Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The differences between Europe and the United States have also
been of interest to scholars notably focusing on distinctive ways of reg-
ulating biotechnological innovations, such as GMOs across the Atlantic
(See Baram's chapter in this volume [Chapter 2], Gaudilli ere & Joly,
2006). More recently, scholars have also explored the changing charac-
teristics of food safety regulation in Europe (Ansell & Vogel, 2006) fol-
lowing food crises like BSE, beef hormones, or dioxin in poultry. Ansell
and colleagues, for example, linked the GMO controversy to a long list of
earlier crises, which paved the way for a strong and lasting mobilization
in Europe. As Ansell puts it: “ ...themadcowcrisiscreatedanopportu-
nity structure particularly conducive for the mobilization of anti-GMO
demands” (2006:335).
However, industrial-scale agribusinesses cover vast territories in
many countries; that fact calls for a different focus. It especially requires
fieldwork studies at the production sites, which would enable experts
to seriously discuss current farming practices, hence related quality and
safety practices. There are such studies, to the extent that they address
the complex evaluation of the costs of coexistence measures. Depending
on the agreed-upon threshold (0.9% or 5% of traces of GM products in
non-GM products), various scenarios are provided to farmers to assess
the overall costs of cultivating GM products (see Chapters 2 and 6). Yet,
the primary focus is not safety but economics at this stage, as it appears
that costs of such measures are quite significant for European farmers.
A similar neglect for human and organizational factors and risks
induced by medical practice was common only ten years ago in medicine.
The report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System , published
by the American Institute of Medicine in 1999, brought to light a gloomy
picture that ended such a lack of interest. 1 The current catching up of the
medical field and its dedication to improving both procedures (importing
for example checklists from the aviation industry like Peter Pronovost's
1 The report established, in particular, that more people are dying in the United States,
in a given year, as a result of medical errors, than from motor vehicle accidents, breast
cancer, or AIDS.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search