Commission makes another push to convince on GM crop safety

The European Commission published the collected results of all the research it has funded on genetically modified crops last week, in a move it hopes will definitely show that GMOs are not associated with higher risks for the environment or food and feed safety than conventional plants.

A decade of EU-funded GMO research contains results from over 500 independent research groups that have carried out 130 EU-funded research projects on GMOs over a period of more than 25 years, supported with over €300 million of EU research funds.  This is the second of two reports, the first of which, EC-sponsored research on Safety of Genetically Modified Organisms (1985-2000), was published in 2000.

The Commission said, “According to the results of these projects, there is, as of today, no scientific evidence associating GMOs with higher risks for the environment or for food and feed safety than conventional plants and organisms.”

Writing in the introduction, Research Commissioner Maire Geoghegan-Quinn says, “The aim of this book is to contribute to a fully transparent debate on GMOs, based on balanced, science-based information.” She adds, “The introduction of advanced processes and materials based on biotechnology and GMOs has enormous potential not only to enhance quality of life while reducing environmental footprints, but also to improve the competitiveness of European industry.”

Maive Rute, Director of Biotechnologies, Agriculture and Food, at DG Research, said, “To counterbalance the predicted increase in the world population to nine billion people by 2050, and the related implications for climate change, science has to develop technologies that increase yields and productivity in a sustainable way, while lowering the demand for fertilisers and pesticides, and adapting crops to match the effects of changes in the environment.” Rute added that while policy needs to take account of a range of opinions, it also needs to be based on sound science.