The news that some of the big supermarkets have been in talks with the Government about introducing Genetically Modified (GM) ingredients to the nation’s shelves will be welcome to Scottish farmers. In fact, GMs have been on the shelves of our food shops for years, in various different shapes and forms, although most supermarkets have tried to keep this quiet for fear of disturbing the ‘Frankenstein Food’ scare-monger lobby!
The more open approach to GMs will also be welcomed by developing  countries, where biotech (BT) crops have been cited as a solution to their hunger problems.
Six million people are born every month across the world. By 2030 the world population will have expanded to such an extent that we will require a 50 percent increase in food production to meet anticipated demand. By 2080 global food production would need to double.  However, with deserts spreading and an area the size of Ukraine being take out of agricultural food production every year due to drought and as a direct consequence of climate change, global food production is declining rather than expanding. We are gradually being trapped by a deadly pincer movement.
There is an urgent need to agree an agricultural system that can ensure a sustainable future. But in doing this, we must take into consideration the fact that we will have to produce more food on less land, whilst minimising the environmental impact and carbon footprint of agriculture.
There is always an element of risk involved at the frontier of scientific research and the speed of change today challenges our limits of trust and confidence. Many concerns have been raised about the safety of genetically modified crops on the one hand, while on the other hand government regulators in many countries have authorised their large scale use as being completely safe, following rigorous scientific assessment.
The fact remains that GM crops are and will be a part of modern agriculture on a global scale. They’ve been around for twelve years without any harmful effects whatsoever. Of course it will never be possible to guarantee zero risk and that’s why we must place emphasis on rigorous scientific assessment of these new crops and apply that to the regulation of these products in order to minimise the potential risks and maximise the potential benefits.
The first GM crops were introduced in North America in 1995 and in 2008, more than 125 million hectares of GM crops were being commercially grown worldwide. 
Genetically modified food was first sold in the UK in 1996 but hysteria came a few months later, in the wake of some very public cases of CJD. Fuelled by tabloid hysteria, the British people become wary of Government regulators and campaigned against the release of herbicide-resistant soya-beans. As far as some people were concerned, a monster had been born. 
While critics call into question the possible unknown dangers that might develop from GM consumption in the longer term arguing that GM foods can be incorporated into a consumer’s own genetic make-up and raising fears over the potential allergies relating to GMOs, its defenders argue that agricultural biotechnology can improve food quality by delaying ripening for transportability and freshness.
Additional issues have been raised in terms of the unknown environmental impact, for example the effects of insect resistant GM crops designed to kill insects, are unknown; the fear that GMs might hinder the establishment of a sustainable agricultural system for all farmers; its impact on biodiversity, potentially causing a direct drop in species diversity; and that GMs could bind developing nation farmers to western commercial interests.
But there are two sides to every argument. Those in favour of GM crops, dismiss the negative claims suggesting that insect and disease resistant crops reduce the number of pesticide applications as a whole with only one herbicide treatment needed. Once tried, farmers (whether in East India, East Africa or Eastern Scotland) will only continue to use a new technology if it works.
However, after 12 years of large commercial use, no negative effects of GMOs have been substantiated.
Biotechnology is by no means a silver bullet but rather a tool that can assist poorer countries to improve food production. Against a background of a rapidly expanding world population and declining area of land available for agricultural use, the world’s farmers need every tool in the toolkit to enable them to feed the hungry.

Struan Stevenson is a Conservative MEP for Scotland. He is currently President of the Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainability Development Intergroup in the European Parliament.