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As Governments gather in Rome today, World Food Day, to discuss the global food price crisis, Friends of the Earth International warns in a new report that agriculture donors such as the United States and United Kingdom are pumping money into genetically modified (GM) crops at the cost of farming methods better suited to tackling hunger.

Since the advent of the food price crisis in 2008, some Governments have championed the ‘sustainable intensification’ of farming as a new way to increase yields without harming the environment.

The report investigates what adopting this approach has meant for donors and finds that despite its claim to support a variety of ecological farming methods, funding is still heavily skewed towards GM crops and business as usual intensive agriculture.

Friends of the Earth International Food Sovereignty program coordinator Kirtana Chandrasekaran said: “The sustainable intensification approach is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. On the surface, it favours ecological science and farmer led solutions to the food crisis, the preferred method of several UN backed studies.

Dig a little deeper and it seems to be a disguise for some Governments and donors to continue pushing GM crops onto small farmers, to further corporate interests.

This seriously challenges the credibility of Governments such as the UK and US and donors like the Gates Foundation in tackling hunger.”