The Future Foods exhibit at London’s Science Museum lays out the facts on GM foods: a debate which could be a bit of a mouthful for any layman, mind especially younger audiences. With colourful panels spelling out the pros and cons of GM crops and interactive multimedia displays illuminating scientific processes, Future Foods pitches a serious issue to the younger generation. At least five kids could be seen seeming to actually enjoy the process of education for minutes at a time. Can the Science Museum really have cracked it?

Raph and Rob, the two figureheads of the exhibit’s “pro” and  “no” GM camps, advocate the opposing arguments around rising global food prices, lower water requirements, fewer fertilizers and more desirable product qualities. Like it or not, however, GM will be part of our future with 8% of cultivated lands in the USA, Argentina, Canada, Brazil and South Africa already covered by them. Many people’s futures in the developing world may hinge on GM, as global resource deprivation and the need for climate-change resistant plants become ever more pressing. But should we tamper with the sweetness of a tomato or the resistance of a potato to blight? Might these luxuries wipe out native plants and obstruct the course of evolution? If the exhibit doesn’t answer all these questions, more info is available at www.danacentre.org.uk, which provides a discussion forum and a webcast of the centre’s public debate on GM.

The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) sponsors Future Foods, which is free to the public and runs until the 31^st May. The exhibit will sweeten the bitter pill of education for the non-academic teenager and possibly guide the careers of the brilliant scientists of the future, so children of all ages and opinions shouldn’t miss this addition to a day out in London.

London Science Museum

Until 31^st May 2009

www.danacentre.org.uk