¿La Presidencia Españoña Europea atenderá los intereses del sector de la biotecnología?

No será por falta de acciones de lobby que el sector ha emprendido en esta semana...

Hoy he leído que Europabio (The European Association for Bioindustries) ha realizado una interesante encuesta a través de 6 medios especializados en agricultura por la que se afirma que el 31% de los Agricultores considera que las nuevas tecnologías y las modificaciones genéticas es uno de los 5 factores principales para la alimentación en el mundo. -Cabe resaltar que casi un 15% considera que la solución pasa por eliminar los aranceles-.

Además la Asociación PRObio de España presentará mañana 10 de febrero un manifiesto en el que exige a los líderes políticos la apertura a las tecnologías agrarias vetadas en la Unión Europeas, para poder así competir en condiciones de igualdad a nivel internacional.

Algunas declaraciones de uno de los directores de la Asociación Europea de biotecnologías son interesantes:

“Throughout history, farmers have used new technologies in order to meet the needs of society; these results show that things are no different today. Food security and climate change will be two of the major challenges that the world will face in the 21st century. This will require significant changes in how we produce food and while policy makers can play a part, at the end of the day farmers need practical solutions to practical problems. This poll reinforces the message from many European farmers who have been calling for access to GM crops for several years[ii].”

Currently, 13.3 million farmers around the world are cultivating a range of GM crops on 125 million hectares of land[iii]. Many more GM products are in the pipeline, including crops that can tolerate extreme weather conditions such as drought and flooding. In Europe however only one GM crop, an insect-resistant maize, has been authorized for cultivation, with many more blocked in the EU regulatory system.

Morten Nielsen went on to comment “With a global population set to surpass 9 billion by 2050, combined with more extreme weather in many parts of the world, European farmers will be required to produce more, from less land, using fewer natural resources. While the rest of the world is positively embracing innovative and safe technology to achieve this, Europe’s politicians are denying their farmers access to the same tools that they clearly want. This poll goes to show that the status quo has to change”.