LONDON — Britain’s chief scientist said on
Tuesday genetically modified crops should not be shunned as
agriculture sought to respond to rising food demand and
climate change threatened production.
"It seems to me to be insanity to throw away potential
solutions of scientific problems and to practical problems that the (farming)
industry have," the UK government’s chief scientific adviser, John Beddington,
said.
Beddington told the National Farmers Union’s annual
conference that, however, it was vital to assess any potential harm the crops
could do to the environment while downplaying concern they might damage human
health.
"GM produce has been eaten for the last decade or so in
Brazil, the USA, China, Argentina without as far as I am aware any undue health
consequences. In terms of some of the concerns that were properly raised 10
years ago, I think there has been a real move on," he said.
There has been significant opposition in Britain and some
other parts of Europe to genetically modified crops.
Beddington said demand for food was rising, particularly in
China and India, while climate change was likely to reduce agricultural
production.
"The demand from these two major countries as well as the
rest of Asia and Africa will mean that prices for feedgrain and livestock are
likely to go up," he said.
"The level of Chinese consumption is extraordinary."
Beddington said there had been very substantial increases in
grains and oilseed prices as stocks fell.
"The dropping down (in grain stocks) to somewhere below 60
days of consumption is startling," he said.
He said there was real potential in biofuels but also
significant concerns.
"Quite clearly some biofuels are just ludicrously
unsustainable and actually make things worse. One of the areas which seems to me
to be just mind-blowingly dumb is to actually cut down rainforest to grow crops
for biofuels," he said.
"Hopefully we will be moving away quite quickly from that."
He said the valuable by-products could be produced by some
biofuel plants such as high protein animal feed, improving, for example, the
potential for using grains to make bioethanol in Britain.
"These things are not likely to be really workable unless
there is some change in wheat or some change in the price of biofuels," he said.
Biofuels can produce fuel from grains, vegetable oils or even
waste produce such as used cooking oil. They are seen by advocates as a way to
reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
Beddington succeeded David King as Britain’s chief scientific adviser as the
start of this year.
