Institute of Development Studies

Dangerous Ideas in Development ‘GM Crops and the Global Food Crisis’

• Dates: 10 June 2009
• Time: 18:00 - 19:30
• Location: Committee Room 16, Palace of Westminster

Challenging orthodoxies and promoting fresh thinking on international development

This series of seminars is run jointly by the Institute of Development Studies and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Debt, Aid and Trade.

Speakers: Dominic Glover, Wageningen University; Erik Millstone, SPRU Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex and the STEPS Centre; Peter Newell, University of East Anglia

Genetically-modified (GM) crops are sometimes trumpeted as the solution to the global food crisis, and the route to transforming developing agriculture and reducing poverty for millions. For others they spell doom and disaster, bringing with them unacceptable environmental and safety risks. But what is the reality? Over the past ten years, GM crops –  particularly transgenic insect-resistant crop varieties – have been used widely by farmers in different parts of the developing world. What has been the impact on agricultural production and poverty? What institutional, regulatory and wider policy issues arise? This event will explore these issues, drawing on more than a decade of research from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe. As the world faces a major challenge to feed a growing population, the speakers will examine whether and to what degree GM crops really can make a substantive contribution to increasing food production and strengthening livelihood security. Should European governments and aid agencies back a GM-led push towards boosting agricultural production across the world? What governance measures are required in order to ensure that new technologies work for the poor? 

To reserve a place RSVP to Charlie Matthews: c.matthews@ids.ac.uk

Please note that this event will go ahead despite the planned tube strike in London. For more informaton on travel to the event please see the Transport for London website. 

This event is organised by the STEPS Centre, based at the Institute of Development Studies and SPRU Science, Technology and Policy Research at the University of Sussex: http://www.steps-centre.org/index.html