Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
In the context of GMOs, the little we know points toward a model of
farmers, knowledgeable but dependent upon the companies that develop
and sell the seeds. Therefore, farmers growing GM crops are more like
company employees than independent producers. In this context, the
question of the management and the organizational factors involved in
their daily agricultural practices should be of keen interest to safety sci-
ence practitioners. This is a critical problem because the large and pow-
erful corporations that are producing GMOs dictate the growing of GM
crops, farming sites and practices, and essentially determine the fate of
conventional farming and the environment.
The social science literature reflects this inclination to neglect the
safety issue: it produced a vast body of studies on expertise and experts
in the early days of genetic engineering, while GM crops were still a
R&D issue. Some studies shed light on the intricacies of decision making
within various expert committees in the beginnings of genetic engineer-
ing (Roy, 2001). Others have focused on expert discourse and misun-
derstanding of public perceptions (Wynne, 2001), while the organization
of public debates and the level of public acceptance of GMOs have also
been a recurrent topic for scholars (Joly et al., 2000). Not surprisingly, the
interest in public perceptions of agricultural biotechnologies in Europe
has been fuelled by the controversy over GMOs itself in Europe (PABE
report, 2002; Gaskell et al., 1999).
Naturally the application and applicability of the so-called “precau-
tionary principle” has been the meatiest part of this discussion (Godard,
1997; Bourg, 2001). The precautionary principle is a moral and political
principle according to which if an action, policy, or product might cause
severe or irreversible harm to the public or to the environment, in the
absence of scientific consensus on the uncertainties of risks involved, the
burden of proof rests on those who advocate taking the action, adopting
the policy, or marketing the product. In European law, the precaution-
ary principle has the status of a compulsory general principle, yet it is
actually not as mandatory as it sounds.
