Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 1.
Summary of Properties Across Industries
“Classic” High-Risk
Industry
Hospital
GM Crop Growing
Contested Technology
Consensual Technology
Contested Technology
High public scrutiny
Growing public scrutiny Growing public scrutiny
Risks are well
documented
Some uncertainties
remain
Partial uncertainty
remains
Uncertainty of the
hazards and risks
Operational errors can
be characterized
Operational errors exist
They are sometimes
difficult to trace
What is an operational
error?
Failure is unacceptable
Failure is acceptable
(less and less so)
Failure is unacceptable
Death is not expected
Death is possible
Death is not expected
Rather centralized
Rather decentralized
Rather decentralized
Highly regulated
Mildly regulated
Mildly regulated
(national differences)
Safety in design
Some safety in design
Some safety in plant
design
Systematic defense-
in-depth
No defense-in-depth
No defense-in-depth
(some is appearing for
molecular farming)
Physical containment
Not really applicable
Some physical
containment
No fortuitous buffers
Informal recovery of
errors
No fortuitous buffers
Incident Reporting
Systems exist
Incident Reporting
Systems exist more
and more
Absence of Incident
Reporting System
Standard Operating
Procedures for every
thing
Some Standard
Operating Procedures
Standard Operating
Procedures under
discussion
Safety centered
Duty of care centered
Safety is not an issue
Organizational and
Human Factors
important for safety
Organizational and
Human Factors
important for a safe
care
Organizational and
Human Factors so far
absent from the
picture
Safety culture a key
issue
Safety culture becoming
a key issue
No safety culture
