The only hope for alleviating Africa’s “dire situation” of poverty and malnutrition is for aid agencies to forget about supporting traditional farming and make full use of “modern agricultural technology” including genetically modified crops, Sir David King, former government chief scientist, will say on Monday.

Sir David will use his presidential address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Liverpool to call for a radical overhaul of aid to Africa, particularly in the farm sector.