British government ministers are urging the European Commission to speed up approval of GM crop varieties or risk a collapse in the market for home-produced chicken, eggs, pork and milk.
The move could apply to 30 GM crop varieties that have passed the EU’s scientific tests on health and safety but which still await political approval for use within the EU.
The threat to British farming from the restrictions on GM crop varieties in the European Union was underlined in a consultation paper on the nation’s future food security, published yesterday.
As the London Times reports…
it is the potential collapse of Britain’s £6.8 billion a year livestock sector, which relies on imports of GM soya to feed animals, that makes for chilling reading.
Pigs and poultry, and to a lesser extent dairy cattle, need soya, GM and conventional crops to provide the necessary protein in their diet. The climate in Britain and most of the EU is not hot enough to grow soya.
The report also makes note of the possible necessity of a return to “wartime rations and even a vegetarian diet in the event of new food shortages or international events that forced Britain to provide enough food to feed the nation.”
In an unusual move for a European news outlet, The Times also ran an editorial on the importance of GM crops in the face of a global population explosion.
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Posted by China Approves Biotech Rice « The Pulse- of Colorado Farm Bureau on November 30, 2009 at 6:46 pm
[...] of biotech crops comes after a decision earlier this year by British government ministries to allow the import of biotech crops to Britain, breaking a long-time ban of the technology in Britain and breaking with the continued ban by the [...]