Farmers need GE crops - MAF official

Livestock farmers need access to genetically engineered crops if they are to help feed the burgeoning world population, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) deputy director-general says.

Barry O'Neil told a briefing in London that the world population is set to rise by 50 per cent by 2020, the Farmers Weekly newspaper reported in England.

Speaking as president of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) he said already a third of all arable crops were grown for animal feed, with some fed through inefficient feed conversion systems.

Unless efficiency improved output would fail to keep up with demand.

"I think we are entering a new phase, dominated by environmental issues, climate change and rising demand, and unless new varieties are introduced we are not going to be able to feed the world," Dr O'Neil said.

Food shortages would help to move the genetic engineering debate forward.

The technology had been around for a while, with no adverse effects, he said.

Although many consumers opposed GE crops, to improve the productivity of crops and the animals they fed, GE "holds the most promise".

"I do believe that we need to work together as society to help this happen," Dr O'Neil said.

"By 2050 we will need twice as much food, produced from less land and with less water and more pressures around environmental sustainability," he said.

"These are real challenges we need to get our heads around."

He thought GE crops were necessary to do this.

In 2003, when Gisborne corn crops were found to have been inadvertently contaminated with low levels of GE seed, Dr O'Neil said harvested corn from those fields could be legally sold without any consumer warning.

This was because the unexpected contamination was from Bt11 - an insect-resistant variety of sweetcorn - which was eaten by both humans and animals in the United States and approved for consumption in New Zealand.

The level of GE contamination was below the 1 per cent level which is the trans-Tasman threshold for labelling unintentionally-contaminated foods.

Dr O'Neil has also enforced New Zealand's "zero tolerance" policy - under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act - for imports of unapproved GE seed in shipments.

- NZPA