GM pioneer points to thaw in public opposition

There are signs that, even in the UK and Europe, consumer and political attitudes towards GM crops and foods are thawing, according to the scientist who has led the global campaign for GM agriculture, Prof Channapatna S Prakash.

Prakash, professor of molecular genetics at Tuskegee University in Alabama, was in Australia this week, and gave a talk at a special briefing on GM and the food industry for members of the Australian Food and Grocery Council on Thursday in Melbourne.

Prakash said the anti-GM movement was still active globally, and was making concerted efforts to block the next wave of GM crops. Anti-GM activist organisations like Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and Britain's Soil Association realised their case would be lost if consumers embraced the next generation of GM crops, which include nutraceutical crops designed to ward off heart disease and cancer.

Prakash said the anti-GM movement had suffered a major defeat when scientists successfully lobbied the state government in Oregon, perhaps the 'greenest' state in the US, not to legislate for food labelling.

But, he said, the anti-GM movement had been very successful in keeping the technology out of Mexico, which now had a de facto moratorium on GM crops.

He said GM soy crops were booming in Argentina, and being grown extensively -- and illegally in southern Brazil, which was supplying non-segregated soy to Europe.

Prakash said there were signs that even strongly anti-GM nations like Britain and Germany were developing a more accepting attitude of GM agriculture and foods, but opposition in France and the Scandinavian nations remained strong.

He said Europe remained the biggest stumbling block to global adoption of GM agriculture, even though many of its policies and practices on GM foods and crops lacked logic or were glaringly inconsistent. Europe, for example, exports oil from GM soybeans imported from South America, to several Asian nations, but then refuses to import processed foods in which the same oil is an ingredient.

"Much of the anti-GM sentiment in Europe is more about anti-Americanism, but it also appears to be a form of protectionism that will give Europe time to develop its own GM crops," he said.