The last farmer to grow genetically modified (GM) food in Wales says he feels vindicated by a US study that claims it is safe to eat.
John Cottle, who farms at Sealand, in Flintshire , backed a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine committee suggesting there was no evidence supporting claims genetically engineered foods had adverse effects.
The practice of genetically engineering crops has been criticised for its potential impact on human health and the environment.
No GM crops are being grown commercially in the UK, but imported products like soya are used for animal feed.
Mr Cottle, 68, who grew GM maize on his Birchenfield Farm during a two-year trial in the early 2000s, said: “They’ve been eating (GM) food in America for a long time and there’s never been any comeback on GM food being dangerous or anything has there?”
Over 900 pieces of research examined
The National Academies is a US government advisory body which counts more than 300 Nobel laureates as members. It looked at more than 900 pieces of research and publications from the last two decades before reaching its conclusion.
Genetic engineering is a type of genetically modifying (GM) food that involves the intentional introduction of a targeted change in a plant, animal, or microbial gene sequence to achieve a specific result.
Genetic modification – completed either through genetic engineering or selection and hybridisation – is used to produce particular characteristics in plants such as longer shelf life for fruit, higher vitamin content, and resistance to diseases.
Mr Cottle added: “That’s what I was hoping (that GM food would be shown to be safe) and that’s what has come out in the long-term.”
But Friends of the Earth Cymru campaigner Haf Elgar said despite “decades of promises and vast sums of money” the promised benefits of GM – like wonder crops resistant to drought – “still do not exist”.
She said herbicide resistant GM crops in the US and South America have caused devastating impacts on communities near fields sprayed with chemicals, farmers and the environment.
Ms Elgar maintains farmers and the environment are now dealing with an epidemic of resistant weeds caused by an over-reliance on GM herbicide tolerant crops.
GM food companies dispute this - saying weeds develop resistance to herbicide naturally over time independent of the presence of GM crops.
But Ms Elgar added: “The evidence is clear – we don’t need GM crops to help feed the world when there are sustainable solutions available now.
“We have a great clean green food and agriculture industry in Wales, and we should continue to keep Wales GM-free and protect our reputation for high quality food and drink production.”
"No substantiated evidence"
A spokesman for the National Academies said: “While recognising the inherent difficulty of detecting subtle or long-term effects on health or the environment, the study committee found no substantiated evidence of a difference in risks to human health between current commercially available genetically engineered (GE) crops and conventionally bred crops, nor did it find conclusive cause-and-effect evidence of environmental problems from the GE crops.”
He added that “new technologies in genetic engineering and conventional breeding are blurring the once clear distinctions between these two crop-improvement approaches”.
The expert committee of report authors studied research on the genetically engineered characteristics in maize (corn), soya bean, and cotton, which account for almost all commercial GE crops in the US.
They then heard from 80 speakers at three public meetings and 15 public online seminars and read more than 700 comments from the public.