Environment minister Owen Paterson will on Thursday urge the UK to lead a European farming revolution using genetically modified crops, which he will say will reduce fertiliser and chemical use and improve efficiency.

Paterson's strongest speech yet in favour of the controversial practice is expected to make both a moral and economic case for them to be grown widely both in Britain and in developing countries.

"While the rest of the world is ploughing ahead and reaping the benefits of new technologies, Europe risks being left behind. We cannot afford to let that happen," Paterson will tell scientists at the Rothamsted research institute, near St Albans. "The use of GM could be as transformative as the original agricultural revolution was. The UK should be at the forefront of that now, as it was then."

"If we use cultivated land more efficiently, we could free up space for biodiversity, nature and wilderness. Research undertaken by a team at Rockefeller University has found that over the course of the next 50 years, new technology, combined with improved agricultural practices across the world, could release an area 2.5 times the size of France from cultivation," he will say

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