The development of genetically modified crops is leaving the world facing the largest ever environmental disaster, the Prince of Wales has claimed.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Prince Charles said GM crop development was an experiment with nature that had “gone seriously wrong” and could cause food supplies to run out.

Small farmers would also fall victim to “massive corporations” taking over food production, he warned.

“If they [GM crop development firms] think this is the way to go we will end up with millions of small farmers all over the world being driven off their land into unsustainable, unmanageable, degraded and dysfunctional conurbations of unmentionable awfulness,” he said.

“What we should be talking about it food security not food production.”

While scientists may believe they would be successful with GM crop development, the Prince said it would be “guaranteed to cause the biggest disaster environmentally of all time.”

Developing such crops was putting too much pressure on nature, causing “untold problems” which would be difficult and expensive to rectify, he added.