"Any GM crops in this?"

"No sir, we don't use GM food sources at all in any of our products!"

Under breath, so as not to be heard - "we only use radiation modified crops".

Now I'd heard about radiation modification, but didn't realise just how widespread and what big business it had become. It seems that the use of mutagens can accelerate natural selection processes dramatically. And many of us have almost certainly being eating radiation modified foodstuffs for quite a while.

Some 30% of the Mekong Delta's one million hectares of rice-growing area is planted with VND95-20, a radiation modified species, which is resistant to saline conditions.

Despite some of the rather worrying terminology used (mutants, induced mutation, Gamma rays!) this technology has been around for donkey's years and yet seems to have eluded the radar of the world's NIMBYs.

Full story from IrinNews - very interesting stuff - looks like it could certainly help in a world with far too many mouths to feed.