As many groups reacted angrily to the EU Commission's decision to allow seven types of GM modified seeds to be used in the EU, the Government is being asked to sponsor the use of biotechnology in developing countries.
Dr Clive James, founder of the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications, said in Dublin yesterday that he would be asking the Government to help facilitate the acquisition and transfer of agricultural biotechnology from industrial countries for the benefit of resource-poor farmers in the developing world.
Welsh-born Dr James, who said his organisation's mission was to alleviate hunger and poverty in the developing world, added that in the last eight years there had been tremendous development in the food, animal feed and fibre sectors.
He conceded that crop biotechnology was not a total solution but part of an overall one and that the issue of using GM crops was a very diverse one.
"I accept that in science one can never be absolutely sure about anything but as far as I can ascertain and I have published and reviewed internationally recognised information on the global status of GM crops, they present a wonderful opportunity to combat poverty," he said.
Dr James, who will speak tomorrow at the Agricultural Science Association Conference in Waterford, said seven million Chinese cotton farmers were growing GM crops.
As a result, he said, their annual wage of $1,250 had increased by $250 a year and the use of pesticides on the crop had been reduced by half. "This has meant a 30 per cent reduction in health problems experienced by farmers and a 30 per cent increase in production," he said.
He added that the Chinese government was carrying out extensive research on GM crops and the whole area was no longer the province of private First World chemical companies.
The use of transgenic crops could ensure that the existing arable land available globally could be used for the needs of a growing population without expansion and this would safeguard our forests and other endangered habitats, he said. Dr James, who is a guest of the Monsanto food biotechnology company while in Ireland, rejected any suggestion that the new technologies were being "tried out" on poor counties where controls were not as strict as the developed world.
He also said that the Chinese government had retained control over the seed it produced for their farmers, charging them for its use.
However, one concern he had was the possibility of resistant strains of GM crops.
