GM food is the green future.

Food prices could double unless farming undergoes the "greenest revolution" including genetic modification, cloned livestock and nanotechnology, scientists have warned.

Notice how when you want to follow an agenda these days, all you have to do is call it "Green"? Green people hate GM food and cloning technology.

We will soon be building "green" nuclear power plants and burning "green" wood for warmth.

I think we should just re-label carbon dioxide "green" and that will solve all our problems. (Sorry, I meant carbon. We don't identify it as a gas any longer, do we)

The Government-commissioned report said the current system of food production is not working as farms are focused on mass production that is destroying the environment.

I'm not too sure what they mean by destroying the environment. The farmers I know are responsible for huge tracts of land that require constant attention. The last thing they want to do is damage the environment when it provides their whole livelihood for them.

People who live on the land and produce from it are the most environmentally conscious people I know.

Maybe by "destroying the environment" they mean some kind of global warming caused by meat eaters and cow farts kind of thing.

While billions of people around the world are hungry and malnourished, more than a billion others are suffering health problems because of obesity.

Neither of which have anything to do with the environmental impact of farming. Billions of people who are hungry or malnourished live in areas of the world where farming is next to impossible. The live on lands that are virtually desert have have no chance of sustaining growth of any kind.

They are also popping out kids faster than you can say Dolly The Sheep. Population continues to expand at an alarming rate when the people cannot feed themselves.

Not to mention war, dictators, unstable governments and economies etc.

Feeding people in these countries goes much, much deeper than simple quantities of food produced.

Meanwhile, in the more prosperous countries, some people are fat. I don't want to sound heartless but these countries are prosperous for a reason, just like the others above are not.

Technology, stable governments and economies, good land for growing etc.

This problem is likely to get worse as the population rises and agricultural land becomes increasingly scarce because of climate change and environmental degradation.

Personally I don't see agricultural land becoming scarce because of climate change, do you? The problem of population is a real one, but not an insurpassable one. Technologies such as GM and cloning, if used, could be a great help for boosting food production. It doesn't need to be clouded in climate change and environmental issues.

The authors of the report pointed out that for the first time in 100 years food prices are going up rather than down. Food prices as a whole could rise by around 50 per cent by 2050, impacting on everyone from British families to consumers in China.

Oh My God! By the time I am 76 I will be paying 30p for a tin of beans. Oh the humanity. Food prices may be going up but it's a situation that will sort itself out in time. What we need to be doing is abandoning the climate change doctrine and freeing up scientists and food producers to develop and implement technology.

Sir John Beddington, the Government’s chief advisor said action must be taken to 'redesign the whole food system'.
He said the world must start to produce more food on less land in a process known as ‘sustainable intensification’.

There's another one for soundbite bingo.

This will mean looking at a number of new technologies, including GM and cloning cows, as well as using existing systems to improve yields in poor countries.

That's all very well but why do we need to do it on less land? There is no reason why we cannot use technology to enhance production on existing land.

“New technologies such as the genetic modification of living organisms and the use of cloned livestock and nanotechnology should not be excluded a priori on ethical or moral grounds, though there is a need to respect the views of people who take a contrary view,” the report stated.

Here we go. We respect your view but we are going to ignore it, never the less. Just for the record, I don't respect the views of the green lobby.

But Kirtana Chandrasekaran, Friends of the Earth’s Food Campaigner, warned GM is not a silver bullet.

“Feeding the world without trashing it means supporting small farmers to feed local communities, wasting less and rethinking our diets.”

The report said that a change in consumer choices in developed countries like the UK can also help to feed more people. For example if people choose to eat less red meat raised in factory farms. British people could also reduce waste and recycle food for energy.

Here we go. Our "choices" are wrong and need to be changed. What if we don't choose to eat more meat? What if we like it and want to carry on eating as much of it as we want, because we can and because there is nothing wrong in doing so?

Nudge? Meat taxes? Another BSE scare for good measure?

Professor Jules Pretty, of the University of Essex, said feeding the world will mean employing a range of different measures, from organic farming using animal waste to drought resistant GM plants.

What? Organic farming? Why? Organically grown food has no extra nutritional value and doesn't take up any less space; if you loose the pesticides, you have a much greater chance of loosing a crop. How does that make sense.

Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, backed calls for the “greenest revolution”.

I like the idea of sharing technology, I'm not sure what to make of that bit about paying countries to produce sustainable food. That sounds a bit ominous to me.

More than 400 scientists contributed to the report that will now inform policy making around the world.

Kerching! Green grants all round lads.