Golden Rice Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Lord May of Oxford
Main Page: Lord May of Oxford (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord May of Oxford's debates with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord May of Oxford (CB)
Does the Minister agree that golden rice is part of a much larger problem? Climate change will exacerbate the difficulties that we already have in supplying food to the growing number of people we will have to deal with. This is best addressed by creating drought-resistant and other kinds of crops into which, with surgical precision, we can put the relevant genes, as distinct from what are regarded by the opponents of GM as natural crops, which have been produced by irradiation and picking things out in a much more Frankensteinian process? Does this topic not stand for a much larger issue?
Lord De Mauley
I absolutely agree with the noble Lord. I focused on golden rice because the Question encapsulated it. Of course, the noble Lord is absolutely right.