The GM PR machine has been busy of late, apparently persuading government minister, Phil Woolas, to tell The Independent that 'rocketing food prices and food shortages in the world's poorest countries mean the time is right to relax Britain's policy on use of GM crops.'

In fact, the majority of published research shows GM crops do not increase yields – not surprisingly, as they weren't designed to. The GM industry's professed concern for the world's poor and hungry has been criticised as a cynical marketing ploy to win over public opinion.

The recently published UN IAASTD report, the work of over 400 international scientists, on the future of global food production under the challenges of climate change and population pressure concluded that transgenic GM crops didn't have much to offer – instead promoting an 'agro-ecological' approach. Confirming an earlier UN Food & Agriculture conference's conclusions, the IAASTD report acknowledged organic farming's real potential to help feed the world in an era of increasing oil prices and the urgent need to cut greenhouse gases. The GM industry reps stormed out of the process and their PR machine has been in overdrive ever since!

Action:
If you are concerned about GM crops and food, please write to your MP. You can find their name and address through the UK Parliament website. Although it takes more time, it is always far more effective to go and see your MP at their constituency surgery and ask them to find out the answers to your questions personally.

Whether you write or see them, you could ask your MP to get the Government Minister responsible for GM to confirm:

1. that although the GM industry has been saying for 25 years that GM crops are needed to feed the world, no drought-resistance or saline-tolerant GM crops are available commercially or near to being available;
2. that overall current commercial GM crops yields the same or less than the non-GM equivalent;
3. that most development of new, higher yielding crops is now being done using modern non-GM techniques which are supported by environmentalists, and not by dangerous and uncertain GM technology, so why has the Government not changed their position on GM being needed to feed the world?
4. GM crops are dependent on oil-based artificial fertiliser which is rapidly becoming too expensive to poorer farmers as oil prices rise - why are the Government supporting pushing GM technology to poor farmers when its use is becoming more and more expensive as oil gets scarcer?