Europe
December 2010

Genetically modified (GM) crops offer tremendous opportunities to help achieve key European public policy goals. While they are not the magic bullet that will solve every problem, their benefits are by no means limited to agriculture. GM crops can help Europe face the societal challenges that lie ahead, including sustainability, CO2 emissions and energy efficiency. GM technologies can play an integral role in Europe’s 2020 strategy to revitalise the EU economy as a powerful, efficient engine driving innovation, employment and productivity. To realise the advantages offered by GM crops, Europeans must be able to access them. If GM crops and derived products are part of the range of options available, farmers and consumers alike will benefit from the freedom to choose.

Europe needs to be confident that it will have a place in the forefront of technology of all sorts. Our global society of nearly seven billion people is totally dependent on a wide variety of technologies to keep us nourished, housed and clothed. Our needs change constantly as our numbers grow and the global environment is inevitably impacted.

Time is of the essence. European farmers face increasingly difficult conditions in a competitive global economy and, unless policies change to reflect modern realities, farmers will have an even harder row to hoe in the years ahead. Already they are confronted with five serious challenges to their livelihoods:

• Keeping farming profitable as production costs increase;
• Growing more food—in a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way—on the same or even less land area, using fewer natural resources;
• Mitigating climate change by reducing the carbon footprint of agriculture;
• Adapting to climate change, including less productive land, new plant pests and diseases and scarcer water supplies;
• Remaining competitive on a global scale, while lacking modern tools available to many other farmers worldwide.

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Website: http://www.europabio.org

Published: December 17, 2010