23 July 2011
With the world’s population set to rise to 9 billion in our lifetimes, our generation faces a historic challenge of sustainability: to double global food supply using less water, energy and chemical inputs, and using half as much land. The challenge was spelt out in no uncertain terms in the recent Foresight Report by the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor Sir John Bedington, who called for a new agricultural revolution of ‘sustainable intensification’ by food producers.
For the generation of us in Europe who have grown up with butter mountains, grain surpluses, and a policy consensus directed at actually reducing production, we are now in for a real shock. With world demand and food prices rocketing and exacerbating regional geopolitical tensions, increasing food production is now an urgent global priority.
History suggests many reasons to be optimistic. Mankind's natural tendency to innovate usually wins out. We have extraordinary scientific and technological tools at our disposal which fifty years or so ago we couldn't have even imagined. In agriculture, for example, we have seen countless breakthroughs in plant science and crop protection, including GM with its potential to develop crops that can be grown in places and conditions impossible to cultivate today. It is an innovation with astounding potential.
As Britain looks for a new role in a fast developing world, and works towards a sustainable economic recovery, it seems to me that applying our world class expertise in agriculture and food science in these exploding markets might be a good idea. Not least because it is an area that Norfolk can play a big part in. With our world class agricultural sector and food science at the Norwich Research Park we have the potential to create exciting new opportunities and jobs for our local economy.
The issue needs highlighting; in light of the global population challenge we face we can’t ignore the issue of GM and its potential role any longer. Perhaps then it is useful to look at the figures. Using the development of blight-resistant GM potatoes in Norfolk as the current example, about 130,000 hectares of land in the UK is used to grow potatoes, yielding in the region of 6 million tonnes each year (that’s a lot of crisps, chips and roast potatoes on a Sunday!). Nevertheless, in a typical growing season, farmers can spray fungicides on their crops up to 15 times at a cost of about £500 per hectare.
However, just as the world needs our help to drive sustainable development more urgently than ever, in Norwich this weekend we have an anti-GM rally. ‘The Spuds Don’t Work’ campaign takes place on Saturday against blight-resistant GM potato trials at the Sainsbury Laboratory of the John Innes Research Centre. The debate of ten years ago has reared its head again, but this time, in light of food insecurity, with much higher stakes.
There are clearly real environmental and economic benefits for us from Professor Jonathan Jones’ blight resistance GM potato. It could reduce a number of environmental impacts, including reducing the amount of chemicals being sprayed on farmland, as well as cut emissions from tractors used to spray fungicides and from the production of the agrichemicals themselves. But instead we continue to have an estimated £3.5 billion lost annually across the globe to this ‘late blight’ disease.
Of course the impact of these technologies must be objectively and vigorously assessed through scientific investigation. The most important factor in taking forward any biotechnologies must be the insistence of robust controls to protect the consumer and the environment, yet I believe too that any debate on GM should be similarly scientific and evidence based. In their attacks on field trials anti GM campaigners have in the past done us all a disservice. We need to study and assess these innovations, not destroy them.
We need to move on from the limited ‘yes or no’ or ‘right or wrong’ emotional debates and start discussing Agricultural Biotechnology in a practical and policy-based way, and above all in a manner that promotes consumer choice. However, just as anti GM campaigners wrongly launch their arguments straight away at consuming GM foods, so I ought to clarify that GM foods are only one small part of the technology toolbox. Before considering the consumption of these foods in the UK we should first examine the role of GM in fuel and fibre and its potential to drive the UK economy through rapidly developing markets overseas.
It is interesting to note that in response to rising food prices an independent survey carried out by Network Research in May of this year showed a shift in consumer opinions with over half believing that science in food production is positive and should be exploited fully to meet future demand. Now I am not advocating that all UK food should be GM by any means, but I believe we should be encouraging the work being done at the NRP which has such profound potential around the world. Even if we do not want to eat GM ourselves, the emphasis must be on choice for the consumer. With vigorous science and safety tests and clear labeling it should in the future be up to consumers to decide whether they want to eat the full range of products available, be they blight resistant potatoes, cholesterol reducing carrots, or locally grown organic apples.
This Tuesday I held a debate in Parliament on this issue examining arguments around GM, looking at the ethical dilemma of food shortages in the third world, current research, and the significant opportunities this sector could provide for UK growth and wealth creation. The global market for agricultural biotechnology is valued at over £90 billion and growing at 10-15 per cent annually. With developing nations such as the USA, China, Brazil and Argentina rapidly investing in the sector it would be madness for us to stand aside. Access to all available technology and innovation will be essential if Europe’s farmers are to remain internationally competitive and play their part in ensuring global food production keeps pace with demand.
I think we have a responsibility to face the issue of food security head-on and to take all of the arguments together: moral, economic and scientific. We must, within the context of vigorous scientific controls, move this debate on, taking into consideration not only UK consumers, but also UK growth potential and the needs of millions of starving across the globe without the luxury of our consumer choice.
