NEWS: Genetically Modified Food: GM food acceptance coming
Aftenposten
March 1, 2007
Excerpt…
A Norwegian professor predicts that genetically modified…food will soon be accepted in Norway, but that farmers will then lose out.
Professor Hilde-Gunn Opsahl Sorteberg at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) at Ås believes that GM products will be on Norwegian tables within ten years as the country follows after the growing international interest such food, newspaper Nationen reports.
Sorteberg also predicts that Norwegian authorities will allow genetically modified ingredients in processed food within two years.
Sorteberg believes that Norwegian farmers, like their counterparts abroad, will be the first to be won over to GM food. Genetically modified alternatives will become increasingly cheaper and oust traditional products for this reason.
"International research circles know that skepticism runs especially deep in Norway and that their products will meet resistance. For this reason they will not be bothered to develop varieties that are suited to the Norwegian climate, and thus Norwegian farmers will lose out in a global agricultural market," Sorteberg told Nationen.
Sorteberg argued that the varieties developed for milder climates will hardly be viable in Norway's hardier conditions.
