Claiming that scientists should be neither for nor against GM technology, but instead for 'scientific methodology', the UK-based Institute of Food Science & Technology (IFST) asserted in a statement yesterday that GM has a "huge potential for mankind in medicine, agriculture and food".
"Genetic modification will not solve poverty or wars but with 30,000 people dying from diet deficiency diseases every day, foods of the future will not be solved without GM," Prof. J Ralph Blanchfield, chair of external affairs at the IFST, said in an exclusive interview.
An escalating global population in coming decades will put pressure on world food supplies, and for the food scientists GM food holds the long term potential benefit to not only develop crops with improved nutritional quality, and but also crops that will grow under previously inhospitable conditions. This is particularly the case in China, where despite government attempts to keep a check on growth, the population now stands at 1.3 billion people. In recent years the Chinese goverment has turned more and more to GM food crops in an attempt to boost increasingly stretched food supplies.
"In short, GM technology could provide the world with a greater amount of food," said Blanchfield.
Although a food-rich Europe can probably manage without GM food, the debate will increasingly focus on whether the same can be said for the 850 million hungry in the world today.
"It is frequently argued by some that there is more than enough food to feed the world and all that is needed is fairer distribution (which so far mankind has signally failed to achieve). Whatever may be done by way of improved yields through conventional methods, attempted population control and more effective distribution would, however, be inadequate for the future," said the IFST in its statement.
"The important point is not only how to feed the world now but addressing and trying to solve the problem of 'How will mankind feed the world in a few decades from now?' Of course, the problem that has huge political and economic dimensions will not be solved by GM alone, or even by science alone - but will certainly not be solved without the contribution of science, including GM."
On the subject of GM food ingredients, the food technologists assert that the 'first generation' of GM food materials were those that were relatively easy to convert, chosen for their likelihood of rapid commercial success by providing traits that would commend themselves to farmers. "Consequently, most of the 80-plus crops that have been modified and the 25,000-plus field trials that have taken place worldwide to date have involved crops engineered for agronomic traits.
Professor Blanchfield went on to summarise that GM foods have struggled to get public approval because they do not have any perceivalbe benefit at the point of purchase. He added that problems and uncertainties with GM foods - some unfounded - had led to problems with the uptake of GM foods, particularly in more developed countries.
"Reacting to their customers' views, major retailers and manufacturers decided to exclude GM foods and ingredients," he concluded.
The full information statement issued by the IFST yesterday can be accessed on the IFST website.