My 10 fears for GM food

[Guest guest]

My 10 fears for GM food " ,

Jan 15, 2004 12:30 PST

 

Above: Charles's Duchy Original sausages do not contain any

genetically-modified ingredients. But then, neither do most other

sausages on sale in the UK.

HRH the Prince of Wales, who is Royal Patron of the organic farming

group, the Soil Association, has repeatedly expressed his doubts

about

the wisdom of growing GM crops and the safety of foods made from

them.

 

http://www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/NCBE/GMFOOD/charles.html

 

In an article attributed to the Prince, entitled

" My 10 fears for GM food " ,

ten questions were posed to readers of the Daily Mail

on 1 June, 1999.

 

A fortnight later, Professor Derek Burke responded to Charles's

questions in The Daily Telegraph.

 

 

 

 

My 10 Fears for GM food

 

At the end of last year I set up a discussion forum on my website on

the

question of GMOs. I wanted to encourage wider public debate about

what I

see as a fundamental issue and one which affects each and every one

of

us, and future generations.

 

There was a huge response - some 10,000 replies have indicated that

public concern about the use of GM technology has been growing. Many

food producers and retailers have clearly felt the same overwhelming

anxiety from their consumers who are demanding a choice in what they

eat. A number of them have now banned GM ingredients from their

own-brand products.

 

But the debate continues to rage. Not a day goes by without some new

piece of research claiming to demonstrate either the safety or the

risks

of GM technology. It is very hard for people to know just who is

right.

Few of us are able to interpret all the scientific information which

is

available - and even the experts don't always agree. But what I

believe

the public's reaction shows is that instinctively we are nervous

about

tampering with Nature when we can't be sure that we know enough

about

all the consequences.

 

Having followed this debate very closely for some while now, I

believe

that there are still a number of unanswered questions which need to

be

asked.

 

 

 

1. Do we need GM food in this country?

 

On the basis of what we have seen so far, we don't appear to need it

at

all. The benefits, such as there are, seem to be limited to the

people

who own the technology and the people who farm on an industrialised

scale. We are consistently told that this technology may have huge

benefits for the future. Well, perhaps. But we have all heard claims

like that before and they don't always come true in the long run -

look

at the case of antibiotic growth promoters in animal feedstuff ...

 

2. Is GM food safe for us to eat?

 

There is certainly no evidence to the contrary. But how much

evidence do

we have? Are we looking at the right things? The major decisions

about

what can be grown and what can be sold are taken on the basis of

what is

known about the original plant, comparing it to the genetically

modified

variety, then deciding whether the two are 'substantially

equivalent'.

But is it enough to look only at what is already known? Isn't there

at

least a possibility that the new crops (particularly those that have

been made resistant to antibiotics) will behave in unexpected ways,

producing toxic or allergic reactions? Only independent scientific

research, over a long period, can provide the answer.

 

3. Why are the rules for approving GM foods so much less stringent

than

those for new medicines produced using the same technology?

 

Before drugs are released into the marketplace they have to undergo

the

most rigorous testing - and quite right too. But GM food is also

designed in a laboratory for human consumption, albeit in different

circumstances. Surely it is equally important that we are confident

that

they will do us no harm?

 

4. How much do we really know about the environmental consequences

of GM

crops?

 

Laboratory tests showing that pollen from GM maize in the United

States

caused damage to caterpillars of the monarch butterfly provide the

latest cause for concern. If GM plants can do this to butterflies,

what

damage might they cause to other species? But more alarmingly

perhaps,

this GM maize is not under test. It is already being grown

commercially

throughout large areas of the United States of America. Surely this

effect, which should have been discovered by the company producing

the

seeds, or the regulatory authorities who approved them for sale, at

a

much earlier stage? Indeed, how much more are we going to learn the

hard

way about the impact of GM crops on the environment?

 

5. Is it sensible to plant test crops without strict regulations in

place?

 

Such crops are being planted in this country now - under a voluntary

code of practice. But English Nature, the Government's official

adviser

on nature conservation, has argued that we ought to put strict,

enforceable regulations in place first. Even then, will it really be

possible to prevent contamination of nearby wildlife or crops,

whether

organic or not? Since bees and the wind don't obey any sort of

rules -

voluntary or statutory - we shall soon have an unprecedented and

unethical situation in which one farmer's crops will contaminate

another's against his will.

 

6. How will consumers be able to exercise genuine choice?

 

Labelling schemes clearly have a role to play. But if conventional

and

organic crops can become contaminated by those grown nearby, those

people who wish to be sure that they are eating or growing

absolutely

natural, non-industrialised, real food, will be denied that choice.

This

seems to me to be wrong.

 

7. If something goes wrong with a GM crop, who will be held

responsible?

 

 

It is important that we know precisely who is going to be legally

liable

to pay for any damage - whether it be to human health, the

environment,

or both. Will it be the company who sells the seed or the farmer who

grows it? Or will it, as was the case with BSE, be all of us?

 

8. Are GM crops really the only way to feed the world's growing

population?

 

This argument sound suspiciously like emotional blackmail to me. Is

there any serious academic research to substantiate such a sweeping

statement? The countries which might be expected to benefit

certainly

take a different view. Representatives of 20 African sates,

including

Ethiopia, have published a statement denying that gene technologies

'will help farmers to produce the food that is needed in the 21st

century'. On the contrary, they 'think it will destroy the

diversity,

the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems ... and

undermine our capacity to feed ourselves'. How much more could we

achieve if all the research funds currently devoted to fashionable

GM

techniques - which run into billions of dollars a year - were

applied to

improving methods of agriculture which have stood the test of time?

We

already know that yields from many traditional farming systems can

be

doubled, at least, by making better use of existing natural

resources.

 

9. What effect will GM crops have on the people of the world's

poorest

countries?

 

Christian Aid has just published a devastating report, entitled

Selling

Suicide, explaining why GM crops are unlikely to provide solutions

to

the problems of famine and poverty. Where people are starving, lack

of

food is rarely the underlying cause. It is more likely to be a lack

of

money to buy food, distribution problems or political difficulties.

The

need is to create sustainable livelihoods for everyone. Will GM

crops

really do anything to help? Or will they make the problems worse,

leading to increasingly industrialised forms of agriculture, with

larger

farms, crops grown for export while indigenous populations starve,

and

more displaced farm workers heading for a miserable, degraded

existence

in yet more shanty towns?

 

10. What sort of world do we want to live in?

 

This is the biggest question of all. I raise it because the capacity

of

GM technology to change our world has brought us to a crossroads of

fundamental importance. Are we going to allow the industrialisation

of

Life itself, redesigning the natural world for the sake of

convenience

and embarking on an Orwellian future? And, if we do, will there

eventually be a price to pay? Or should we be adopting a gentler,

more

considered approach, seeking always to work with the grain of Nature

in

making better, more sustainable use of what we have, for the long-

term

benefit of mankind as a whole? the answer is important. It will

affect

far more than the food we eat; it will determine the sort of world

we,

and our children, inhabit.

 

http://www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/NCBE/GMFOOD/charles.html

 

National Centre for Biotechnology Education, 2004 |

www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk