Civil society representatives firmly rejected genetically modified organisms (GMOs) as a means of addressing world food security at a recent Food and Agriculture Organization meeting in Malaysia. The event was funded by the pro-GM US, Canadian and Australian Governments.
Civil society representatives from the Global South rejected the premise of the event that improved access to agricultural biotechnologies are needed to help defeat hunger, malnutrition and poverty in the Asia-Pacific region.
The focus of the discussion was supposed to be on sustainable food systems for small farmers – not on increasing yields to generate more money from small pieces of land. However, the majority of the supposed ‘solutions’ presented at the meeting were GMOs – including many new GM techniques still at proof of concept stage that have not been subject to any kind of safety assessment.