The Vatican declares genetically modified foods hold the answer to world starvation and malnutrition. This expression of support from the Vatican heralds an official report on biotechnology that it is preparing. 

According to Archbishop Renato Martino, head of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the said report, which will be published next month, would come down in favor of genetic modification (GM). The document will coincide with a debate on GM by EU farm ministers. This will also end the Vatican's neutral stand in the European Union-US confrontation over GM food.

Archbishop Martino said the Pope was greatly interested in new technologies for food development as part of a policy of sustainable agriculture. He noted that 24,000 people die every day from starvation. "The Pope ardently desires to do something for the billions of people who go to bed hungry every night," he said. Further, "freedom from hunger was one of the fundamental rights of man." The Vatican's stand was consistent with its belief in "the right to life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death".

Archbishop Martino served as Vatican representative at the UN until last year. He said he had lived for 16 years in the US and "ate everything that was offered to me, including genetically modified products. They had no effect on my health. This controversy is more political than scientific."

One Vatican official said: "The Book of Genesis clearly establishes the domination of man over nature. God has entrusted mankind to preserve nature but also to use it."

The independent study by the Vatican will dispute that the future of humankind is at stake and that there is no room for the ideological arguments advanced by environmentalists. 

Velasio De Paolis, a professor of canon law at the Pontifical Urban University, said it was "easy to say no to GM food if your stomach is full". He noted that scientific progress was part of the divine plan. "The introduction of new and more efficient technologies such as second and third-generation GM foods, in harmony with sustainable development, is not a threat but a benefit."

Carlo Bernardini, editor of Italy's leading scientific magazine, Sapere, said he hoped Italy, which holds the rotating EU presidency, would take its lead from the Pope.