So why did UK Minister Owen Paterson push GM food?

What do we know about Owen Paterson? Married to Rose Ridley, sister of Matt Ridley (son of Viscount Ridley) who is a genetic scientist - and also sits in the House of Lords. He's visiting professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory where they study plant genetics.
Cold Spring Lab are the main protagonists in the iPlant collaborative. Possible conflict of interest for Paterson?


Who fund the Cold Spring Harbor Lab? Amongst others, Dupont, whose subsidiary Pioneer Hi-bred International specialise in GMO corn.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Sp...bor_Laboratory

Defends the use of pesticides that kill bees
http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/environment/2013/04/30/owen-paterson-defends-use-of-bees-link-pesticide/

Paterson's letter to Syngenta published in The Guardian...
Linkhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2013/apr/29/environment-secretary-letter-syngenta-insecticide-ban

One of the two chief lobbying organisations paying Paterson to push GMO...
http://www.abcinformation.org/

Another UK lobbying group operating on behalf of Conservative party donors;
http://www.cropprotection.org.uk/

UK research council, funded by Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dupont et al...
http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/home/home.aspx

Cropgen - another powerful GM lobbying group, paid for by Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dupont et al...
http://www.cropgen.org/

AND the research institute funded by the UK government and the GMO food companies quoted in this mornings BBC report;
http://www.ifr.ac.uk/

So, is GM safe? There’s the research that’s being paid for by the biotech industry. And then there’s the independent research being done in foreign countries, mostly in Europe, and foreign universities. Most, if not all the research sponsored by the biotech industry says genetic engineering is innocuous and safe. But most of the research done elsewhere concludes otherwise. So says Thierry Vrain, retired former pro-GMO scientist for Agriculture Canada, now campaigning against GMOs.