May 26, 2000 / Reuters / David Brough
GENOA, Italy -- Growing opposition in Italy to genetically modified crops is, according to this story, creating an unfavourable climate for experimental research and job creation in the biotech industry.
Delegates from life sciences companies and universities in Italy were cited as telling a biotech conference in Genoa this week that they were working in a difficult environment as the new centre-left government opposed GM crops and anti-GM environmentalists such as Greenpeace were staging headline-grabbing protests.
The opposition of Farm Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, a member of the Greens, and some Italian regional authorities to GM crops hindered research projects and would harm development of Italy's biotech industry, depriving science graduates of job opportunities, they said.
Gabriele Fontana, regulatory and public affairs manager of U.S. company Monsanto Co (MTC.N) in Milan, said the international biotech industry, faced with resistance from the Italian authorities to GM crop cultivation, had the option to set up trials in other countries, but Italy's public research bodies were constrained.
The story goes on to say that in a round table discussion at the conference on Thursday, academics from Italian universities stood up to denounce what they called the public hysteria surrounding GM crops, saying it threatened Italy's prospects to make scientific breakthroughs and restricted employment opportunities for science graduates.
One biotechnology student was cited as saying she spoke for her colleagues when she complained of frustration at the widespread ignorance in Italy about the potential benefits of biotechnology for medicine and food.
C.A. Cullis, a professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, United States, advised delegates not to think in "Eurocentric" terms and said that several African scientists had told him they welcomed biotechnology as a means of reducing hunger.
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