SUPERMARKET shelves are bulging, but the reality is that the world is a hungry place and food is becoming an increasingly expensive item of the weekly shopping budget.
The seemingly obvious solution is to adopt genetically modified technology (GM).
That is the cautious view of Jim McLaren, the president of NFU Scotland, especially in relation to arable crops.
He said: "My vision of GM, and it has remained t
he same for a number of years, is that people are not hungry enough yet – but they might soon be."
Mr McLaren accepts that there is huge opposition on the part of the Scottish Government to GM crops, but he reckons that this is a blinkered view.
He said: "What could be better than intruding a gene to the potato crop that would provide resistance to blight, a disease common in Scotland because of our humid climate?
"Such a new strain of potatoes would end the need for spraying crops up to 15 times in the growing season. That has to be in the best interest of consumers and the environment."
However, Alex Salmond, the First Minister, was having nothing to do with GM technology. He said: "We made it clear in our manifesto that GM is not part of our programme for rural Scotland.
"We have a clear vision for Scotland as a clean, green, country producing food to the highest consumer standards. I suspect that if we had any GM in the UK it would be for maize, but we don't grow much of that in Scotland."
Mr Salmond, always the ultimate political performer, can seldom have come under as much pressure as he did yesterday from the Scottish farming media.
He was keen to move the subject matter from GM to the impending "health check" of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Responding to concerns over the reduction in production, he said: "This is a real concern, and we simply cannot afford to lose critical mass. However, it is pleasing that we are now engaging with all the major supermarkets – that is another first for Scotland."
But the real concern on the part of farmers is that the fine words of the Scottish Government might just not be matched with the host of promises in the past – including the much vaunted rural development programme.
Mr Salmond said that he was aware of the problems facing the Scottish farming industry, not the least of which is the huge increase in fuel and fertiliser charges. He again repeated his claim that the UK Treasury should at least give a proportion of the additional £500 million that is expected from the rise in fuel taxes to Scotland.
He said: "This is only fair, and it would help Scottish farmers and the entire rural sector. A lot of people don't realise how expensive it is becoming to live in the countryside. It costs a lot of money to deliver goods, and equally as much to take livestock and livestock products out to the main market."
This of course is Mr Salmond's dream: but it appears he will have a long argument with Alistair Darling in the Treasury.
The full article contains 535 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
