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    THE BridgeNews FORUM: Viewpoints on genetically modified foods. 
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  * The Power Of Their Unholy Alliance Can Be Overcome 
    By Emphasizing The Humanitarian Potential Of Genetic Engineering 
  
  
    By David Walker, agricultural economist 
    Bridge News 
    NORWICH, England--The debate over genetically modified crops has reached 
a new level of complexity in Britain, as environmentalists exploit the 
sensitivity of food retailers to food-safety issues. 
  
    Lord Melchett of Greenpeace announced at the Oxford Farming Conference 
earlier this month that food retailer Tesco had advised its suppliers that it 
would not accept produce grown on land previously used for genetically 
modified crops. 
  
    While Tesco attempted to clarify what Melchett had said, a wide range of 
interpretations were made that will surely added to the general confusion 
surrounding the issue of biotechnology in Britain. 
  
    The incident illustrates the challenge of handling the issue and how an 
almost certainly false impression can be created by even the most experienced 
players. 
  
    Melchett, UK executive director of Greenpeace, is a hereditary peer and 
former Labor government minister for Northern Ireland. Tesco is the largest 
and most successful British food retailer. And the Oxford Farming Conference 
is probably the most respected gathering of its kind on the British 
agricultural calendar. 
  
    Genetically modified crops have, of course, been hot news for almost a 
year. Melchett, because of his background, was a high-profile speaker for the 
conference. He was involved in a Greenpeace attempt to trash a field trial of 
genetically modified maize in July, after which he was arrested and spent a 
night behind bars before being released on bail. For the Oxford Farming 
Conference he was undoubtedly a loose cannon on deck, but it would not have 
required a press gang to get him onto the podium. 
  
    Melchett, also a proponent and practitioner of organic food production, 
mostly stuck to his text on this topic. The Tesco tidbit was, however, too 
juicy an opportunity for him to miss in promoting the Greenpeace campaign 
against genetic engineering. 
  
    At some time, somebody somewhere must have raised the possibility that 
genetically modified material from one of the limited number of British 
field-scale trials of oilseed rape would enter the food chain through a crop 
produced on the same land in a subsequent year. The chance of this happening 
might be scientifically very remote and any concern over it in a food-safety 
context absurd. But, in the commercial world of food retailing, Tesco has to 
deal with perceptions. 
  
    Tesco's responsibility is, of course, to its shareholders. Market share 
is important to its bottom line. British food retailers know it is critical 
at this time to be squeaky-clean on the issue of genetically modified food. 
  
    Tesco talks to Greenpeace on a technical level and it was through this 
relationship that Melchett got his information. 
  
    Although Melchett seems not to have gotten the story quite right and the 
forum was almost certainly not of Tesco's choosing, it was not entirely bad 
news for Tesco. But once this most political of footballs had been fumbled, 
it bounced erratically and the broken-play scrimmage that followed was not 
helped by the varied objectives of the players or, indeed, of the spectators. 
  
    Tesco's interest was in getting the story right for its suppliers, who 
had not been formally told of Tesco's new policy. 
  
    Tesco's ban on supplies of food grown on land previously used for field 
trials of genetically modified crops was to be for one year, not 
indefinitely, as implied by Melchett. But Tesco probably did not want to make 
too much of this clarification, because it would have detracted from the 
positive impact of the leak. 
  
    It was probably a minor concern for Tesco that its market-related, rather 
than scientifically based, policy is at variance with the British 
government's stance on genetically modified food. 
  
    Tesco has been reported as admitting that there was no scientific basis 
for its ban. Almost as certainly, there was no short-run economic impact. It 
is most unlikely that any of the limited numbered of field-scale trials in 
Britain is being conducted on land favored for fruit and vegetable production 
next year. 
  
    It is, however, well within the realm of possibility than many consumers 
have been left with the impression that growing a genetically modified crop 
can somehow result in permanent pollution of the soil on which it was grown. 
  
    More critically, this turn of events illustrates the role that retail 
interests play in the controversy. 
  
    Because consumer perceptions are almost certainly fed by the behavior of 
food retailers, opposition to genetic engineering on food-safety grounds will 
not easily be overcome. Activists who seem mainly concerned about the 
environmental aspects of the issue are not likely to be shy about exploiting 
this food-safety aspect. 
  
    This unholy alliance of environmentalists and food retailers is likely to 
be broken only if an emotional issue can be brought in to rescue science. 
  
    The most likely candidate is the humanitarian one -- the benefit of 
genetic engineering to the developing world. Much of the activist motivation 
against genetic engineering appears to stem from knee-jerk reaction to 
American capitalist domination. With this cause removed, opposition might be 
more rational and science more telling.   End 
  
    DAVID WALKER, an agricultural economist, lives on his family's farm 
outside Norwich, England. He recently served as senior economist in London 
for the Home-Grown Cereals Authority and previously was executive director of 
the Alberta Grain Commission in Canada. His views are not necessarily those 
of Bridge News, whose ventures include the Internet site http://www.bridge.com/. 
  
    OPINION ARTICLES and letters to the editor are welcome. Send submissions 
to Sally Heinemann, editorial director, Bridge News, 3 World Financial 
Center, 200 Vesey St., 28th Floor, New York, N.Y. 10281-1009. You may also 
call (212) 372-7510, fax (212) 372-2707 or send e-mail to opinion@bridge.com. 
  
    EDITORS: A color photo of the author is available from KRT Photo Service. 
  
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