Government takes fresh look at GM crops
The UK’s Environmental minister Phil Woolas’ is coming out in support of GM crops. Woolas recently met with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council to discuss ways in which genetically modified crops could be grown in Britain on a wider scale as a means of dealing with the global food crisis. Woolas 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." Read more of Woolas’ comments below.
C.S. Prakash
Government takes fresh look at GM crops
The Guardian
June 19, 2008
Genetically modified crops could be grown in Britain on a wider scale as a means of dealing with the global food crisis, it was revealed today.
Phil Woolas, the environment minister, last night held preliminary talks with the Agricultural Biotechnology Council, an umbrella group formed in 2000 to promote the role of biotechnology in agriculture.
"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," Woolas told the Independent.
"The debate is already under way. Many people concerned about poverty in the developing world and the environment are wrestling with this issue."
He told the newspaper that the "very robust" procedures for ensuring the safety of experiments would continue, with scientists looking at each application on its merits.
Gordon Brown is said to be increasingly sympathetic to taking a fresh look at the issue. The government decided in 2004 after a heated public debate that there was no scientific case for a blanket ban on GM crops. But the global food crisis is thought to have persuaded him that the time was right to reconsider the role of GM crops.
