Recently in GM crops Category

So Gordon Brown has ended weeks of speculation and set the date for the next general election (6 May in case you missed it).

It is to be expected that the vast majority of farmers will vote Conservative, following their natural instinct that "the Tories are the party of the countryside".

This is in defiance of the other commonly-held belief that "farmers are always better off under a Labour government".

Both notions are questionable, as it is the exchange rate that has the greatest influence on farm profitability, not the political hue of DEFRA ministers.

But with the Tories ahead in the polls, the question on most farmers' lips will be "what difference will a change of government make to British agriculture?"

The short answer, to my mind, is "not a lot"...

Talk about mixing with the great and the good - the delegates list at this week's City Food Lecture really did read like a Who's Who of the food and farming industry.

Supermarket bosses, farm leaders, food processors, academics and political figures filled the lofty chamber that is London's Guildhall - and even a few agri-journalists were allowed to mingle with the crowd.

And, despite the predominance of pinstripes and brogues over boiler suits and wellies, it was a thoroughly enjoyable and thought provoking event.

Former government chief scientific adviser Sir David King is always good value for money, even though his message is now starting to sound very familiar.

His key points included:

US biotechnology giant Monsanto is probably revered and reviled around the world in equal measure.

Undoubtedly it has many detractors - especially in the green lobby - but that has not prevented it from winning the prestigious 2009 Company of the Year Award from well-known US business magazine, Forbes.

The award is based primarily on the company's financial performance.

In 2009 Monsanto sold $7.3bn of GM seeds compared with $4bn by second-placed DuPont. Its sales have increased 18% a year for the last five years and in "fiscal 2009" it made $2.1bn profit from a turnover of $11.7bn.

Impressive figures indeed. But as Forbes points out, there is more to the Monsanto story than this.

The company has had to ward off all manner of bad publicity over the years, being portrayed as a "Satan of agriculture" for daring to modify plant genes, and being accused of threatening the world with ecological catastrophe....

2009 has been a year of ups and downs in the world of agri-business. Prices have reached record highs for some commodities, and dismal lows for others.

Some businesses have gone to the wall, while others have flourished.

But how much do you remember from the past 12 months? Are you a "Business Numpty" or a "Business Genius".

To test your knowledge, I have devised the following quiz:

Clearly there are two sides to every story...and having just been taken out for a very nice lunch by the French agriculture attaché, I'm happy to say that that includes the story about French protein crop subsidies too.

Contrary to the views expressed in this blog a week ago, it seems the driving force behind the French decision to pay up to €150/ha additional aid to pea and bean producers is the desire to reduce dependency on imported proteins.

Like many other member states, France has been struggling to get the protein supplies it needs for its livestock because of the EU's "zero tolerance" approach to maize and soya shipments containing just traces of non-approved GMOs.

France is therefore eager to step up domestic production to levels that existed a few years ago.

According to my lunchtime host, the measure is not designed to give French pea and bean producers an advantage in key export markets, as I'd previously suggested. Indeed, the €150/ha subsidy will only be available to producers whose crops go into animal feed...

Much has been written and said in recent weeks about the downside of the EU's policy of "zero tolerance" when it comes to importing animal feed that contains traces of non-EU approved GM varieties.

Just last week, EU agriculture commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel was urging ministers to "shoulder their responsibilities" and get away from a "ludicrous situation" where desperately needed cargoes of animal protein were being turned away at EU ports for no scientific reason.

NFU president Peter Kendall also raised the issue with supermarket leaders at the IGD conference last week. He urged them to take a lead in explaining GMs to consumers so we do not end up importing meat from parts of the world where livestock are fed on the very crops the EU currently bans.

As expressed previously on this blog, their concerns are entirely justified and the sooner the EU moves away from its zero tolerance policy the better.

But we are where we are, and in one respect at least there is some potential "upside" to zero tolerance - and that is highlighted by the current situation regarding linseed....