Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
management surveys) are recurrent topics in safety science (Hale, 2006).
Thus, another goal of this chapter is to further extend the reach of safety
science to GM farming.
“Classical” agriculture has rarely involved safety experts except for
accidental explosions of silos or batches of fertilizers on sites, or misuse
of pesticides. A quick search of recent
Safety Science'
s journal abstracts
from 1992 to 2008 supports this observation. A few exceptions are never-
theless worth mentioning (Morgaine, Langley, & Mc Gee, 2006; Thelin,
2002). On the contrary, food safety has always been a concern. Historians
kindly and sometimes ironically warn us against the declared newness of
such topics, recalling for example recurrent episodes of worries about
the quality of bread throughout the past centuries (Ferri eres, 2002; 2005;
Kaplan, 1996). Similarly, although GM agriculture raises many concerns
and fears, it has not been addressed by safety science experts. Indeed,
as this volume demonstrates, GM farming adds new safety issues such
as the inadvertent contamination of conventional crops, impacts on the
environment, sustainability, as well as new food safety issues.
It is therefore quite remarkable that safety science has not been
brought to bear upon the daily operations of GM farms, for example,
as if genetic engineering, once outside the labs, were operator free. As
if there were no need to study current practices of “first-line actors”
as they are called in other industrial settings, namely the farmers, dis-
tributors, and food processors. Indeed, there is a need to consider said
practices and their safety implications. There are some exceptions, when
we turn to the economic literature for example. Economists are con-
cerned with choices. Therefore, some papers offer an analysis of the sig-
nificant variables that affect the use of GM products by specific farmers
(Darr & Chern, 2002). In this volume, Menrad, Hirzinger, and Reitmeier
also introduce us to the world of farmers through the lens of agricultural
economists, when evaluating costs for farmers of the measures they must
take to ensure coexistence between GM fields and non-GM fields (con-
ventional or organic).