As the birthplace of the first Agricultural Revolution, I believe Norfolk can play a big part in the next one. Helping to feed the developing world is a role we could all be proud of.
Published in the EDP, Saturday 23rd July 2011
For the generation of us in Europe who have grown up with butter mountains, grain surpluses, and a policy consensus directed at actually reducing production, we are now in for a real shock. With world demand and food prices rocketing and exacerbating regional geopolitical tensions, increasing food production is now an urgent global priority.
History suggests many reasons to be optimistic. Mankind's natural tendency to innovate usually wins out. We have extraordinary scientific and technological tools at our disposal which fifty years or so ago we couldn't have even imagined. In agriculture, for example, we have seen countless breakthroughs in plant science and crop protection, including GM with its potential to develop crops that can be grown in places and conditions impossible to cultivate today. It is an innovation with astounding potential.
As Britain looks for a new role in a fast developing world, and works towards a sustainable economic recovery, it seems to me that applying our world class expertise in agriculture and food science in these exploding markets might be a good idea. Not least because it is an area that Norfolk can play a big part in. With our world class agricultural sector and food science at the Norwich Research Park we have the potential to create exciting new opportunities and jobs for our local economy.
The issue needs highlighting; in light of the global population challenge we face we can’t ignore the issue of GM and its potential role any longer. Perhaps then it is useful to look at the figures. Using the development of blight-resistant GM potatoes in Norfolk as the current example, about 130,000 hectares of land in the UK is used to grow potatoes, yielding in the region of 6 million tonnes each year (that’s a lot of crisps, chips and roast potatoes on a Sunday!). Nevertheless, in a typical growing season, farmers can spray fungicides on their crops up to 15 times at a cost of about £500 per hectare.
However, just as the world needs our help to drive sustainable development more urgently than ever, in Norwich this weekend we have an anti-GM rally. ‘The Spuds Don’t Work’ campaign takes place on Saturday against blight-resistant GM potato trials at the Sainsbury Laboratory of the John Innes Research Centre. The debate of ten years ago has reared its head again, but this time, in light of food insecurity, with much higher stakes.
There are clearly real environmental and economic benefits for us from Professor Jonathan Jones’ blight resistance GM potato. It could reduce a number of environmental impacts, including reducing the amount of chemicals being sprayed on farmland, as well as cut emissions from tractors used to spray fungicides and from the production of the agrichemicals themselves. But instead we continue to have an estimated £3.5 billion lost annually across the globe to this ‘late blight’ disease.
Of course the impact of these technologies must be objectively and vigorously assessed through scientific investigation. The most important factor in taking forward any biotechnologies must be the insistence of robust controls to protect the consumer and the environment, yet I believe too that any debate on GM should be similarly scientific and evidence based. In their attacks on field trials anti GM campaigners have in the past done us all a disservice. We need to study and assess these innovations, not destroy them.
We need to move on from the limited ‘yes or no’ or ‘right or wrong’ emotional debates and start discussing Agricultural Biotechnology in a practical and policy-based way, and above all in a manner that promotes consumer choice. However, just as anti GM campaigners wrongly launch their arguments straight away at consuming GM foods, so I ought to clarify that GM foods are only one small part of the technology toolbox. Before considering the consumption of these foods in the UK we should first examine the role of GM in fuel and fibre and its potential to drive the UK economy through rapidly developing markets overseas.
It is interesting to note that in response to rising food prices an independent survey carried out by Network Research in May of this year showed a shift in consumer opinions with over half believing that science in food production is positive and should be exploited fully to meet future demand. Now I am not advocating that all UK food should be GM by any means, but I believe we should be encouraging the work being done at the NRP which has such profound potential around the world. Even if we do not want to eat GM ourselves, the emphasis must be on choice for the consumer. With vigorous science and safety tests and clear labeling it should in the future be up to consumers to decide whether they want to eat the full range of products available, be they blight resistant potatoes, cholesterol reducing carrots, or locally grown organic apples.
This Tuesday I held a debate in Parliament on this issue examining arguments around GM, looking at the ethical dilemma of food shortages in the third world, current research, and the significant opportunities this sector could provide for UK growth and wealth creation. The global market for agricultural biotechnology is valued at over £90 billion and growing at 10-15 per cent annually. With developing nations such as the USA, China, Brazil and Argentina rapidly investing in the sector it would be madness for us to stand aside. Access to all available technology and innovation will be essential if Europe’s farmers are to remain internationally competitive and play their part in ensuring global food production keeps pace with demand.
I think we have a responsibility to face the issue of food security head-on and to take all of the arguments together: moral, economic and scientific. We must, within the context of vigorous scientific controls, move this debate on, taking into consideration not only UK consumers, but also UK growth potential and the needs of millions of starving across the globe without the luxury of our consumer choice.
As the birthplace of the first Agricultural Revolution, I believe Norfolk can play a big part in the next one. Helping to feed the developing world is a role we could all be proud of.
Published in the EDP, Saturday 23rd July 2011
