Thought for Food

The Genetic Revolution:  Scientific Prospects and Public Perceptions.
by Bernard D. Davis (ed.),
Johns Hopkins University Press

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Beyond Mendel's Garden:  Biotechnology in the Service of World Agriculture
by Gabrielle J. Persley,
CAB International

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Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food
OECD

FIELD TRIALS of cotton that is genetically engineered to resist attack by cotton bollworms are in progress in Australia, with encouraging results.  Other Australian crops such as lupin, tomato, potato, eucalyptus, pine, fruit trees and ornamental flowers are all likely to be affected by gene technology in the foreseeable future.  Already in China there are extensive field trials of new disease-resistant crops, and in the United States genetically manipulated Flavr Savr tomatoes are about to reach the supermarkets.

These events are the start of an ongoing wave of technological change that started as fundamental genetics research.  The history of this technology can be traced back to the 1970s when innovative new research methods precipitated a major restructuring of experimental strategies that still continues to affect almost all basic biological research.  By the late 1980s this biotechnology revolution had moved from the pure research laboratories to practical medical diagnosis and therapy.  As the direct result of this surge in genetic innovation, hundreds of new diagnostic tools, new vaccines and new disease treatments are now coming through the long regulatory review process.

I have been searching for books that I can recommend to non-specialist readers needing to find out how gene technology may affect farming and food production.  The difficulty in this task lies less in the complexities of the science than in the vastly differing viewpoints and motivations of those who write on the topic.

When they write stories journalists search for a special angle, essentially a deliberate distortion.  When the new biotechnology is reported in the press it is almost always in terms of a purported breakthrough or a disaster.  Activist groups are similarly dependent on controversy and drama for their existence, and several are vocal in their criticism of gene technology.  Unfortunately, they tend to create mountains out of mole-hills, by relying on inaccurate information or an inadequate understanding of biology.  Scientists have a different problem:  their professional reputations rest on their ability to separate objective-evidence from speculative opinion.  It is no surprise, then, that they habitually defer judgment on issues that hinge on subjective opinion -- such as conjecture about second-order future consequences of new technology.  The result is a debilitating public silence on controversial matters when -- forthright and informed commentary is sorely needed.

The three recent books I have selected offer a way through this situation for the questioning student, the puzzled public servant or the concerned countryman.  All draw on the services of scholarly contributors, although none of the trio is overly technical.  Controversial social and public policy implications, generally left out of the discussion in science texts, are provided in a context of reasoned discussion, and in places they provide a lively and witty debate.

Of the three, The Genetic Revolution, edited by eminent American microbiologist Bernard Davis, certainly presents the most thought-provoking debate.  Of all its chapters (which include offerings by ecologists, a US Food a n d Drug Administration biotechnology regulator, a lawyer and several specialist scientists) the best two, as far as I am concerned, are the one by Aaron Wildavsky and another by Harvey Brooks and Rollin Johnson of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

WHAT IS NATURAL?

Wildavsky's ideas on the different ways nature is viewed -- "cornucopian", "fragile", "perverse" or "tolerant" -- provide an entertaining clue to the passionate differences of opinion the genetic engineering debate often elicits.  Wildavskyargues that the whole debate between proponents of "full speed ahead" with biotechnology and those who wish to delay it can be explained as a dispute over the definition of two terms, natural and unnatural.  "When adherents of a particular way of life convince others that it is the only natural way, so that its perceptions of how the world works become the way the world actually is, then they have won".  If this is so, then wider knowledge of how the transfer of genes between completely unrelated species has often occurred in nature, and of how the natural antics of "jumping genes" imitate the events of laboratory-based genetic engineering may well dispel some of the current unease with which laboratory genetics is regarded.

Beyond Mendel's Garden, as the title implies, concentrates on describing how new genetic methods are being used to improve crops.  The book is extremely useful for providing an understandable introduction to worldwide trends in this technology.  It provides more detailed background on actual agricultural research than The Genetic Revolution and gives special attention to discussing socio-economic issues relating to Third World development.  While it concisely analyses issues such as patenting of living organisms, the sophisticated public policy philosophy provided in Davis's book is missing.

For even more detailed surveys of both technology and socio-economic issues, the OECD reports on biotechnology are extremely useful reference volumes, providing an up-to-date bridge to the specialised technical literature.  Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food is a very recent volume in this series, specifically directed at the interested lay public and at policy-makers.  Among the issues addressed is the concern that biotechnology may have disruptive effects on Third World economies, due to the invention in First World countries of novel methods for production of commodities, such as pyrethrin.  This may promote local substitution for traditionally imported source materials.

The OECD report analyses in depth the global strategies of leading "agrofood" firms (Chapter V) and the economic impact of agricultural biotechnology (Chapter VIII).  It concludes that the alleged adverse effects on the Third World have been over-dramatised.  Positive effects, for example the probable direct benefit to Malaysia of novel palm oil technology, need to be taken into account.

These books convey the impressive range of effort going into securing our food and fibre supply for the next century, and an analysis of the problems that may be generated.  Although they do not provide immediate help for those seeking specific information on the eventual effects on the Australian rural scene, they provide an accurate global perspective that is necessary for evaluation of local implications over the coming decades.

A final summing up of public policy issues relating to genetic engineering is given by Brooks and Johnson in Bernard Davis's book.  They make constructive suggestions as to how debate on the topic can move forward.  We should, they suggest, separate concrete decisions from philosophical views of the world and technology, and try to focus on the former.  Specific decisions can thus be made to fit specific circumstances.  This seems pretty obvious really:  if we wait for a general consensus on philosophy and politics, the delays before transgenic crops reach the farm gate will be interminable.