GM, hormones and irradiation may help ease the global food supply crisis, says Clive Black


Twenty years ago, food policy in Europe was consumed by the harmonisation of legislation. Never-ending directives and instruments moulded a more common policy for trade in the Union and with other blocks.

Policy developments saw clashes between the perceived interests of commercial bodies and basic consumer interests. Hot topics were not just food safety challenges such as BSE, but also novel developments and the challenges of technological 'advancements'.

So, a window was opened to new and, at times, mindboggling worlds that incorporated genetic modification, hormones and irradiation 'GHIs'.

The nub of the issue at the time was consumer need. If there was no clear need or benefit, why should technologies that may contain many 'unknown unknowns' be foisted on an unwilling public?

The case of BST, the stimulant to milk production, was probably the most high-profile issue and one that did untold damage to the reputation of science as a force for the general good rather than vested interest; the mishandling of e-mails by environmental academics was arguably the other side of the same coin.

More than 20 years on and science and technology have clearly progressed you need look no further than the internet to appreciate that. However, new thinking does not remove some old problems. At present, the world is confronted by pressures on food supplies; when prices rise in the West, food security goes up the policy agenda. The more fragile food supply situation, seen in some contexts as one failed harvest away from disaster, has profound implications for food inflation. It may also have implications for future food policy.

So, are the GHIs, to name but three, now the solution to new problems and challenges? Do they now have a relevance to the consumer in the EU? Have time and research ironed out the worries of consumer and environmental groups?

Will the public make supply of affordable food a priority, so permitting more novel processes, as bureaucrats like to call the GHIs? And what will the supermarkets and food manufacturers of the world make of things? Will they have a say?

Big questions may be ahead and with food security not going away as an issue, big questions that may need big answers sooner rather than later.

Dr Clive Black is head of research at Shore Capital Stockbrokers.