Kendall Urges Industry to Promote GM Wheat Benefits

The farming industry should promote the potential benefits of genetically modified (GM) wheat to consumers to counter the negative concerns of GM activists. National Farmers Union president Peter Kendall of the United Kingdom gave this call as he welcomed the decision by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to allow a two-year trial of aphid resistant GM wheat at the Rothamsted Research Institute, in Hertfordshire.

"We need to have the trials and then see if consumers want to buy it because, as farmer, I am never going to sell something people don't want to buy," Kendall told members attending a meeting at the Liberal Democrat conference.

According to Rothamsted director Maurice Moloney, the trial will test wheat plants modified to copy plants like mint and hops, which protect themselves with a natural molecule that repels, but does not kill, aphids. "This method (natural mode of defense) not only helps to control aphids, but does so in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way without having to use pesticides," he said.

For more information, view http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/latest-news/kendall-urges-industry-to-promote-gm-wheat-benefits/41737.article.