Divisions emerge as UK minister calls for approval of GM crops
Mr Paterson told delegates at this week’s Oxford Farming Conference Europe risked becoming the “museum of world farming” as innovative companies make decisions to invest and develop technologies in other markets.
“There are other tools in the toolbox and GM is not a panacea,” Mr Paterson told delegates.
“But the longer that Europe continues to close its doors to GM, the greater the risk that the rest of the world will bypass us altogether.
“When you have 17 million farmers cultivating 170m hectares, or 12% of the world’s arable land, that goes beyond experimental. It’s established technology delivering safe, palatable food. If we don’t work with those delivering those technologies we are in real danger of being left behind.”
Mr Paterson urged EU farm ministers to give their approval to a proposal to cultivate an insect-resistant maize developed jointly by DuPont and Dow Chemical at a vote within the coming weeks.
Mr Paterson said that, if passed, this would be the first GM food crop approved for planting by the EU in 15 years. The proposal will be put to a vote by senior EU diplomats from its 28 states sometime, and a sizeable majority would be needed for approval.
It would be the second GM crop that to be grown in the European Union after Monsanto won approval for another insect-resistant corn variety in 1998. It is sown on about 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of farmland, mainly in Spain. This compares with an estimated 170 million hectares of GM crop cultivated globally, mainly in the Americas and parts of Asia.
In response, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said policies regarding GM technology were determined by the market.
“It’s about getting the balance between the necessary innovations to get higher-value crops while using less, while at the same time addressing consumer concerns,” said Mr Coveney.
“Whether we take the approach of being led by the science of GM, in our own countries it is a matter for individual policy makers to decide.”
