Internet Interlocution
- July 2003
This Opinion was featured in the July 2003 issue of the the Anglia Farmer and Contractor
The government-sponsored public debate over GM crops is now in full spate. It is largely being conducted over the internet and David Walker suspects that the way the medium is used by the two sides may be as interesting as the result.
For several months, and despite the flowering of oilseed rape crop - the annual call to arms for the eco mercenaries, the white overalls brigade appear to have been less active than usual. They may, of course, have been distracted by the more pressing business of demonstrating against the war in Iraq.
In fact, environmental activists have left the impression that they have changed tactics. In a European context, rather than opposing anything other than continuation of the informal moratorium on genetically modified crops, they have been lobbying for stricter conditions on commercialization, perhaps hoping to make this outcome impracticable.
That the British government is so keen on a debate at this stage is strange. The issue has been discussed in an informal manner for five years now and mere debate is unlikely to change many opinions. The government still sticks by a science based policy.
As to the influence of the debate, those who support the technology are only likely to change their minds, if scientific evidence comes to light that genetically modified crops are a danger to the environment or present a health hazard. Like wise those that oppose GM crops are only likely to be convinced of their benefit, if the developers of technology all go bankrupt and the receivers donate the patents to the organic movement.
Further it is apparent that it will be the British government that will ultimately adjudicates the debate. While it has gone to some length to create the perception of neutrality, the debate will be supervised by a GM Public Debate Steering Board, the chair of which is also chair of the government's Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission(AEBC). And the results of the debate will be reported to the Secretary of Sate for the Environment in September.
Whichever way the debate goes, the losers are unlikely to accept the result without reservation and it is unlikely to be a unifying experience. This must surely have been apparent when the government accepted the AEBC's advice on holding a national debate. The suggestion that the exercise is a way for the government to back off from its science based policy is hardly convincing, after the government failed to backdown in the face of far greater public opposition to the Iraq war.
The answer to the question as to why the government is sponsoring the debate may lie in the main medium of transmission, the internet. It is one which is familiar to both environmentalists and scientists. Most centre ground public opinion seems to have been influenced, however, by the popular press, mass media and the supermarket chains. And the eco mercenaries have certainly been more effective influencing public opinion through these medium than the scientific community.
It will be interesting to see whether the environmentalists will be able to develop a strategy for bringing these allies into an internet based debate. It is likely to create a greater challenge for them than, for instance, arm twisting a supermarket chain into printing an implicitly anti GM message on its shopping bags.
July 2003
top of page