OWEN Paterson believes GM technology offers great opportunities for feeding the world – but accepts the public needs reassuring that it is safe and beneficial.

The environment secretary said 16 million farmers in 29 countries grew GM products on 160m hectares – 11pc of the world’s arable land or an area six times greater than the UK – in 2011.

Mr Paterson said: “I fully appreciate the strong feelings on both sides of the debate. GM needs to be considered in its proper overall context with a balanced understanding of the risks and benefits.

“We should not, however, be afraid of making the case to the public about the potential benefits of GM beyond the food chain, for example, significantly reducing the use of pesticides and inputs such as diesel.

“As well as making the case at home, we also need to go through the rigorous processes that the EU has in place to ensure the safety of GM crops.”

The world’s population has grown from 2.5bn in 1950 to just over 7bn today.

New technologies for food and agriculture had helped keep pace – crop yields increased by 115pc between 1967 and 2007 but land use only increased by eight per cent. It has been calculated that if today’s population was supported by the production methods of the 1950s, farming would use 82pc of all land instead of the current 38pc.

It has also been estimated that the production of a given quantity of a crop now requires 65pc less land than it did in 1961.

Mr Paterson is working closely with David Willetts, the Science Minister, on an Agri-Tech Strategy to increase the competitiveness of UK agriculture and address the challenge of food security.

The Agricultural Biotechnology Council welcomed Mr Paterson’s comments on innovation and technologies, including GM. Dr Julian Little, chairman, said GM crops were already delivering higher yields in 29 countries.

“But UK consumers have, until very recently, been denied a rational, fact-based public discussion on the role of GM and other agricultural technologies in the food chain,” he said.

“UK scientists, farmers and businesses throughout the food chain are currently missing out on the benefits of agricultural innovation. Giving consumers greater confidence in the science and safety of agricultural technologies will allow them to make an informed decision on the future role for such innovations in the UK.”

But Tom Macmillan, innovation director at the Soil Association, said: “Farmers and the public have been promised the earth on GM yet the results to date have been poor.” He said the UK government’s own farm scale experiment showed that overall gm crops were worse for wildlife, and US government figures showed pesticide use had increased since gm crops were grown because superweeds and resistant insects had multiplied.