UK: Report on the cost of non-GM food

Britain's large food companies have privately warned that they are struggling to maintain their decade-long ban on genetic modification and called for the public to be educated about the increasing cost of avoiding GM, The Independent has revealed. Since major producers such as the USA and Brazil switched to GM, supermarkets were now paying 10 to 20 % more for supplies of conventional soya and maize, according to a report. The report by the Food Standards Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, stated that retailers were concerned that they might not be able to maintain their current non-GM sources of supply as producers increasingly adopted GM technology around the world.
 

Despite legislation which requires that GM food in UK's cafes, restaurants and takeaways have to be labelled, customers were already eating food saturated with GM fat without knowing. The FSA and Defra document “GM Crops and Foods: Follow-up to the Food Matters Report” reported that there was some use of GM food ingredients in the UK, particularly in the catering sector where oil from GM crops was often supplied to customers who were working to lower prices, and bulk packs were suitably labelled. It was considered unlikely that relevant information regarding food produced using such oils was provided to the final consumer, as required in EC legislation. Even though campaigners like Friends of the Earth have warned of a "corporate takeover of agriculture", ministers in the UK believe it may now be the right time to consider its introduction as a way of meeting a UN target to raise global food production by 2050.
 
The Independent