GM back on table to fight food price crisis
By Paul Waugh
Soaring food prices should force a rethink of Britain's strict curbs on genetically modified crops, Environment minister Phil Woolas said today.
Controversy: Any move towards GM crops will infuriate most green groups
Mr Woolas said that the UK needs to look at whether GM technology can help tackle the current crisis, which has seen food riots hit countries across the world.
Mr Woolas held talks yesterday with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, an umbrella group formed in 2000 to promote the role of biotechnology in agriculture.
In a move that has infuriated green groups, the minister signalled an end to more than a decade of government scepticism about the practical benefits of GM plants.
His remarks came as both Chancellor Alistair Darling and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King warned that global food and fuel price rises were stoking inflation to dangerous levels.
Mr King issued a stark message that he would "take whatever action is neededî to combat rising prices - a clear signal that interest rates could go up in coming months. He also said that he expected "average real take-home pay to stagnate this yearî.
And in a further sign that rocketing food and fuel prices were now the Government's main policy priority, Gordon Brown arrived in Paris for talks with French president Nicolas Sarkozy on the issue.
Mr Woolas suggested that the past decade of government caution regarding GM crops may end because of the urgent need to help boost farmers' yields at home and abroad.
Mr Woolas also told The Independent: "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. The debate is already under way. Many people concerned about poverty in the developing world and the environment are wrestling with this issue.î The Governmenthas already decided that there is no scientific case for a blanket ban on GM crops.
But just as it is pushing nuclear power in a bid to curb greenhouse gases, the Government risks a battle with the environmental lobby.
Following much heated public debate about so-called "Frankenstein foodsî the Government made clear in 2004 that commercial planting would go ahead only on a case-by-case basis if it can be shown to be safe for humans and the environment. There is no commercial-cultivation of GM plants in the UK at present, and only one trial is under way, involving potatoes in Cambridgeshire.
Green groups point out that Britain differs from the US, where huge prairie farms are not seen as wildlife havens and are used purely for agribusinesses to maximise production. In the UK, the patchwork nature of farmland means that birds, butterflies and other species rely on fields and hedgerows planted by farmers.
Critics claim that GM crops wipe out wildlife because they allow use of strong herbicides and pesticides and often fail to produce the higher yields promised by manufacturers.
But backers of the geneticallymodified technology say that some strains of crops that are drought-resistant and salt-tolerant could prove crucial in helping combat the effects of climate change.
The Chancellor made plain in his Mansion House speech to the City last night that wage restraint was another key weapon in the fight against inflation-In the speech, he said that " inflationary pay settlements would undermine rather than raise people's living standardsî.
Mr Brown's talks with Mr Sarkozy were set to focus on oil, food and energy prices as well as the EU treaty.
The Prime Minister was to hold discussions over lunch with the French president before travelling to Brussels for an EU summit.
GM crops back on the table to combat world food crisis