Yesterday morning (Wed 18th April) on BBC Radio 4 in the UK, Lord Melchett (representing the Soil Association) was taking part in a debate about population growth and the predicted shortages in food. He was up against a defendant of intensive agriculture and GM crops (Prof Bill McElwey), and was defending the use of organic farming. Prof B. said the only choices were using more land (rainforest) or using GM crops - a shocking pair of options!
The program had been repeating these options (only) during the news roll for about 2 hrs, and I was getting rather frustrated. So I was very glad to hear Lord M. begin his response by saying that we could feed everyone if we put less resources into intensive livestock production and reduced the meat in our diets.
I was rather disappointed when the host immediately responded by saying "you can't dictate to people what they eat.."
Lord M. of course also made his very valid points about organic crops and how GM crops have not been proven to improve yield.
You can hear the debate here (note that the link may only work for today - the 19th) The debate can be found at approx time of 2:19:00 in the recording.
The reason for this post is that I'd like to know if :
a) The Soil Association have declared this support before
b) others think Lord M. did a good job with his response.
Bookmarks