§ Mr. HancockTo ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent assessment she has made of the extent to which the food needs of developing nations can be met with out using genetically modified food; and if she will make a statement. [103865]
§ Clare ShortThere are approximately 800 million hungry people in the world. In May 2001, we published our strategy in the paper "Eliminating Hunger". This outlines our approach for achieving the Millennium Development Goal on hunger to reduce the proportion of hungry people in the world by half by 2015.
It is important to increase recognition that poverty rather than a country's lack of self sufficiency in food is the principal cause of hunger. The performance of the agricultural sector is however key to improved livelihoods and sustained poverty reduction. Lack of technology is not the sole or major cause of poor productivity in the agricultural sector. In many countries, agricultural productivity has been declining while existing productivity increasing technologies remain unused. A poor policy environment and limited international market opportunities resulting from developed country trade and agricultural policies are significant factors. Improving agriculture's performance will require removing these fundamental policy impediments, in addition to technology and innovation.
There will always be a need for improved varieties of crops, livestock and fish with characteristics that meet the needs of the poor, and modern biotechnologies and conventional approaches to selection and improvement both have a role to play in developing these. Developing countries must have the opportunity to make their own informed decisions on whether or riot to adopt modern biotechnologies based on an assessment of the risks and benefits from their safe development and use. Developed countries have a responsibility to help developing countries build the capacity to make these choices.