lay open the way for all sorts of other GM animals.

Only yesterday, the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, a pioneering centre of biotechnology, announced it had produced a GM piglet, ‘Pig 26’, through a new process of mutation called ‘gene editing’.

This involves the insertion of new genetic material into an animal’s DNA. The piglet is part of research aimed at producing disease-resistant animals and birds for industrial food production.

Work is also under way to produce GM milk that is close to human breast milk, cows without horns so they can’t hurt each other, and chickens that have only female chicks, thereby boosting egg output.

The truth is that, against the wishes of the public, the influence of GM technology can already be found on the shelves of the big supermarkets in Britain.

Research: The Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, a pioneering centre of biotechnology, announced it had produced a GM piglet, 'Pig 26', through a new process of mutation called 'gene editing' (file picture of pigs)

These retailers had initially seemed reluctant to sell us these products, but they are beginning to cave in to pressure from the global food industry.

Asda and Morrisons sell chickens that have been reared on genetically modified feed produced from GM soya made by U.S. company Monsanto, and last week three of the other big chains — Tesco, Marks & Spencer and the Co-op — announced they are going to do the same.

Worse still, they will not even label this meat as ‘GM fed’.

At Sainsbury’s, just one brand of chicken will be free from GM input. Indeed, the only supermarket resisting the slide into this troubling new world is Waitrose.

The move by most retailers towards an embrace of GM foods represents something serious as it undermines consumer choice. Without proper labelling, shoppers can’t avoid eating GM-fed animals.

It also opens the way to the domination of the food industry by biotech companies. Chicken feed is just th