Cultural Politics of Food Safety - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 568

continued to flourish and gained considerable popularity, and a growing number of
local communities—regions, departments, cities, and towns—declared themselves
“GMO-free,” even without legal authority to enforce it. R&D has diminished, and labels
for GMOs have been hardly found in French food despite the strict criteria. In 2008 a
biotechnology law was passed to create a new independent body, the High Council of
Biotechnologies, to work with the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA) and oversee not
only environmental and public health aspects of GMOs, but also economic, social, and
ethical ones. Only one type of GMO—MON810, Monsanto's pest-resistant corn—was
cultivated on a small scale, but since 2008 the French government has banned its culti-
vation for concerns about uncertain ecological risks.
Summary
In France, the contentiousness of GM food politics was aided by, but not reducible to,
the context of post-BSE consumer awareness. The environmental and ecological con-
cerns, both in opposition movements and in government, initially politicized the issue
of GM food in general, and this significantly facilitated, and was facilitated by, the rise of
food safety aspects. In a short period between the late 1990s and early 2000s, concerns
extended beyond scientific risk assessment to encompass larger societal questions such
as democratic decision-making, globalization, and French culture and identity. As these
multiple problem framings augmented each other, GM food became a highly salient
issue, both in public discourses and policy debates.
Food safety—or consumption risks—constituted only one of the key issues surround-
ing GM food, albeit an important one. Larger issues of GMOs as a mode of produc-
tion and as a societal program came to figure prominently, strengthening “GM food”
as a salient category. Food safety concerns became merged with issues beyond scien-
tific assessment of risk, such as democracy and national identity. The increasing gen-
eral stigma and political salience contributed to an official turn to highly conservative
approaches to consumption risks, as well as other aspects of agricultural biotechnology,
including ecological risks and social consequences.
Japan
Japan also initially developed a liberal regulatory framework for agricultural biotech-
nology, coupled with active efforts to promote it as a key industrial domain. The govern-
ment long maintained a position that approved GM crops should be treated the same
way as conventional crops. In the late 1990s, as in France, this paradigm faced a consid-
erable challenge from an emerging opposition. The central opposition actors in Japan
were consumer groups, and the Japanese debate on GM food consistently focused on
food safety. The opposition mobilized consumer concerns about safety, and effectively