News

Researcher optimistic Bayer-Monsanto deal helps European GM acceptance

A German scientist and researcher says Bayer’s acquisition of Monsanto might lead to more European acceptance of genetically modified crops.

Dietram Scheufele tells Brownfield manufacturers would like to sell genetically modified technology worldwide… but there is still resistance.  “The European market is a 500-million people market and is one that from the very beginning was very hostile or very concerned about GM crops and it ended up for all intents and purposes being closed off to American farmers, and I think that’s an outcome we can all agree on is not ideal.”

Scheufele is optimistic that a completed Bayer-Monsanto deal will help make GM crop technology more available in Europe.  “I think Bayer is banking that it will.  Bayer is hoping that GM crops are going to play a larger role in the global food supply, and I think with population figures worldwide being predicted in the ten billion range by 2050, I think it will have to.”

Scheufele says genetically modified crops will have to play a part in feeding a rapidly expanding population and with adjusting to climate change.

Scheufele is a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Morgridge Institute for Research, along with many other scientific affiliations.  He is a member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering.  Scheufele talked to Brownfield after an Aspen Institute panel discussion on GMO’s Monday at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.