About 350 people attended 'Feeding or Fooling the World?' debate in Norwich last night. The feedback's been sensational.

This is based on some comments we were sent:

Lots of people there - ALL sorts, including a JIC phalanx -  you know, they are the well-heeled, well-fed looking ones. Monsanto came too and made a statement after Percy Scmeisser but before he answered Qs.

Umnapur Lakshmi (farmer from the ActionAid jury) was stunning - in red and  gold and not a word of English, spoke at quite long stretches, but with a gentle and effective translator. She got lots of applause.

And Percy came at the end. Gave us the facts (you could hear an intake of breath at some of the machinations/judicial observations being revealed), spoke movingly too.  And brought the house down, several times !! As the Chairman said, in closing the meeting at 10 p.m.instead of 9.30, it's been 'electric'.
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Geneticist proposes 'third way' on GM crops
John Vidal, environment editor
Thursday April 19, 2001
The Guardian

The growing world population will only be fed adequately if governments adopt "people friendly" farming methods which include GM technology, one  of the world's leading scientists and humanitarians told industry scientists and academics yesterday.

MF Swaminathan, a geneticist credited with being the father of India's green revolution - which prevented millions of people suffering food shortages and famine in the post war years - offered a 'third way' to warring proponents and opponents of GM technology.

He called for governments and scientists to back sensitive farming methods which would keep people on the land and avoid social or ecological harm. He said genetically modified crops did "have a place" in the future and could work well alongside organic systems of farming.

Professor Swaminathan's vision of world agriculture - which must cater for an estimated 2bn more mouths within 20 years - suggested that the corporate GM model of farming would not benefit the poorest.

He urged governments to provide more public funding of gene technology and called for community participation in science.

"We must adopt a precautionary principle", he told representatives of Monsanto, Syngenta, Dupont and other GM companies at an international conference at Britain's leading GM research organisation, the John Innes

Centre in Norwich.

"If you want an inclusive society you must go to the poorest person and ask if they will gain anything from technological development," he said. "Farming cannot be left to the control of a few multi-national companies. The poor, who are most of the world's population, need fair and free trade. There must be ethics and equity in farming."

Prof Swaminathan is developing mixed GM and organic farming methods at his institute near Calcutta, where scientists are going into the community and trying to develop rice, tobacco and other crops that are tolerant to salt water. The experiment has been widely praised by governments and pressure groups.

He is backed by the influential Rockefeller Foundation in New York, which has also called for a "new green revolution" which includes GM foods. His comments will both please and worry corporations and anti-GM advocates. Most GM technology is in the hands of a few large companies who have been accused of trying to monopolise world agriculture - a situation which has prompted much of the anti-GM fervour around the world.

According to UN estimates, world food requirements will increase by 50% within 25 years and will have to be produced from less land with less water, fewer chemicals and less labour. Many governments see no option but to follow the corporate GM route which promises extra yields.

But several scientists at the conference said GM food production in developing countries was a more difficult issue than in Europe or the US. "Tropical countries face more complex issues including patent rights, the freedom of companies to operate and specific risk assessment," said Ana Sittenfeld, a geneticist at the University of Costa Rica.

The three day debate is the largest international conference so far on GM foods in developing countries. It is expected to reach a consensus that in some cases they will be crucial to feeding people, but in other cases they may be inappropriate.

At a separate meeting organised by British environment groups, some of the world's poorest farmers testified that GM foods had no place in feeding growing populations and might even destabilise societies.

"What we have built up slowly and surely will collapse with new GM seeds," said Laxmi Begari of Deccan Development Society in central India