If the Government cannot guarantee the safety of Irish consumers in the face of the widespread introduction of genetically modified foods, it has no choice but to stop the process, the cookery writer Ms Darina Allen has said. She said that, with so much uncertainty and insufficient evaluation, a moratorium on GM crop field trials and the withdrawal of GM foods for sale were critical. Speaking at a Growing Awareness conference on the genetic engineering of food, attended by 350 people, Ms Allen said she would never knowingly feed her family or friends GM foods. That was her stand as a cook, restaurateur, cookery teacher, organic farmer and mother.
There was much she was grateful to scientists for, but when it came to GM foods there was evidence of "unexpected consequences" and the creation of traits which were no longer "morbid fantasies".
With GM foods unknowingly being introduced to supermarkets, there was an immediate need for meaningful labelling in the consumer interest.
A geneticist, Dr Mae-Wan Ho, of the Open University, claimed a "Lego view of organisms" had taken hold, with an attitude that genetic material was interchangeable. Yet it was "hit-or-miss technology, with random genetic effects resulting in unstable transgenic lines".
An economist and author, Mr Richard Douthwaite, said multinationals promising to feed the world with gene technology should show how they would deliver. They had to show how people who could not now afford to buy food, despite a glut of it globally, would be able to purchase GM products.
He said this raised the questions of whether the technology would allow poor people to grow more food themselves and whether there would be global redistribution of income. Until satisfactory answers could be found, "there should be no further industrialisation or intensification of agriculture".
Dr Colin Sage, of UCC International Famine Centre, said predictions of an imminent doubling of world population could prove to be incorrect. He said the world could have more time than the bio-industry suggested "and may not need to be bounced into the first hazardous technical fix that just happens to come along".
Mr Quentin Gargan, of Genetic Concern, said a common misconception was that GM crop field trials were an evaluation of environmental risk. They were merely a test of agricultural suitability. In 25,000 field trials worldwide, there was no evaluation of "horizontal gene flow", whereby a gene jumps the species barrier, in spite of growing evidence of its occurrence.
The Green MEP, Ms Nuala Ahern, said the public was being asked to take all the risks and none of the benefits of GM foods. "As a public representative and legislator, this is totally unacceptable from the environmental and public health point of view."
She said the Minister for the Environment's recent consultation paper highlighted concerns but did not take on board mounting evidence justifying them. The EPA did not monitor the surrounding environment of test crops as it had concluded there were no undesirable effects. "Is this scientific?" she asked.
A geneticist, Dr Ricarda Steinbrecher, of Women's Environmental Network, said GM crops could not be considered similar to plant breeding "because it breeds through species barriers" and mixes unrelated DNA. This was not dangerous, but not enough was known about genetic material. Gene modification was claimed to be a precise form of breeding, yet where gene material ended up it was very imprecise.
