UK calls for speedier GMO approvals
2013-01-04 23:02
Oxford - Britain's Farming and Environment Minister Owen
Paterson on Thursday called for an acceleration in the EU’s approval process
for genetically modified (GMO) crops which he said offered benefits including
less pesticide use.
"I think we need to work with like-minded partners
to move the [GMO] legislation along at a European level because it is going
grindingly slowly and we are getting further and further behind," he told
reporters at the Oxford Farming Conference.
There has been strong public opposition to GMO crops
across much of the EU, linked partly to concerns about their safety, which has
helped to slow the approval process.
"There are definite gains but there is a big battle
to be won with the public," Paterson said.
Mairead McGuinness, a member of the European Parliament's
agriculture committee, said that lobbying against GMO crops had become less
intense in the last couple of years but said opposition remained significant.
"The view for some time of many in the European
Parliament has been that the public don't want it and therefore we are not
going to have it," she told reporters.
Paterson, in an earlier speech to the conference, said
GMO crops could offer benefits including a potential significant reduction in
pesticide and diesel use while he also recognised the need for EU safety checks
to reassure the public.
"This is not a frightening new spooky technology,
this is something that is well established in very large parts of the
world," he told reporters, adding that in 2011, GMO crops were grown by 16
million farmers in 29 countries.
Paterson also cited benefits from GMO crops such as
golden rice which he said could have the potential to stop 400 000 to 500 000
young people going blind.
Golden rice has been genetically modified to help combat
Vitamin A deficiency which affects millions of children and pregnant women and
can cause irreversible blindness.
Environmental group Friends of the Earth, however, said
in a statement issued in response to Paterson's comments that GMO crops did not
provide the solution to food challenges.
"They [GMO crops] are largely being developed to
benefit multinational biotech firms that are gaining control of the seed
industry, not to feed poor people in developing countries," senior food
and farming campaigner Clare Oxborrow said.
"World food production needs a radical overhaul, but
this should be based on less intensive practices that increase agricultural
diversity, deliver resilience to the impacts of climate change and benefit
local communities."
