Genetically modified (GM) food provokes skirmishes all over the world, but the main battle is between America, which champions the stuff, and the European Union, which resists it. Proponents of GM crops say they are sage, good for the environment and may provide cheaper and better food. Opponents say GM is unnatural, dangerous and unnecessary.
It is perhaps little wonder that Europeans, remembering such recent scares as mad-cow disease, have balked at the prospect of eating or growing GM food. Americans argue that this nervousness is scientifically unjustified and serves European political-and farm-interests nicely by keeping out competition. Hence America’s willingness to arraign the Europeans before the World "grade Organization unless the EU lifts its five-year moratorium on new GM varieties.
When it comes to the science. American is right. As yet another (British) panel concluded this week, there is no evidence that GM crops now in commercial cultivation are more dangerous to human health than conventional food. So there is no reason why Europeans should not eat the GM food that Americans already consume by the siloful, nor why their governments should obstruct GM imports.
As for growing GM crops, experience outside Europe suggests that they are no worse for the environment than normal farming, and can be better. But this is not to say that GM crops will be benign everywhere. Farming is not like medicine, with a biotech drug that cures in Peoria having the same effect in Paris. Introducing GM crops into Europe justifies rigorous testing to see how they affect local conditions. Such uncertainties are best dealt with by more research, not blanket rejection.
If this research confirms that GM crops have no more detrimental environmental effects than conventional farming, they should be approved for commercial use. Thanks to scaremongering by green lobbyists and organic farmers, and much media frenzy, most European shoppers will probably remain mistrustful. But there has been some shift in opinion: hostility to GM food seems to be abating. That hostility will fall away faster should some GM food prove to be cheaper than non-GM food, which may yet happen.
One reason for this is that, later this year, Europe will introduce a needlessly elaborate new scheme of labelling and tracking GM foods right through the food chain, which is meant to give consumers more choice by alerting them to GM products. America criticizes the new labels partly because they single out "GM-derived" ingredients, such as oils and sugars, which are so refined as to lack any biological trace of genetic modification, and partly because the traceability requirements will be onerous. Yet America itself is working on tracking regulations to identify the provenance of ingredients and stem the risk of terrorist attack on its food supply. Labelling in principle is fine, where consumers demand it, as in Europe-but the schemes do need to be well-designed.
Europe’s farmers could benefit from some GM crops, but such gains pale by comparison with the handouts they get from the Common Agricultural Policy. As for consumers, so far GM crops have made little difference to the quality or cost of the goods in the supermarkets. The new labeling scheme may change that, by making it more costly to source wholly non-GM products. As GM technology develops, continued European rejection of GM could mean it loses out on future crops that might benefit its landscape, and boost its farm and science industries.
The irony of the battle over GM food is that so much passion is being wasted on such mundane fruits of modern science. Today’s GM crops are of modest advantage and risk. It is naive to argue that GM food will eradicate world hunger. Rural poverty in the developing world is a complex problem: poor farmers need better roads, and more liberal farm policies in the rich countries, as much as they need GM crops.
Instead, the value of GM technology lies more in its promise, not its present. Even if the future harvest of hardier crops and healthier foods does not materialize from the lab, the battle over GM food will have been useful. Without it, the old ways of food regulation, farm testing, commodity handling and pub. lie consultation would not have been shaken up and hauled into the 21st century. GM crops have served as seeds of change, whether or not they reap the eventuat rewards.