1.Solutions for a hungry planet
2.Genetically modified crops could solve the world food crisis
3.The cost of green tinkering is in famine and starvation
4.GM crops can save us from food shortages
5.European hypocrisy over GMOs
NOTE: It's hard to know whether to laugh or cry but here's just a few of the articles currently pushing the view that if it weren't for the UN, the EU, the greens etc., we could all be enjoying a utopian world of abundant cheap food while our farming industry's problems would all be over... thanks to the miracle of GM! Sing Hallelujah!
The evidence for any of this techno-utopianism is, of course, nowhere to be seen, as Clare Oxborrow points out in item 1.
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1.Solutions for a hungry planet
The Guardian (Letters), 17 April 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/17/food.biofuels
Simon Jenkins (The cost of green tinkering is in famine and starvation; Change in farming can feed the world - report, April 16) contradicts the findings of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development reported elsewhere in the same edition. He states: 'The GM ban is denying the developing world the swiftest path to productivity', despite the fact that the IAASTD does not support the biotech industry's propaganda by acknowledging that there is no evidence that GM increases crop yields. The report is clear that agriculture must embark on a new direction. Scientific research will be crucial, but this does not mean support for GM crops.
Clare Oxborrow
Food campaigner, Friends of the Earth
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2.Genetically modified crops could solve the world food crisis - if only the UN and other groups would permit their use Henry Miller Guardian Unlimited, 16 April 2008 [title only] http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/henry_miller/2008/04/gene_therapy.html
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3.The cost of green tinkering is in famine and starvation
Simon Jenkins
The Guardian, 16 April 2008 [extract only] http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/16/biofuels.alternativeenergy
...increased food productivity is so patently a good thing that to ban GM from European imports, and thus from Africa, is beyond perverse. Increased Indian and Chinese consumption is sucking the world dry of grain at just the time when the GM ban is denying the developing world the swiftest path to higher productivity - and at a time when supply is curbed by biofuel substitution.
These various green policies have established a lethal pincer movement on world food production...
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4.GM crops can save us from food shortages
By Bill Emmott
The Telegraph, 17 April 2008 [extract only] http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/04/17/do1702.xml
...The past decade and a half of scientific discovery has opened up a vista of even greater improvements, yet our reaction has been to reject them all. I refer to genetic science and the ability to modify a plant to make it resistant to pests, to need less fertiliser, as well as many more innovations.
It is sensible to be cautious about science when it comes to our food. But we have rejected GM foods almost entirely. That rejection has been shared with the European Union, but it cannot be blamed solely on the EU: scares about 'Frankenfoods' and the antics of Lord Melchett and Greenpeace are just as responsible.
Europe's unwillingness to accept even a trace of GM products in imported feedstocks forces other countries' farmers to steer clear too. And since the EU is one of the wealthiest regions on the planet, our rejection has set back progress in GM research and development hugely.
This has to change, and urgently. The evidence against genetic modification is as weak as can be. The longer we deny ourselves this technological way to increase food output and reduce the use of fertiliser, the longer the current imbalance between food supply and demand will last.
The era of cheap food does not have to be over. We have it within our power to bring it back.
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5.European hypocrisy over GMOs
Livestock News
By William Surman
Farmers Guardian, 17 April 2008
http://www.farmersguardian.com/story.asp?sectioncode=29&storycode=17800
BRITISH pig and poultry industries are being destroyed by EU hypocrisy over genetically modified feed, industry experts have warned.
Europe’s zero tolerance stance on GMOs prohibit any feed exports to the EU that contain traces of unauthorised GMO but pigs and poultry that have been fed on the same unauthorised feed can freely enter the European food market for consumption.
European debate is also raging over the elongated authorisation system for new GMOs.
The approval process in the EU can take anything from 3 to 10 years and is often dragged out by member states (such as Italy and Greece) that want to maintain 100 per cent GMO free.
The US, by contrast, take around a year to permit new GMOs and this time difference has strangled imports and sent EU feed prices sky high. EU figures show the current price differential between GMO and non-GMO feed to be around GBP50 per ton.
'We are cutting off our noses to spite our faces,' said the chairman of the European Parliament agriculture committee, Neil Parish. 'These issues deny our farmers access to cheap feed whilst doing nothing to address the concerns consumers have with regards to GMOs.'
Pig and poultry farmers have a high dependency on protein rich feed imports like soyabean meal and corn gluten feed but concern is growing that exporting countries could cut off supplies to Europe altogether.
Top exporters Argentina, Brazil and the US are growing increasing amounts of non-EU approved varieties for Europe’s competitors. Where production facilities are shared, these countries are also finding it more difficult to guarantee 100 per cent GMO free exports to the EU.
An incident where non-EU approved maize arrived from the United States in 2006 cut US maize imports by around 25 per cent that year, said the NFU.
As a result of strict EU rules, experts are concerned that the relative importance of the Chinese market will grow in direct proportion to the shrinking EU market.
'Feed prices are already high and it would be disastrous for UK and EU pig production if feed imports fell further,' said British Pig Executive chairman Stewart Houston, adding: 'Worryingly we could run out of soya feed by 2009.'
British poultry farmers would pay GBP12 per ton less on feed if GM soya was available to the industry, said NFU poultry board chairman, Charles Bourns.
'If we want to keep producing poultry in the EU then we need to use GM soya. Otherwise the paradox is that we will import more chicken that has been fed on GM soya' he said.
Next week Mr Parish will ask the European Commission to replace zero tolerance on unauthorised GMO traces with a lower limit and to speed up the GMO approval process or risk the destruction of EU pig and poultry industries. ---