Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
special products, the dissemination issue should be approached with
extra care.
Other parallels can be drawn: for instance the effects of low radia-
tion near nuclear power plants is one of those issues, as well as the slow
poisoning and health effects on human beings (especially on the fertility
rate) due to the heavy use of pesticides over the long run. One needs to
mention of course that in these two cases, experts disagree (which does
not mean that they deny the problems, but that they do not agree on the
magnitude of the consequences). Similarly experts disagree on the two
main issues regarding full-scale production of GM crops: the dissemina-
tion issue and the toxicity issue (we will return to this point in the second
section).
Moreover, as in more traditional high-risk industries, suspicion is so
high in parts of the world that as La Porte predicted years ago those
industries will in fact be subject to “never ending management.” La Porte
applied the term to the operations of nuclear waste facilities, where tons
of toxic radioactive waste has to be stored long-term, regardless of pos-
sible policy changes over time. Society has to be robust enough to actu-
ally ensure that such products will always be monitored in terms of com-
mitments that former generations made for future ones. Undoubtedly
GMOs have the potential to require the same treatment, institutional
care, and constancy (La Porte & Keller, 1996).
Complexity,TightCoupling,andFailure
If we take the “classic” definition of a high-hazard and complex sys-
tem, three characteristics emerge: high potential consequences, tight
functional coupling, and potentially rapid evolution of untoward events.
On these terms, by and large the production of GM crops appears to fit
with this definition.
In addition, according to Perrow's theory (1984, 1999), the more com-
plexity and tight coupling there is in a system, the more safety is in
danger. In fact, it is extremely interesting to benchmark GM production
