GM Food is Safe so Stop Worrying, Says Prime Minister’s Top Science Adviser

By Sally Williams

Britain should press ahead with the development of genetically- modified crops, Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s top scientific adviser said yesterday.

Sir David King said many of the reservations and concerns which have greeted the controversial technology have proved to be “unreal”. GM products were, in fact, probably safer for some consumers than food produced in the conventional way, he said, and he wants to see more on supermarket shelves.

But Elin Jones, Wales’ Rural Affairs Minister, last night indicated the nation would remain GM free for the foreseeable future.

And the British Retail Consortium said there was “no demand” from shoppers for GM products such as maize.

A spokesman said, “As a result, retailers do not stock own-label brands sourced from GM materials or ingredients – and there is no indication that consumer attitude is going to change.”

Lindsey Kearton, of the Welsh Consumer Council, said research showed many people in Wales are “confused and concerned” about eating GM foods and more than half are also worried about the environmental impact of growing GM crops in this country.

She said, “Only one in four people would be happy to buy food containing GM ingredients, with almost 38% believing such food should be banned from sale altogether.”

Sir David acknowledged that a sizeable proportion of the population had worries about the development of GM products.

But he said, “There are all sorts of concerns that are turning out to be unreal.”

Sir David said tight regulation was necessary to ensure GM was developed in a way which allayed public anxieties.

“It is a highly sophisticated technology,” he said.

“We have to introduce stringent regulatory procedures so we can treat the products case by case.

“Quite clearly, we do have to have regulation to see that we protect our biodiversity, to see we protect our crops and to see that we feed the population. We have got to get all these things together.

“One of the things I really do want to say is that, because the technique is so sophisticated, in many ways it is probably safer for you to eat GM products – plants that have been generated through GM – than normal plant foods, if you have any sort of reaction to food, because you can snip out the proteins that cause the negative reaction to certain parts of the population.”

Ms Jones said, “Our policy is to take the most restrictive approach to GM crop cultivation that is consistent with the EU and UK legislative frameworks. It is a longstanding policy with cross- party support.

“At this time there are no approved GM varieties in the EU that are suitable for growing in the UK and as such would currently provide no commercial advantage to growers here. The insect and pest resistances that have been developed to date are largely irrelevant in crop cultivation in Wales.”

But Dai Davies, president of the National Farmers’ Union Cymru, said consumers and farmers should “not close their eyes” to developments that could feed the world, as valuable land area reduces and population grows.

He stressed, however, “Any new technology must be examined, checked, evaluated, it must be monitored and it must be science based.”

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) aims to ensure GM food and feed is rigorously assessed for safety before being allowed onto the market.

An FSA spokesman said, “GM foods may only be authorised for sale if they are judged not to present a risk to health, not to mislead consumers, and not to be of less nutritional value than the foods they are intended to replace.”

Critics say an anomaly exists in the food chain because most animal feeds imported into the UK for cattle and livestock are already from cheaper GM sources.

Plaid MEP Jill Evans congratulated the EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas in his attempts to block new types of GM maize being grown in Europe.

She said independent reports have claimed that the GM crops involved have been shown in tests to be harmful to plant and animal life.

Sir David also said that, with its pioneering role in molecular biology, Britain was well-placed to develop safe technology which would be vital for feeding the world’s swelling population.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, “By mid-century, the current population of 6.5bn will have reached 9.5bn. We have got a planet with overstretched resources.”

He believes GM crops will be essential to deal with an ever- growing population and diminishing water supplies.

“Have we got the technology to deliver that? Absolutely; it is called GM technology,” he said.

But Friends of the Earth GM campaigner Claire Oxborrow said there was “not a shred of evidence that GM crops will increase yields”. GM the pros and cons in a nutshell: Pros

There are two main types of GM crops that are in commercial use around the world. These are either crops that have been developed to be resistant to certain crop pests, or to a particular weed killer. These GM traits are being used in crops such as soya, maize, oilseed rape and cotton.

Advocates believe these features mean GM crops are less likely to fail and can respond to changing weather conditions, so are the future of feeding the worlds exploding population.

Cons

Opponents says there are possible toxic or allergenic effects and there is a risk of cross-contamination, particularly with organic crops.

Of most concern is the likely consequences of any gene transfer to other organisms.

With current GM techniques there are potential uncertainties about how inserted genes may perform and this means it is possible for unexpected effects to occur.

GM Free Cymru claims multinational companies are promoting GM crops that have had genes from another species added to them, a process which often involves the use of bacteria and viruses.

Many are engineered to be resistant to specific patented herbicides, some of which are highly toxic.

Nobody yet knows for sure what the effects of these plantings or the herbicides will have on human health or on the environment when they are released into the environment on a large scale without any means of controlling their spread. GM crops in Wales and the UK today: There are currently no GM crops being grown in the UK, according to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and no commercial cultivation is expected before 2009 at the earliest.

In 2000, the National Assembly for Wales voted to resist the planting of GM crops in Wales but this did not stop UK Government trials of GM maize being planted at Sealand in Flintshire in both 2000 and 2001 despite public protest.

A trial at Mathry near Fishguard, in Pembrokeshire, was thwarted by a successful community campaign.

Since 2001 there have been no further GM crops planted in Wales.

The only crops likely to be proposed for cultivation in the UK are commodity crops such as oilseed rape, not horticultural products like fruits and vegetables.

Decisions on the commercial approval of GM crops are taken collectively at European Union (EU) level on a case-by-case basis.

(c) 2007 Western Mail. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.