Vatican cites biotech crops’ downside

And for years Turkson’s predecessor, Italian Cardinal Renato Martino, obliged, touting the benefits and safety of genetically modified organisms and even hosting a biotech conference at the Vatican in 2003.

But Turkson reversed course in an interview yesterday with the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano. While saying he personally wasn’t for or against the organisms, Turkson said the key issue concerns giving farmers access to suitable land that hasn’t been eroded by multinational logging or mining companies.

“As a result, you wouldn’t need any genetic engineering,’’ Turkson told the paper. “In this way, the farmer wouldn’t have to buy GMOs from abroad. I ask myself, why force an African farmer to buy seeds produced in other lands and with other means? The doubt arises that behind this is the play of maintaining economic dependence at all cost.’’

“I’d even say it becomes like a new form of slavery,’’ he added.

Last month, a Vatican spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, put out a statement about the organisms after Italian news agencies erroneously reported that the Vatican had come out in favor of them during a conference.

The conference was held at the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences and its final paper was favorable to genetically modified crops. But Lombardi noted that only seven of the 40 scholars who attended were academy members. As a result, he said, the final statement was not an official position of the academy or the Holy See.

The Vatican’s position on genetically modified organisms has been carefully watched, given the moral weight of its positions concerning combating poverty and hunger. US cables from the WikiLeaks trove of documents illustrate how critical the Vatican’s position was — and how the United States tried to sway it in light of resistance from some parts of the Catholic Church.