FAO chief says gene crops needed, safeguards vital
Date: 15-May-01
Country: SWEDEN
Author: Peter Starck
Speaking at an international conference - "Genetically Modified Crops, Why? Why not?" - U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Director-General Jacques Diouf also said careful analysis of the health and environmental risks possibly associated with gene-modified organisms (GMOs) was vital.
"Evidence today clearly shows that genetically engineered technology and GMOs have the potential to significantly raise the level of efficiency and productivity in plant and agricultural production," Diouf said.
"Biotechnology offers a great opportunity to develop a world that is truly food secure," he said, noting that an estimated 800 million people were suffering from hunger daily and many more from malnutrition.
Genetically engineered varieties of some 20 crops including bulk food stables such as soybean, corn and rapeseed were already being grown on 44 million hectares of land in 13 countries, among them major farming nations such as Australia, Canada, China, Mexico, South Africa and the United States, he said.
Asked by the conference moderator whether this was desirable and whether the benefits outweighed the risks, Diouf said: "Nobody kows...there are risks, but what level of risk, what potential of risk, we don't know."
QUANTUM CHANGE
Genetical engineering, by which crop yields and nutrient content as well as virus resistance and pesticide tolerance can be increased, offered a "quantum change" for both quantity and quality, he said.
"I don't believe we should stop," Diouf said. "The potential is great, undoubtedly."
But objective evaluations of the risks and benefits associated with GM crops must be made available to all stakeholders, including consumers in poor countries, he said.
"We are creating risks for health and for the environment."
"We have to find the solutions that will give increased productivity without those negative elements. Only science can help," he said, underlining that each GM application must be fully analysed case-by-case.
This posed a "tremendous challenge" for the scientific community, big multinational agribusiness companies which Diouf said were carrying out most of the research in GMOs, and public authorities.
He called for a set of internationally agreed, ethically acceptable safeguards including labelling to give consumers the choice to avoid GMOs.