Food security and GMOs
Report from the 3rd panel of the conference
Regarding the world food crisis GMOs will create more problems than offering solutions
Against the background of the worldwide food crisis, the speakers agreed that GMOs with their claim of being "inventions" for a new "green" revolution and able to solve hunger rather constitute a major threat to agriculture and food security.
Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf, Vice-Chair of the Agriculture Committee in the European Parliament, mentioned the World report on agriculture and research (IAASTD) which had stated that GMO-crops would rather be part of the problem of the worldwide food crisis, creating dependencies and running contrary to independent farming in local cycles.
In this context, José Bové, French farmer and syndicalist, stressed that highly engineered farming methods would rather tighten than solve the problem. The securing of food sovereignty would be the main challenge on a worldwide level - which could neither be achieved by the dissemination by GMO-crops nor by spreading regulations requiring the cultivation of certified seeds. Against the background of food sovereignty, he also asked for a clear political preference for food instead of agro-fuel production.
According to Marie-Hélène Aubert, Vice-Chair of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament, locally produced and high-quality food would be the main interest of European consumers - who had never wanted and still clearly refused GMO-food. Jean-Paul Besset, French journalist and close ally of Nicolas Hulot, called for political incentives as well as a change in consumer's behaviour towards a lowering of meat consumption- which would be crucial facing the challenge of climate change.
