GM foods 'can help to stave off future famines'

FOOD prices could soar by as much as 50 per cent in the coming decades, prompting the Government's top scientist to advise that genetically-modified food could be used to help prevent future world food shortages.

A report published yesterday by the Government's advisory group Foresight warned that there were major failings in the global food system and that politicians needed to make food production a far higher priority in order to ensure a global population estimated to reach nine billion by 2050 does not go hungry.

Some experts behind the report suggested that food prices could rise by 50 per cent by 2050 with the authors stating that food production will need "to change more radically in the coming decades then ever before, including the Green and Industrial Revolutions".

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Professor Sir John Beddington, the Government's chief science adviser and the paper's lead author, said that there would continue to be risks of the kind of volatility seen in the food price spike in 2007-8 that led to riots in some parts of the world.

He said: "There's a very large risk of quite a substantial increase in food prices in the next 30 to 40 years.

"This risk is such it demands urgent action on all components of the food system – supply, demand and making the food system work more efficiently."

Prof Beddington said biotechnology such as genetically modified crops was "extremely important" and that no option should be ignored when it came to meeting the challenge.

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He said: "If there are genetically modified organisms that actually solve problems that we can't solve in other ways, and are shown to be safe from a human health point of view, and safe from an environmental point of view, and they can solve problems we can't solve otherwise, then we should use them."

The report also says that clear food labelling, an issue on which the Yorkshire Post has been campaigning, was "essential" to ensuring a well-informed consumer – something it said should be a vital component of any food strategy.

The report, entitled The Future of Food and Farming, said the current food system was "fundamentally unsustainable", over-using resources such as land and fossil fuels while failing to feed the world.

It notes that much of the current cost of food was added by food processors and retailers after it left the farm but also said a third of food produced went to waste, either after it was harvested or by consumers.

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In the UK, households could save between 500 and 700 a year by eliminating food waste.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said there was a need to avoid trade restrictions and to open global markets.

"We can unlock an agricultural revolution in the developing world, which would benefit the poorest the most, simply by improving access to knowledge and technology, creating better access to markets and investing in infrastructure," she said.

However, the World Development Movement's director, Deborah Doane, said current record food prices were down to banks and hedge funds betting on food – and that GM was not a magic bullet to cure global hunger.

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Molly Conisbee, from organic body the Soil Association, said: "We need to be honest about the failures of certain technologies – such as GM – to provide food for a growing world population. Despite billions being pumped in to GM, it has failed to deliver against its promises.

"The majority of the world is fed by small, local, often organic farmers.

"These systems are better for the environment, better for animal and human welfare, and offer more resilience to issues such as the rise in oil and fertiliser price rise shocks."