The Political Economy of Regulation of Biotechnology in Agriculture - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 682

do to achieve a desired result was to abstain from intervening and to leave the activ-
ists unchallenged in forming the public's opinions and risk perceptions of biotechnol-
ogy. The convergence of these multiple interests then had a significant influence on the
decisions of European regulators, effectively allowing the approval of new biotech crops
to come to a halt in 1998, withholding certain forms of patent protection from biotech
crops, underfunding public research in plant biotechnology, and introducing labeling
requirements that impose supply chain costs and further stigmatize the technology in
the eyes of consumers.
Conclusion
Agbiotechnology is a disruptive innovation; it has triggered a cycle of “creative
destruction” in agriculture and related sectors. It has also modified the perceived rela-
tionship between humans and nature, triggering suspicion and fear. Both “creative
destruction” and fear evoked political forces, causing the future of the technology, to
a large extent, to be determined in the political arena. Political responses reflected of
the impact of the anticipated changes caused by the technology on different groups
in different countries. Economists tend to analyze how technologies affect different
sectors, but differences of impact on various groups within sectors resulted in dif-
ferent regulation across countries. The “creative destruction” enabled by agricultural
biotechnology was apparent in the agricultural input sector. Although small start-ups
and large life-science companies, like Monsanto, which tend to be American, stood
to gain from the technology, producers of chemical pesticides, many of which are
European, faced potential losses. Although U.S. corn and soybean farmers anticipated
growing demand and could benefit from the increased supply and reduced costs asso-
ciated with the technology, European producers felt threatened by expanded global
supply associated with the technology; they were content with regulation that would
allow them to operate in a segregated market. Environmental groups by nature stand
for conservation and are suspicious of change, especially of a technology that may
perpetuate both monoculture and the expansion of agribusiness. Consumers were
caught in the middle, receiving conflicting information from supporters and oppo-
nents of the technology. Consumers in developing countries did not experience any
immediate gain from the technology, but learned of potential risks of adoption.
The outcome in different countries reflects responses of different groups to the tech-
nology and how they expressed themselves in the political arena. These responses were
conditioned by historical period. Most of the intellectual property behind the technol-
ogies was owned by American companies, and there was originally relative trust in the
U.S. government food-safety regulations that allowed the technology to be accepted.
When the technology was introduced in Europe, trust in government food regulation
was at its lowest level, in part because failures in official regulation and science illus-
trated by mad-cow disease. Both farmers and industry were not likely to gain much