GM or food shortages, warn scientists

The comments were made at last Wednesday's Oxford farming conference, and this strategy is believed to be favoured by environment secretary Hilary Benn.

It was challenged by organisers of the Oxford Real Farming Conference, meeting in the city at the same time. Here, academics, environment groups and others concluded that farmers were well able to feed the world ‘without novel and untried technologies’.

Pros and cons

The argument for GM foods is that they can produce higher crop yields more economically. They reduce the need for pesticides and herbicides as well as reducing the manpower needed to grow the crops. They can also be engineered to withstand weather variations and extremes, to stay fresher for longer after harvest or to have a high content of a specific nutrient.

The downside is that GM crops could germinate with other plant species to create mutated variants with adverse effects. There is potential damage to the ecosystem by reducing biodiversity (removing one pest that harms a crop could be removing a food source for an animal). Also some GM foods are modified with bacteria and viruses which could lead to the emergence of new diseases.

Martin Wolfe, the research director of the Organic Research Centre said there were still many unanswered questions about GM crops and the monoculture systems they were designed for: "the only realistic way to maximise productivity is through ‘polycultures’ in which a wide variety of crops and animals are integrated. The first priority for research and development should be for ecological agriculture."

Do we have enough food in the UK without GM?

The answer seems to be yes if you look at the wide array of food in the supermarkets. However, Britain relies heavily on imports with over 40% of our food coming from abroad.

In the context of energy descent, this question is one we should all be asking, yet no one has really asked it in any depth since Kenneth Mellanby’s 1975 book ‘Can Britain Feed Itself’. In the most recent issue of The Land, planning reform campaigner Simon Fairlie returns to Mellanby’s report. He examines different scenarios of permaculture and organic farming practices as well as different national diet profiles. His conclusion is similar to Mellanby: yes - Britain can feed itself without GM, but only by reducing the amount of meat we consume.