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Asked by ellie_russell to Andy, Cathie, Jules, Les, Ricarda on 27 Jun 2012.
Question: In some countries GM technology is used and there is very little opposition from the public. (Whether this is due to cultural differences or other reasons I'm not sure). What do you think?
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Andy Stirling answered on 27 Jun 2012:
It’s a good question, Ellie. I think the reasons differ quite radically from place to place around the world, for contrasting kinds and levels of support, fatalism, disinterest or opposition. And it is also more difficult than is often supposed, to know for sure what these public reactions actually really are ‘on the ground’ (or ‘in the home’).
All the ways in which various sides of the argument like to generalise about ‘public opposition’ are subject to misleading bias and deliberate pressure. Opinion poll results can depend strongly on which questions are asked and how they are framed. Consumer research is likewise often geared towards the particular ends favoured by sponsors. Even academic research is likewise circumscribed and directed in many kinds of invisible ways. Political representations are typically coloured by all kinds of other interests. Press coverage is often driven by editorial lines and advertiser interests. Purchasing patterns are driven by available information and options. This is not to denigrate the value of any of these ways of appreciating public perspectives. But it does mean we should always have a realistic eye as to the conditions under which any given picture was developed.
And – more generally – public perspectives can be expected to vary depending on general levels of knowledge and debate about the issues. Here it is pretty clear from in-depth opinion, interview and focus group methods around Europe, that the higher the general levels of self-identified knowledge about the issues in question – and also (for what it is worth) the higher the general levels of educational qualification, the greater the tendency to be sceptical about the arguments for GM.
Anyhow, as with any other political issue, lack of visibly explicit support or opposition should not be interpreted as necessarily reflecting its absence. It is often the case that people acquiesce to something they are unhappy with, not because of their ‘support’ or ‘trust’, but because of a sense of fatalism that the powerful interests associated with a development make it somehow inevitable.
So, when we are presented some unequivocal picture of some supposed public position in any given place on any particular issue, it is worth asking hard questions about who it is, that is presenting the picture this way? More generally, since both public perspectives and the various ways these are represented, are all subject to deliberate bias, it is also worth reflecting on which side of the argument commands the greatest resources to attempt to do this. In countries with well established industries in near-monopoly positions, the picture is pretty clear.
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Ricarda Steinbrecher answered on 27 Jun 2012:
I am not sure whether I am getting this question. The use of genetic engineering (genetic modification) methods and techniques could mean anything from cloning and multiplying an isolated gene within a bacterial system, to studying expression levels using different promoters and enhancers, to using gene constructs within contained laboratory settings to identify function or study interaction of genes for example under particular environmental stresses. I cannot recall public opposition to such use of GM technology in research in any country, as it’s advancing our knowledge and understanding.
If you were referring to environmental releases of genetically modified organisms (eg GM crops) or the import and marketing of genetically modified foods, then my experience from any of the countries I have been to is this: once the public knows and has access to data/information, then there is concern and opposition. This is true for the US as much as for India or the Philippines and for South Africa and Zambia as much as Mexico or Japan. Previously the US public had no information about the use of GM ingredients – now they are increasingly aware and there is growing opposition. Such opposition is not merely a kneejerk response to novelty, but is based on questions such as – what impacts might this have? Has anyone really done the necessary research? Why weren’t we told about it? How do they know it’s safe?
It seems to me therefore that we might actually be talking about the level of data and information available to people in different countries, and whether that data and information is easily accessible and understandable.
Before assuming that there’s little opposition from the public to GM foods, we need to consider what information is available to the public, and also to farmers growing the crops, for that matter. For example in the US, as pointed out in previous questions/answers, GM food isn’t labelled and there has up to recently been little knowledge among the public that they were even eating these foods. It may be easy to assume in this case that there is little opposition, whereas in fact there has been little awareness that GM foods exist or what they are, because no information was provided.
And as for farmers, often there is very little information available other than from GM crop developers/companies. Advisors and extension workers will frequently not add to this limited range of information and sales material. In India the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup) was advertised as being as safe as table salt. I guess we might all agree on the impact/effect of PR, advertising and whether media is reporting as a public service or not. For example, the introduction of GM cotton in India was accompanied by a wave of advertising claims and promises, not objective information. According to many reports and witnesses, the crop has failed in many areas and it is becoming clear that even farmers growing the crops were given no information about what they were buying or how the crop should be grown.
So I think that in order to answer this question, or rather to examine why there may seem to be little opposition to GM ingredients in food and agriculture, we have to look first at the levels of information available to the public and then at the level of favourable publicity the application may receive, both through direct advertising and indirectly through unbalanced media reporting. We also need to examine the attitude of the government in question and of particular ministers and the level of lobbying from those who stand to profit/gain from GM ingredients in food and GM crops in agriculture. This includes looking at what is sometimes called revolving doors: that is the recruitment of government members from GM biotech companies and vice versa. We need to do the same with proposals for GM insects, fish and farm animals as they arise.
