Now director of Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford University, Sir David King was addressing members of the UK food industry at the annual City Food Lecture in London last night.
With science-based predictions of a huge population surve in the next 40 years, food production is not the only issue. The world is also struggling with the related issued of water resource, conflict and terrorism, energy security and supply, health and development, ecosystems, climate change and minerals.
In Sir David’s view, GM technology – contravertial in Europe – can speed a solution to some of these issues, when traditional methods take decades.
For example, when paddy fields are flooded – as can happen easily in India when relatively small climatic shifts affect the monsoon rains – conventional rice survived just two or three days. A wild rice was identified in 1992 that could withstand weeks of flooding, but that rice is not marketable.
Following an 18 year breeding programme using traditional, non-GM, methods, a new flood resistant rice is now ready to be marketed. The same result could have been achieve in around 3 years using GM methods, Sir David said.
“How many people have sufferd from a GM foodstuff, and how many have suffered because of not having a marketable flood-resistant rice plant?” he asked.
He later added: “I can’t understand why we would regulate one piece of technology over the plethora of technologies. The right way to manage is to regulate the product, not the process.”
No trials
Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association and a panel member at the lecture, countered that we “simply don’t know the effects of GM as we have never done the trials”. If in time we can reach the same result using conventional breeding, then we should, he said.
Despite the presence of produce from GM crops in the American food supply, “there are no public health benefits to any,” he said.
Common ground
However an olive branch was stretched between Sir David and Holden over the issue of good agricultural practices.
“In terms of soil management, much can be learned from Soil Association practices. We need to understand the business of long term management of the land.”
Sir David used the example of the Loess Plateau in China, which was seriously damaged by centuries of overfarming. In the 1400s the Emperor decided to move the population east, towards the Beijing region, leaving behind a barren wasteland. “We can no longer afford to do what he did,” said Sir David. “If we destroy a piece of the planet, there is no longer a piece of the planet for us to move to. We have ploughed the last furrow.”
For the Loess Plateau, the future now looks brighter. The Chinese government began the world’s biggest reforestation project in Loess plateau in 1994, introducing terracing to conserve the soil and prevent water run-off. An area the size of Belgium (out of a total area the size of France) is now reforested, and not only have the people returned, but the fauna too.
Moreover, the lessons of the Loess Plateau have been transferred to Rwanda, where the land was degrated after years of fighting, and the same terracing system has been used there. The knowhow for building terraces has been transferred from farmer to farmer, as each has observed what is happening on neighbouring hillsides.