GM foods: the wrong debate
1 September 2008
Ministers’ calls for debate over whether GM foods will help feed the world are a red herring disguising a crisis at the heart of British science.
The UK’s research institutions and regulators are not set up to respond to public debate about what people need or want, and are hidebound by who holds the purse strings.
This clashes with a growing global consensus on how innovation for better food and farming should work.
In a direct challenge to ministers, the Food Ethics Council urges the government to have a genuinely open debate about the future of food and farming. The council challenges government to:
“We desperately need a fresh debate about how our food is produced. But we must make sure it isn’t just a narrow, dead-end discussion about one set of technologies. Until government has overhauled the research system, calling for another debate on GM foods is like a train driver asking passengers whereabouts they’d like to head.
“To devote our attention to GM, whether through accident or opportunism, is to ignore tough lessons from a decade of controversy.”
The autumn edition of the Food Ethics Council’s magazine GM foods: the wrong debate? lays the foundation for constructive dialogue that moves on from stagnant arguments for or against GM.
We take stock of ten years of study and deliberation around GM foods, looking at science, values and responsibilities, and public engagement as a new model of democracy. And we invite contributors to tell us how they’d solve some of the key problems GM technology is claimed to address.
We find that whether the challenge is beating hunger or boosting the economy, good governance and an ability to listen to different viewpoints are key.
Earlier this year the UK Government signed up to the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).
The IAASTD’s main message – supported by over sixty countries worldwide – is that the way the world grows its food will have to change radically to face the challenges of a growing population and climate change.
It finds that the incentives for science to address the issues that matter are weak, and that many OECD members have put barriers in place to stop the consideration of social and environmental needs when trying to meet agricultural production goals.
The IAASTD calls for institutional, economic and legal frameworks that combine productivity with the protection and conservation of natural resources.
As a signatory to the IAASTD, the UK government must put its own house in order to have any credibility in its efforts to help feed the world.
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Notes to editors:
1. The Food Ethics Council is the advisory body on food and farming that provides research, analysis and tools to help find ways through difficult and controversial issues, and builds tools to put ethics at the heart of decisions about food and farming.
2. Food Ethics magazine GM foods: the wrong debate? is published on Monday 1st September. To obtain a copy please contact liz@foodethicscouncil.org or tom@foodethicscouncil.org. Quotes highlighting key messages from contributors to the magazine are available as a separate document.
3. The report of the International Agriculture Assessment was approved on 15th April 2008 by 47 governments in Johannesburg. It calls for a fundamental change in the way we do farming, to better address soaring food prices, hunger, social inequalities and environmental disasters. More information on IAASTD can be found here http://www.agassessment.org/.
4. The Food Ethics Council has produced 5 reports that explore issues of GM technology:
Ministers’ calls for debate over whether GM foods will help feed the world are a red herring disguising a crisis at the heart of British science.
The UK’s research institutions and regulators are not set up to respond to public debate about what people need or want, and are hidebound by who holds the purse strings.
This clashes with a growing global consensus on how innovation for better food and farming should work.
In a direct challenge to ministers, the Food Ethics Council urges the government to have a genuinely open debate about the future of food and farming. The council challenges government to:
- Instigate reform of our research bodies, building open discussion on the needs of producers, consumers and the environment into the way research is commissioned; and
- Argue for the overhaul of European regulatory systems for GM foods, embedding public involvement in the process to ensure trust and transparency.
- Make a commitment to discuss all technologies - not just GM - in the debate on the future of British food and farming in a world of rising hunger and climate change.
“We desperately need a fresh debate about how our food is produced. But we must make sure it isn’t just a narrow, dead-end discussion about one set of technologies. Until government has overhauled the research system, calling for another debate on GM foods is like a train driver asking passengers whereabouts they’d like to head.
“To devote our attention to GM, whether through accident or opportunism, is to ignore tough lessons from a decade of controversy.”
The autumn edition of the Food Ethics Council’s magazine GM foods: the wrong debate? lays the foundation for constructive dialogue that moves on from stagnant arguments for or against GM.
We take stock of ten years of study and deliberation around GM foods, looking at science, values and responsibilities, and public engagement as a new model of democracy. And we invite contributors to tell us how they’d solve some of the key problems GM technology is claimed to address.
We find that whether the challenge is beating hunger or boosting the economy, good governance and an ability to listen to different viewpoints are key.
Earlier this year the UK Government signed up to the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD).
The IAASTD’s main message – supported by over sixty countries worldwide – is that the way the world grows its food will have to change radically to face the challenges of a growing population and climate change.
It finds that the incentives for science to address the issues that matter are weak, and that many OECD members have put barriers in place to stop the consideration of social and environmental needs when trying to meet agricultural production goals.
The IAASTD calls for institutional, economic and legal frameworks that combine productivity with the protection and conservation of natural resources.
As a signatory to the IAASTD, the UK government must put its own house in order to have any credibility in its efforts to help feed the world.
- ends -
Notes to editors:
1. The Food Ethics Council is the advisory body on food and farming that provides research, analysis and tools to help find ways through difficult and controversial issues, and builds tools to put ethics at the heart of decisions about food and farming.
2. Food Ethics magazine GM foods: the wrong debate? is published on Monday 1st September. To obtain a copy please contact liz@foodethicscouncil.org or tom@foodethicscouncil.org. Quotes highlighting key messages from contributors to the magazine are available as a separate document.
3. The report of the International Agriculture Assessment was approved on 15th April 2008 by 47 governments in Johannesburg. It calls for a fundamental change in the way we do farming, to better address soaring food prices, hunger, social inequalities and environmental disasters. More information on IAASTD can be found here http://www.agassessment.org/.
4. The Food Ethics Council has produced 5 reports that explore issues of GM technology:
- Getting Personal in 2005
- Just Knowledge in 2004
- Engineering Nutrition in 2003
- Trips with Everything in 2002
- Novel Foods in 1999
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