Chicken may have to be fed on GM soya

Charles Bourns, Poultry Board Chairman, has warned, "The poultry industry decided for reasons of competitive advantage that they would feed GM free soya and really that decision is coming back to haunt us now because the plantings of GM soya within the world are getting less and less. The demand for that GM free soya is getting more and more. It’s getting increasingly difficult for us to find or buy GM free soya.

"Every other class of livestock sold in the supermarkets is fed GM product and there’s no problem with that. About 50% of the chicken eaten in this country is imported and they’re fed with GM." He said, "There’s no safety reason for us not feeding it. It doesn’t come through to you in the chicken. The Food Standards Agency say the chicken is perfectly safe to eat.

"Some people say we shouldn’t even have the debate, we should just switch overnight. My belief is that it is something we’re going to have to do. We probably will have a bit of a problem when we do it." He warned that it could be misinterpreted as "Frankenstein food is fed to chicken for farmers’ profits". "But I believe we’ll have to live through that and, and make the decision and go for it."