Scots farmers 'need to produce GM foods'

Published on Thursday 10 April 2008 20:53

SCOTLAND'S farmers are being hampered by the "madness" of EU regulation, and must be allowed to produce genetically modified food to help them compete with other farmers on a global scale.

That is the message that Struan Stevenson MEP will deliver later today when he addresses a meeting of the Scottish Rural Property and Business Association in Inverurie.

Stevenson said yesterday: "We must relax the rules on biotechnology and ignore the 'Frankenstein Foods' headlines. The reality is that GM foods are harmless and point the way to overcoming global food shortages in the future. Food security in Europe means looking after our home production and not always handing a commercial advantage to our non-EU competitors."

The vast majority of farmers and scientists see no dangers – indeed they see positive benefits – in sanctioning the growing of GM crops in the UK. One of the advantages, apart from higher yields, is the reduced level of chemicals required. Some GM crops are much more drought resistant than conventional varieties and that could be an important factor with climate change becoming a reality.

There are rumours that at least one major retailer intends to put some GM products on its shelves to test public opinion. A recent survey showed that consumer reaction to GM is far less negative than just a few years ago.

But it is clear that Europe is being left behind and that was made clear at the annual conference in February of the fellows of the Royal Agricultural Societies in Edinburgh.

Professor John Hillman, formerly of the Scottish Crop Research Institute in Dundee, claimed that the UK has lost a generation of agricultural scientists while the attitude of the government to science was "absolutely disgraceful".