GM: good news and bad news.

Genetic modification (GM) of crops is an issue that stirs up deep feelings in many people. That scientists are now able to modify with exquisite precision the genetic material underlying our food is a fact that seems to generate fear in many. Yet the history of agriculture, and so of humanity, is one of our often haphazard manipulation of wild species.  


Since the first deliberate planting of wild plants we have selected those traits that are pleasing or useful to us and discarded those that are not, by the by.  Civilisation's existence is entirely dependent upon this capacity to manipulate our environment.  If our ancestors had never done so, we would still be hunting and gathering. To deny this seems perverse; to object to it more perverse still. The successive differences between the technologies we have employed over the millennia: first noticing and choosing 'good' variants, through deliberate selective breeding, marker-based selection, leading now to the direct insertion of genetic material that enhances crop traits, are only differences of degree. It is ironic that the precision and accuracy of genetic manipulation is less likely to produce unwanted and unintended consequences for the resulting plant, than are the traditional methods that GM's opponents consider somehow more 'safe'.  Nature's experimentation is wilder still.

You need only read the comments made by readers to Professor David Baulcombe's recent article in The Guardian, or any other similar opinion piece on that website to see how politically polarised the issue has become in the UK and Europe. This is a shame, for many reasons. There is a serious, objective case that GM may be one of a very few technologies that can offer substantial hope for food security worldwide, and particularly in developing nations (there are other issues, including the very nature of industrial agriculture, but I'm not focusing on those, here). The world's population is expected to approach 9bn, an increase of 2.6bn (40% of the current global population), by 2050. Almost all of this growth will take place in developing nations. Those developing nations are exactly the people that are most likely to have a high proportion of subsistence farming, and to be experiencing relatively greater pressures on their agricultural land as demand for food, and for urban and suburban development increases with population. They are the nations that could benefit most from a positive contribution of GM. This benefit would be very real, possibly meaning the difference between being able, and not being able, to feed millions and maybe billions of individuals.

Perhaps the greatest shame in the UK is that the debate we should be having about how best to develop and apply this technology for the good of ourselves and others has been confused and subverted, particularly by the media.  It has become a debate about whether GM is 'moral', or 'good'. It may become impossible to have an objective, balanced public discussion of the issues, if the arguments become too firmly entrenched in ideology. As Prof. Baulcombe points out in his article, the perception that GM technology is but a tool for monopolistic agribusiness has tainted the public debate, and enabled lobbyists to create a situation in the UK in which only large, monopolistic agribusiness is realistically able to carry out this research.  This may not be the best possible situation.  Small companies, government and academic research departments - regardless of quality or insight - have been unable or unwilling to contribute to this research, either due to the resulting restrictive legislation, or vandalism of research sites.

Opening up the public debate will require an informed populace.  That means education, and specifically scientific education. Unfortunately, recent budget cuts to science and education of £600m in the UK (less than 1% of the UK government's bank bail-out, but slightly more than is expected to be raised by a new tax on bankers' bonuses) seem to imply that investing in this education is not a priority for the government. Several recent mergers and closures of agricultural research sites in the UK do not bode well for essential capacity in this area, either. How will the situation change if we undervalue science education, and reduce the nation's ability to carry out the relevant research?

Adding to the worry about a public debate is that even those people with experience and influence in the area are prone to mistakes of reasoning when it comes to GM. In a recent letter to The Guardian, Professor J.T. Winkler, Director of the Nutrition Policy Unit at London Metropolitan University asserts that there are...

two basic types of GM. Agronomic GM seeks to improve the growing properties of the plant, for example making it weed- or pest-resistant. Nutritional GM seeks to improve the nutrient profile of the plant.

This is misleading in two ways. Firstly Prof. Winkler argues that GM crops are to be distinguished as 'agronomic' or 'nutritional' in terms of the kind of end use they see; i.e. whether the intention is to improve nutrition, or whether it is to improve the growing properties. This is a teleological argument that does not really distinguish between types of GM technology (e.g. gene silencing, the inclusion of genes from other strains of the same organism, or transgenics), but only its applications. The same GM technology can be used to either end: the inclusion of a set of genes in rice may be intended to improve drought-resistance ('agronomic'), or to enhance vitamin A production ('nutritional'). Any risks derive from the exact nature of the technology and its application, not the intention behind the application. If we are sensibly to discuss the risks, we cannot simply rely on distinguishing good intentions from bad.

Secondly, Prof. Winkler appears to believe that increasing the nutritional value of a single plant is 'better' than increasing the number of plants that can be grown. He is right to point out that what he calls 'nutritional GM' can be of benefit to millions of the world's poorest people, but he is remiss in not noting that simply growing enough food is a problem for many of the same people. That problem is not going to go away and is, as pointed out above, likely to become more significant for many more people.

That the government might rely on expert advice seems to be out of the question.  So, if even the head of a university policy unit gets these issues confused, what hope do the rest of us have in a public debate?