GM and farming technology 'key to fighting climate change'

Lord Smith tells National Farmers' Union that climate change 'could provide opportunities for novel crops and systems'

Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 24 February 2010 06.00 GMT

Genetically modified oilseed rape, one of the four main commercial GM crops. The Environment Agency is encouraging GM and other precision farming methods in order to combat the problems agriculture will face from climate change. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty
The government's drive to push controversial genetically modified crops up the national agenda will receive a further boost today, when former cabinet minister Chris Smith will tell farmers that the technology has a key role in helping the UK beating climate change.
Lord Smith, former culture secretary under Tony Blair and now chair of the Environment Agency, will say that both GM crops and new technologies to support "precision farming" - including nanotechnology - could help tackle growing climate pressures such as water shortages.
Addressing delegates at the National Farmers' Union's (NFU) annual conference in Birmingham, Lord Smith will tell farmers that climate change "will create new demands on land and environmental resources" and "could provide opportunities for novel crops and systems".
Intense lobbying by food companies, the growing significance of climate change, recent international food crises and shortages and a major independent Royal Society report have all helped to give the government the authority to put GM back on the national agenda. The controversial technology was the focus of intense campaigns including destruction of GM crop trials by environmentalists in the 1990s, and last month came under renewed attack from academics and organic food campaigners at the Oxford Real Farming Conference.
Lord Smith will say: "We can already see wildlife following climate change – the mayfly is now found some 40 miles further north than before and warmer winters and wetter summers are thought to be a major factor in the rapid decline of pollinating insects with UK bee populations, in particular, falling by 10-15% over the last two years.
"The reliance on seasonal weather patterns means that farming will follow climate change too. My own personal view is that we probably need to be readier to explore GM options, coupled of course with proper environmental safeguards, in adapting to the changes that the climate will bring."
The GM industry now involves 14 million farmers in 25 countries who are growing 134m hectares of GM crops around the world. This is a 7% increase compared with last year.
Lord Smith will recommend more use of new technology: "New tools and technologies are becoming available, nanotechnology for example, as well as the use of satellites, IT and other tools to support precision farming. We need to understand the environmental implications of novel approaches in order to embrace them and be clear how they will help us achieve long-term goals.
"We need to ensure that science is at the forefront of development and innovation and that effective knowledge transfer means farmers can adapt and innovate. Innovation has already seen British agriculture adapt to the economic challenges it has faced over the last 15 years or so and I know it will do so into the future."
Organic farmers have been more resistant to the use of GM than "conventional" farmers represented in the membership of the NFU, although the latter broadly agrees that any such developments must be subject to proper scientific evaluation.
Yesterday Paul Kelly, founder of Kelly's Turkeys, told the conference: "GM has had a terrible press and consumers are very confused. But it is only a matter of time before we are feeding our turkeys GM feed."
As well as exploring the potential of new crops and technologies, Lord Smith will underline the need for agriculture to become more water efficient as climate change ushers in longer, hotter, drier summers.
On the opening day of the conference yesterday, the Conservatives set out plans to prevent development on top quality farmland, reform the body which delivers EU subsidies to farmers and set up a review of red tape as part of efforts to back British farming.
The Liberal Democrats also set out proposals to improve delivery of subsidies by the Rural Payments Agency, which in 2006 left farmers without EU grants after problems with its computer system.