The politics and science of GM crops

On 30 March 2004, Bayer CropScience announced that it was not proceeding with the commercial planting of herbicide-tolerant genetically modified (GM) maize, which it had pioneered five years earlier. The company said that the decision was a commercial one, based on the anticipation of continued regulatory delays and potential uncertainty over the planting of GM crops in the United Kingdom. The market has, for the foreseeable future, determined the fate of a new technology.

Bayer's decision came only three weeks after Margaret, U.K. Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, announced that the U.K. government was willing to register this particular variant of GM corn as the one and only genetically modified crop in the country. Beckett's decision was the culmination of an extraordinary period of scientific policy convulsion over the future of GM agrotechnology in the United Kingdom. Previously, in 1999, the biotechnology industry and the European Union had agreed to a voluntary ban on the growing of any GM crops for a period of five years. The delay was designed to allow European governments to gauge public opinion, to conduct scientific experiments on the possible ecological consequences of planting herbicide-resistant strains of various crops, and to apply the precautionary principle. In the European Union, the precautionary principle is a legal device that demands delay and careful scientific assessment where there is doubt over potentially long-term, serious ecological and toxicological risks from any new policy or course of action.

To test the ecological consequences of such herbicide-resistant crops, the U.K. Office of Science and Technology, backed by the Royal Society (the independent scientific academy of the United Kingdom), suggested a three-year period of farm-scale trials of genetically modified rapeseed oil (canola), sugar beet, and corn. This action was prompted by the official governmental wildlife advisory body, English Nature, which formally applied the precautionary principle.

The results of the farm-scale trials, many of which were bedeviled by crop invasions by activists and faulty field experiment techniques, showed that the particularly virulent herbicides that the GM varieties of crops were designed to tolerate did have significant adverse effects on wildlife. (The aim of such technology is to allow for the removal of weedy species by chemical "scorching," creating optimal growing conditions for the herbicide-resistant crops.) Because of the application of the science-based precautionary principle, these crops are unlikely to be grown throughout Europe.

In addition to field tests, the U.K. government established a unique public debate on the issue of GM agrotechnology. This consisted of a series of deliberative focus groups, a suite of public meetings, and further thoughtful reflection by a carefully sampled cross section of citizens. The results showed that a near majority of the public involved was ambivalent; that is, they could see both dangers and possible benefits but were hesitant to commit themselves in favor of the technology given the information available to them. The outcome was a request for the highest of regulatory standards and continual field monitoring of any introduced crop. The U.K. government added that the plant breeders must pay for a liability fund in the event of any damage to nearby, especially organic, crops.

These conditions--in addition to the fact that there was no guarantee Scotland and Wales would allow any planting, even though they have no constitutional powers to ban--caused Bayer CropScience to withdraw.

This story reveals the deep ambivalence within the public over the introduction of technology that appeared to have no obvious benefit to the consumer. And it indicates that participatory and precautionary science, at least for GM agrotechnology, is alive and well in the United Kingdom.

1. This principle is called into play when a "competent authority" (in EU language) calls for it with credible evidence to support its position.

2. T. Horlick-Jones et al., A Deliberative Future? An Independent Evaluation of the GM Nation? Public Debate about the Possible Commercialization of Transgenic Crops in Britain 2003, Programme on Understanding Risk Working Paper 04-02 (Norwich, UK: School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich).