The era of cheap food is under threat from excessive regulation of genetically modified crops and pesticides, according to one of the world’s most senior agricultural business leaders.

A failure to embrace GM crops and new European rules that could ban many pesticides risk driving up food prices, as well as reducing yields and damaging the UK’s science base, Michael Pragnell, the chief executive of Syngenta, said.

In an interview with The Times, he said that sharp recent increases in the price of staples such as wheat and milk would be the beginning of a long-term trend unless Europe changed its attitude to agricultural technologies.

“I think there’s a very real possibility of that,” he said. “If we turn our backs on the technology that scientific learning can offer, then the end of cheap food can come to pass.”

Mr Pragnell’s comments come as Professor Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientist, has started to urge ministers to abandon their neutral stance on GM crops and campaign in favour of the technology.

Sir David, who steps down at the end of the month, used his valedictory speech to the Royal Society to describe GM as “crucial in delivery” of a new green revolution to feed the world’s growing population, which is expected to reach nine billion by 2050.

Mr Pragnell, who is also retiring at the end of the year, praised Sir David’s stance, adding that “politicised regulation” was denying European farmers access to technologies that could improve their livelihoods and keep food prices down. Syngenta, based in Switzerland, is one of the world’s largest pesticide manufacturers, and also develops GM crops.

He was particularly critical of proposed changes to an EU pesticides directive that would regulate products on the basis of hazard, not risk. This would mean that chemicals that can be toxic could be banned even if the likely exposure was low, threatening most of the crop protection products that were essential to modern farming.

“What we have got, I’m afraid, is an increasingly policitised regulatory enviroment, where instead of decisions being based on scientific data and a risk assessment made, they are increasingly being made on hazard, as distinct from risk,” he said.

“If I walk out of this building and cross the road, there is a hazard that if a car passes I might get knocked over. What we naturally do is, because we know there’s a risk, we control our behaviour. We stand on the sidewalk, we look across the road, we don’t cross until we see there’s not a car coming.

“If I push that metaphor a little farther, then what we’ve got in Europe is a regulatory system that increasingly says cars are dangerous, you might get knocked over by a car, so we’d better ban automobiles. That is the logical conclusion of the way we see the regulatory system being applied today, and it’s an extremely worrying trend.”

This would have a drastic impact on farming and push up prices. “Pushed to an extreme, you would see many of the products farmers use today no longer approved. The result would be a reduction in crop yields of between 35 and 40 per cent across Europe.”

The health risks of pesticides, he said, had been wildly exaggerated by campaigners. “We have more dangerous chemicals in our kitchens than we apply to crops to protect them against disease,” he said. “The damage that household bleach can do to your eyes, misapplied. The whole point is that you manage your exposure.”

GM crops, he said, were suffering from similar regulatory overkill. This technology, however, would be a vital tool for feeding a world population forecast to grow by two billion over the next 20 years, without bringing new land under cultivation, an alternative that would cause great damage.

GM was also the only option for creating new “value-added” crops, such as plants that resisted drought or contained higher levels of nutrients.

Organic farming, he said, had a place only as a “Western luxury”, as it achieved much lower yields than conventional agriculture.“I recognise that a lot of people prefer organic produce, but I think there are a lot of myths about it. It’s a lifestyle choice,” he said.

Mr Pragnell also endorsed the chief scientist’s concern that British resistance to GM had caused economic damage, which Sir David estimated this week at up to £4 billion a year. “The push against new science or technology is doing enormous damage to science and enterprise. Scientists don’t like working in an environment in which their work is seen as unacceptable or is pilloried by the public.”

Growing force

6 EU countries grow GM crops
46 per cent Forecast rise in global calorie demand by 2030
1.7 billion Estimated rise in the world population by 2030
10.3 million World farmers grow GM crops
252m acres Global area of GM crop cultivation

Source: International Service for the Acquisition of Agribiotech Applications, United Nations

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