Professor Fiona Doohan:

I totally agree with that. I will give a concrete example of where GM would have to be very seriously considered. If it was discovered that by modifying a wheat gene, we could absolutely wipe out septoria tritici blotch of wheat, which is our major disease, then we would have to seriously look at it as a really viable technology because it would reduce the input cost for farmers a lot. If we go back 100 years, cereals were very tall. Through natural breeding, the green revolution reduced their height. That means a lot less energy is going into the stem versus the grain, which is up in the stem. That was a big change in agriculture. At the same time, there was the advent of chemical inputs. Together it was called the green revolution. If we suddenly discovered by modifying a wheat we could reduce the stem and increase the yield, therefore being able to harvest earlier in the year, we would have to look at that. If in areas where there is heavy rainfall in August and September, the wheat could be harvested at the same time as rye and farmers would not have the problems with harvesting that they face now, we would have to seriously look at the economics of that sort of technology.

That would be to give concrete examples.