By Daniel Nelson


Attempts to introduce genetically modified foods had been ?cack-handed?
because proponents failed to understand that the issue was not technology
but food culture, according to Timothy Lang, professor of food policy at
London?s City University.


Opening a small exhibit, Future Foods ? An exhibition debating genetic
modification, at the Science Museum in London this week, he said that though
he was neutral on the issue of GM, he was highly critical of the way it had
been introduced.

It was not a technical fix, he emphasised: GM technology might be useful ?in
some issues, in some places? but it could not fix all the food policy
problems of the 21st century. For this reason, ?I seriously urge those who
are gung-ho about it to back off.

?It has done nothing to address issues of social inequality. And it cannot
do so ? it?s a technology, for goodness sake,? he commented.

Although some saw the public controversy over GM as Luddism versus neutral
technology, he viewed it ?as a really valuable illustration of democracy ?
that is, live debate about what we put in our mouths.?

Controversy had been a timely reminder that ?you can do anything you like to
food but it is people who ultimately eat it ? There is nothing like changing
people?s diets to either institute a food riot or institute political
problems.?

Lang said that GM technology, like everything else, had to be assessed
through the lens of sustainable development. The evidence so far was that no
harm has been shown from ingestion, but genetic pollution was an issue: many
patent specialists were deeply troubled by ownership of the basis of life ?
genes.

?The technical potential [of GM] has been distorted over how it has been
introduced and who owns it. It is a classic case of the ownership of the
technology rather than the technology.?

Lang advocated public ownership of GM and more public investment in
understanding the ecological and genetic basis of food.

?I believe food democracy is more important than food control and the
problem with GM was that it was introduced within the ethos of food control,
not food democracy.?

Dr Emile Frison, director of Biodiversity International, Italy, emphasised
that even if genetically modified technology did not produce food on the
plate, it was a powerful research tool. He cited GM?s crucial role in
tackling new banana diseases in east Africa.

Like Lang, he criticised the decline in public sector agricultural
investment, pointing out that all the east African banana research had been
carried out in the public sector, funded by the Uganda government.

Earlier this year, he noted, heads of state had pledged to double investment
in agricultural research: the question was, What kinds of research?

Traditionally, research had been focussed on yields, to the relative neglect
of issues such as nutrition and sustainability. Farmers spread risk by
growing different crops, he said, a model that modern agriculture had
replaced with monoculture.

Another modern impact was the increase in obesity ? ?and rapid increases in
diseases of affluence even in the poorest countries?.

There had also been too much investment in energy-rich, nutrient-poor foods:
?We must revisit our model, and assess GM?s role in it.?
www.checkbiotech.org