The Indian government would do well to relax regulations on GM crops, and encourage agricultural innovation to promote food security and reduce poverty, stressed environmental activist Mark Lynas in a recent interview with the Business Standard.

When asked how GM technology could benefit India, Lynas responded that the technology can be used to bolster the country’s food security, pointing out that “it can help farmers by reducing the need for pesticides and delivering higher yields for fewer inputs. It can also deliver drought tolerance, and help make Indian farming more resilient in the face of climate change.”

Lynas also described how the adoption of GM crops could contribute to poverty reduction in India. “Raising productivity for poor-country farmers would be the quickest route to attack poverty, and yet the campaigners seem content to see farmers in developing country stuck in an organic version of the Stone Age. GM crops can help protect against diseases, and in some case are the only option - one example is bananas, which are under attack from a new bacterial wilt in Eastern Africa, and for which resistance can only be brought by GM because bananas are sterile and propagated clonally,” he explained. READ MORE »

Mark Lynas’s recent apology for his years of anti-GMO activism and subsequent expression of support for the technology has shifted the entire debate surrounding GMOs, according to Forbes‘ Richard Levick. Levick wrote that that the environmental activist’s speech “wasn’t just an acknowledgement of error. It was the recantation of an agenda.”

Such an about-face based on scientific inquiry by a notable environmentalist strengthens the case for ag biotech, while widening the perimeters of debate. “We hope that the tremendous reaction to the speech by Mark Lynas serves as evidence that honest consideration of the science will change minds about agricultural biotechnology,” says Dr. Cathleen Enright, executive director of the Council for Biotechnology Information in Washington, D.C.

Levick concludes: “The challenge posed to the environmentalists is to rely on science everywhere or rely on it nowhere. If they opt for science, they may discover, or at least need to consider, what Lynas came to believe: that, for example, GM does not increase the use of chemicals as pest-resistant cotton and maize require less insecticide. Or that the mixing of genes between unrelated species is no more unnatural than the gene flows that have driven evolution since life began.” Read more.

Photo courtesy of The Globe and Mail

In writing about the pro-biotech speech by British environmental activist Mark Lynas, during which he publicly apologized for years of anti-biotech activities, Canadian commentator Margaret Wente says the tremendous stir it caused may mark a turning of the tide of public opinion.

“People are hungry to hear from a new generation of environmental moderates who value science and pragmatism over ideology and absolutes,” Wente wrote in her column in The Globe and Mail, Canada’s largest national newspaper. “They want to hear from those like Mr. Lynas, who think technology can be a force for good, and want to find practical approaches to environmental problems.”

Lynas himself sees a shift in opinion, Ms. Wente wrote, quoting him from an interview.

“Something has moved in the terms of this debate,” she quoted Lynas as saying. “It’s like the cresting of a wave. It’s as if everyone has simultaneously realized that the anti-GM movement doesn’t actually have anything backing it up,” he said. READ MORE »

British author and environmental activist Mark Lynas has publicly apologized for his past role in “demonizing” genetically modified crops, saying that he has come to realize that they are safe to eat and are essential to feeding a growing world population.

“For the record, here and upfront, I apologize for having spent several years ripping up GM crops,” Lynas told the Oxford Farming Conference in England Thursday.  “I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonizing an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.”  Text and video of his presentation are available here.

Lynas is the author of “The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans” (published by National Geographic) and other books on environmental challenges. 

“As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path,” Lynas said of his participation in attacks on GM test plots, a common feature of British anti-GM activism.  “I now regret it completely.”

Lynas said he educated himself on science as part of his study of climate change and came to realize that the arguments against GM crops are mainly “green urban myths.”

“I’d assumed that GM was dangerous. It turned out that it was safer and more precise than conventional breeding,” Lynas said.

“The GM debate is over,” he said.  “It is finished. We no longer need to discuss whether or not it is safe - over a decade and a half with three trillion GM meals eaten there has never been a single substantiated case of harm. You are more likely to get hit by an asteroid than to get hurt by GM food.”

“So my message to the anti-GM lobby, from the ranks of the British aristocrats and celebrity chefs to the US foodies to the peasant groups of India, is this,” he said.  “You are entitled to your views. But you must know by now that they are not supported by science. We are coming to a crunch point, and for the sake of both people and the planet, now is the time for you to get out of the way and let the rest of us get on with feeding the world sustainably.”