The world’s biggest food company has called on European policymakers to reconsider their opposition to genetically modified crops, as soaring commodity prices put basic foodstuffs such as wheat and rice out of reach of the world’s poorest.

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“You cannot today feed the world without genetically modified organisms,” Peter Brabeck, chairman of Nestlé, told the Financial Times. “We have the means to make agriculture sustainable in the long term. What we don’t see for the time being is the political will.”