Genetically Modified Crops - Issues of Concern

The aim of the conference is to have an informed public debate on issues of public concern about Genetically Modified (GM) crops and Farm Scale Evaluations. Why do we need an informed public debate? What is there to debate?

Genetically Modified crops offer a wide range of potential benefits including:

1. higher yields a. increased oil content of oil seed rape b. increased starch yields in Potato
2. longer shelf life a. delayed ripening tomatoes
3. reduced chemical input a. crops resistant to plant diseases and insects b. herbicide tolerance is being engineered into: i. oil seed rape, ii. sugar and fodder beet, iii. spring wheat and maize.
4. new high value crops with the potential to grow pharmaceuticals.

These are innovations that could only have been dreamed of a few years ago. Therefore it is clear that GM crops have attractions to farmers and food processors who understandably have an interest in exploiting this technology. It is possible that failure to capitalise on these developments could disadvantage UK farming, UK food companies, and UK consumers.

So why would the public have concerns about GM technology in rural Lincolnshire? An area of the country that potentially has the most to gain from innovations in food production technology.? There appear to be three fundamental public concerns:

1. GM crops are perceived to be unnatural being derived by tampering with nature. As such the consequences are not capable of being fully understood nor of being totally predictable.
2. GM crop releases into the environment could result in irreversible contamination of the environment with undesirable genetic characteristics passing to other plant species. Therefore the Precautionary Principle is called for but there is little evidence that this approach is being applied. This of particular concern because GM crops have the potential to mutate.
3. The consequence of unacknowledged ignorance. Many of the environmental and public health consequences of releasing GM crops are not predictable. "The purposes driving the enterprise and the interests which control the responses to the resultant surprises are foremost in peoples mind if we can never fully know the consequences".

The responses to these public concerns appear to assume that the general public harbours an anti-science sentiment and will not tolerate scientific uncertainty. The government approach as exemplified by the prime minister's recent speech demonstrates a willingness to demean public concerns about new technology as unscientific (Ref 1). Therefore a stock approach is often to intensify research on identified uncertainties, with the intention of demonstrating intellectual mastery of the issue and to show that concerns about (known) risks are unfounded (Ref 2). It is arguable that the Farm Scale Evaluations are symptomatic of this tendency to throw science at issues of public concern. This approach feeds public mistrust by inadvertently demonstrating the government's own denial of ignorance and its lack of insight into public concerns.

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (1998) has advised that scientific uncertainty, like scientific knowledge can provide authority to policy if subjected to public deliberation (Ref 3). Sir Karl Popper had drawn a similar conclusion 36years previously. He concluded in 1962 undue emphasis on the factual basis of decision making while failing to acknowledge and engage with value judgements is unlikely to achieve consensus or at least acceptance where substantial divisions of opinion exist (Ref 4). Therefore resolving issues of public concern about GM crops is not a dilemma for which there is no clear way forward. The management of the Lowermoor Water Poisoning Incident 1988 exemplifies the futility of persisting with a management strategy that lacks public support (Ref 5). As a result of continued public concern the government has recently appointed its third independent scientific inquiry into the incident more than 14 years after the water poisoning event.

Fear appears to be preventing the adoption of this alternative strategy for addressing public concerns. Fear of "Paralysis by Analysis". Fear that public scrutiny of standard arguments for and against GM technology could raise questions about the integrity of the groups promoting them e.g. the relative impact on species diversity, and third world food issues (Ref 6&7). Fear that other issues would be more publicly aired for which policy makers are even less able or less willing to address e.g. the merits (or otherwise) of organic farming, freedom of access to environmental information, local accountability of multinational companies. Fear that greater awareness of GM issues may result in further boycotts of GM products. The Co-op Bank has recently decided to do no more business with biotech companies involved in the uncontrolled release of genetically modified organisms into the environment following a recent poll of its customers.

I hope that your attendance here today and what I hope will be open and constructive discussions conducted in a friendly and courteous manner will help to persuade government policy makers that all they have to fear from genuine public consultation is fear itself.

References

Ref 1. Tim Radford, Science Editor, The Guardian, Friday May 24 2002 pp 13 "Britain losing scientific grip, says PM". The Guardian, London

Ref 2. European Environment Agency, 2001, Late lessons from early warnings: the precautionary principle 1896 - 2000, Environmental Issue Report No. 22, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities ISDN 92-9167-323-4

Ref 3. RCEP, 1998, Setting environmental standards, 21st Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, Cm 4053, HMSO, London, summary at http://www.rcep.org.uk/reports2.html#21

Ref 4. Popper K.R, 1962, The open society and its enemies, Vol. 1, Chapter 5, fourth edition, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London

Ref 5. The Ends Report 297, October 1999, Environmental Data Services Ltd, London

Ref 6. Weizsacher E, Lovins A B, Lovins L H, 1997, Factor Four, Earthscan Publications Ltd, London.

Ref 7. Greer J, Bruno K, 1996, Greenwash, The Apex Press, New York.

Ref 8. Gibbs D, 2000, Globalisation, the bioscience industry and local environmental responses, Global Environmental Change 10 (2000) 245 - 257 Elsevier Science Ltd