Delays caused by the opposition of "green movements" to gene technology could have disastrous consequences for global food production in the new century, a meeting to review European biotechnology policy is to be told today.
In an address to the conference which opens in Brussels, a senior official of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Mr Mark Cantley, is to warn that biotechnology must be applied to its maximum potential. This was to ensure "decent health status and nutritional standards for a world population shortly to exceed eight billion and to reverse current degradation of the planet".
The EU-supported conference is to review "public perception and public policy" on biotechnology which has been dogged by controversy in recent years. The conference is hosted by the European Federation of Biotechnology, but consumer interest groups, independent scientists and the European Commission will participate.
According to Mr Cantley, the conservatism and opposition of green interests could have dire consequences for "the food security of millions and for the environment". There was sufficient scientific evidence to show people could be "comfortable with the merging of ancient biotechnology - in brewing, for example - with its modern form, based on the mapping and transfer of genes".
The head of the OECD's biotechnology unit is to reiterate its view that safety assessment of genetically modified organisms raises the same issues as traditionally modified organisms, such as hybrids. He is sceptical about the need for ad-hoc regulation "focusing on and stigmatising the new techniques, creating needless bureaucratic complexities and trade disputes", while it seemed to him policy-makers were at times "more concerned with public opinion polls than with the public interest".
"Public policy is, of course, important. There are many challenges, in sectors such as health care, privacy and the global financial infrastructure - who pays? who benefits? - as we attempt to make use of information and insights now coming from bioinformatics and genomics," he said.
While new knowledge could be indigestible, "it is certainly not toxic", he believed. Scientists had learned to read and were beginning to write the 3.5 billion-year-old digital data tape known as DNA. The new knowledge arising from this was "permanent, irreversible, pervasive, subversive, disruptive, irresistible".