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Julian Little answered on 29 Jun 2012:
Hi Ellie, I think it is worth remembering the history of this topic here in in Europe and comparing it with what was going on elsewhere in the world. If we go back to the late 1990s, food security in most places was simply not a problem. In Europe we had subsidies for farmers to make foodstuffs that did not have a market and we saw wine lakes and butter mountains – a crazy situation in which, for example the EU paid Italian vineyards to produce wine that was such a poor quality that the EU then had to pay any subsidy to convert it to vinegar or bioethanol. In an attempt to rectify the situation, several initiatives were born to reduce productivity of farms, including forcing farmers to take land out of production. Then along came seed companies with a new technology (GM) that would improve productivity and make it easier for farmers to produce more food at a lower price. Couple that with a number of food issues (BSE, Listeria, etc), and it is not surprising that in UK and the rest of Europe, politicians were not inclined to support the technology – indeed they were quite happy to introduce disabling legislation to at slow down its introduction. Hence the decision to overlay safety testing for GM, which was present wherever in the world that GM was being used, with a political dimmension which essentially blocked progress in this area. The whole concept of food security ever being a problem in Europe had disappeared with agriculture being seen as a problem rather than a solution provider, and even as recently as 2007, farmers were seen by many mainstream politicians as people who kept the countryside tidy.
Compare that with places such as North America and South America, which saw agriculture as a major growth industry, both for their internal market and for export, and counties such as South Africa, and China who saw an opportunity for a technology to help them feed an ever-increasing population. In both cases, they embraced the technology as being the next logical step in a breeding process that started when the Egyptians realised that they should save and plant the seed from the best looking plants rather than eating it. There were the appropriate safety tests done, and the technology was taken up readily by farmers who still see it as the best way to grow many of their major crops. Hence even though we now have 16 million farmers using the technology in 29 countries, the greater part of the area remains in North and South America.
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Les Firbank answered on 29 Jun 2012:
Ricarda says that when people are well informed, they become more anti-GM; I’ve heard pro-GM speakers say that when people become better informed about GM, they become more pro-GM! I guess it depends on the kind of information ….
I was involved in a lot of public meetings about GM about 10 years ago, and I found that when people became more informed, they became more thoughtful, more respectful of the range of opinions, and their opinions often became less strongly pro or strongly anti.
Comments
dingo commented on :
Which countries are being referred to here? Historically in the US there has been little opposition but that’s because GM foods are not labeled and the American public weren’t told they were eating GMOs. Now that’s all changed and GMO labelling initiatives have sprung up everywhere. In India, when GM cotton was rolled out, farmers were given hardly any information about the GM crops they were planting: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/15/india-gm-cotton-bayer
except for GM industry advertising, which later turned out to be misleading. India is now a hotbed of anti-GM activism. The fact that this is not reported in the Western media, does not mean it’s not happening.
petermelchett commented on :
I agree with Dingo – there are massive changes taking place in the US market for GM food – most significantly, a ballot in November in California over whether GM food should be labelled. This is supported by over 90% of the people of California, but so far efforts in 20 other US states to introduce the sort of labelling laws we have in Europe have been stopped by massive lobbying and expenditure by GM companies like Monsanto. So the answer to this question is, I think, that there is less opposition to GM only in countries where it is introduced into food or animal feed in secret. That was true in the UK in 1998, when 70% of our food had GM in it and it was not labelled. All that has gone, just as GM hormones in milk in America went when labelling started. The difficulty for the GM industry is that when you do away with secrecy, the market for GM food diappears in every country in the world. If we insisted on supermarkets labelling milk, eggs and meat that came from animals fed on GM, the use of GM animal feed would end! It is good to see the world’s second largest supermarket chain based in France ending the secrecy over GM animal feed – let’s hope the British supermarkets follow that lead.
dingo commented on :
A study in China showed, “When given both positive and negative information about potential GM food allergenicity, the willingness to buy dropped sharply.” The study also found that the more highly educated the person was, the more they were likely to think GM foods were not safe. http://www.agbioforum.org/v7n4/v7n4a02-ho.htm
So the process seems to be, the more people know about GMOs, the less they want to eat them.
Sandy commented on :
Here in the Food Standards Agency we have looked into people’s attitudes to emerging food technologies, including GM. A review of existing research found that there are many similarities across a range of new technologies. People’s attitudes are shaped not only by weighing up any available information about risks and benefits, but also by their general values and attitudes to science, health and food, and by cultural values. And as scientists we need to be aware that the research environment may not reflect the real world, so that people’s responses in the research situation may not reflect their true opinions and their stated preferences may not match their purchasing behaviour.
With this in mind, we have also funded a piece of research that looked specifically into people’s attitudes to GM food in more depth. Although public views are often described simply as pro-GM or anti-GM, this research identified 4 distinct sets of attitudes. While some people are “positive” or “negative” about GM food, a large proportion of the population – just over 50% in our research – don’t have a clear view and are either “undecided” (because they don’t have enough information) or “don’t hold a view” (because it is not an important or relevant issue for them).
Anyone who is interested to find out more can read the research reports at: http://www.food.gov.uk/science/socsci/ssres/crosscutss/emerge and http://www.food.gov.uk/science/socsci/ssres/foodsafetyss/gmfoodpublicattitudes
Another finding from our GM research is that people’s reaction to new information can be strongly influenced by their pre-existing views. People who already support or oppose GM tend to accept new information that backs up their existing viewpoint, while being sceptical about information that points in the opposite direction. Which may help explain why we see so much selective reporting (aka “cherry-picking”) of information to support one or other viewpoint. To make an objective scientific assessment of new technologies we need to take account of the totality of the evidence, rather than looking only for data that will back up an existing position.