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GM out of the cold

More on GM Debate

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According to a joint FSA DEFRA document "GM crops and foods:Follow up to the Food Matters Report pdf)", supermarkets are paying 10-20 % more for the dwindling suppliers of conventional maize and soya. Following a meeting with all the big retailers the report says: "Retailers were concerned that they masy not be able to maintain their current supplies of non GM sources of supply as producers increasingly adopt GM Technology around the world" mouth

Sir Terry Leahy, CEO of Tesco, said after his City Food Lecture in February 09; "Maybe there is an opportunity to discuss again these issues and a growing appreciation by people that GM could play a vital role in feeding the world's food population."
(Editor: bearing in mind that Tesco lobbied the government about food costs, we think the final few words should read "feeding the rich cheaply". Independent)

"There is some use of GM food ingredients in the UK, particularly in the catering sector where oil from GM crops is often supplied to customers who are working to lower prices and bulk packs are suitably labelled " Bulk packs but not customer labels. Report

However, supermarkets will be reluctant to be the first in line. They are all wary of what happened when Sainsbury's along with Safeway, introduced GM tomato puree. At first sales were brisk. however later customers rejected the paste, leaving it on the shelves; they then started to boycott all tomato goods. Then, just in case any had got into the pizza, all goods which had tomato paste were also boycotted. More on Tomato Puree case

Clearly any change has go to come from government - and preferably the EU. The EU may take forever, but change at EU level is needed so that retailers wouldn't have to advertise GM presence.

And the UK government needs to fund GM - where it can be under closer public scrutiny and can deliver what we want, and that isn't just for cheaper food. What about GM being used to produce Patio Pineapples in Paisley, or Grapefruit for diabetic Granmas in Grantham