June 20, 2008

 

UK may relax GM policy to help combat global food crisis

Ministers are preparing to open the way for GM crops to be grown in the UK to help combat the global food crisis, the Independent daily reports Thursday.

 

Ministers have told The Independent that skyrocketing food prices and shortages in the world's poorest countries mean the time is right to relax the UK policy on use of GMO crops.

 

Environment Minister Phil Woolas held preliminary talks with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, an umbrella group formed in 2008 to promote the role of biotechnology in agriculture.

 

He 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."

 

However, his comments have drawn fire from environmental groups.

 

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.

 

Clare Oxborrow, of Friends of the Earth said his comments played into hands of bio-technology companies who make huge profits from seeds with disease resistance and other benefits.

 

"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."

 

A Greenpeace spokesman accused the GM industry of abusing the misery of millions of hungry people around the world to use as propaganda to sell its product.

 

Brown's office defended the minister's comments, saying it has always been the government's position, that GM crops could offer a range of benefits over the longer term. The spokesman added however that safety remains the top priority and GM crops would be considered on a case-by-case basis, based entirely on science.