Seeds of change? GM crops might benefit farmers such as this Brazilian rice-grower. Credit: SEAN SPRAGUE/PANOS

An independent panel of leading scientists from both industrialized and developing nations this week endorsed the use of genetically modified (GM) crops to meet the food needs of the world's poor.

But the panel, set up by seven national academies of science, also urged private industry to share GM technology with “responsible scientists” to alleviate hunger in developing nations.

The panel, intended to offer “scientific perspectives” on the role of GM technology in world agriculture, was set up last year by Britain's Royal Society, the national academies of the United States, Brazil, China, India and Mexico, and the Third World Academy of Sciences.

“We felt that this was a good opportunity to provide a technical reflection on the GM debate,” says panel member José Fernando Perez, scientific director of the Brazilian research agency FAPESP. “In Brazil, the issue has been almost entirely discussed in political terms; we have never had a technical debate.”

The report argues that, among other goals, GM technology should be used to reduce the environmental impact of agriculture. It also calls on countries to introduce systems to monitor the potential human health effects of transgenic plants.

On the question of patents, it says that unless certain plant-modification technologies are extensively licensed or provided without payment to the developing world, “they are unlikely to benefit the less developed nations of the world for a long time”.

Critics complain that the report legitimizes high-tech solutions such as GM without giving due weight to more locally appropriate solutions. “Even if the science is sound, this cannot stand alone without questioning the power that lies behind the market approach to global hunger,” says Mark Curtis, of the international development agency ActionAid.

But panel members say the report takes care to place the technical dimension of GM crops in a broader context. It demands, for example, “special exemptions” for poor farmers to protect them from “inappropriate restrictions on propagating their crops”.