Science, Politics, and the Framing of Modern Agricultural Technologies - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 54

independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not
per se more risky than conventional plant-breeding technologies.
(p.16; cited in Herring 2011a)
Herring (2011a) continues: “Bt proteins may present some hazard, but no biosafety
testing anywhere has been able to find evidence,” and the method employed in the
research on which one negative claim was made “was dismissed by the GMO Panel
of the European Food Safety Authority.” There is evidence that mutagenic plants may
well be more hazardous than transgenics, yet they have not generally been subjected
to anything like as much stringent testing—because they have not been framed in the
same way.
There are, of course, very strong reasons for exercising caution with regard to trans-
genics and biosafety (as Thies and Devare, among many other scientists, make very
clear; see Thies and Devare 2007), and there is no doubt about the importance of
strengthening mechanisms for ensuring biosafety (see Fukuda-Parr 2007b for vari-
ous country studies; and see Andow 2011; Kranthi 2011; and Swaminathan 2011 in spe-
cific regard to India). Yet there is still reason, as we suggested above, for questioning
whether the standards that are being set are not unreasonable. These standards reflect
the fear that has so successfully been generated by the way the evidence is framed by the
anti-GMO campaigners. Regulation of the cultivation of transgenics can also work in
such a way as to favor larger, wealthier producers, who are able to comply with biosafety
requirements when smaller, poorer producers are not. Getting the balance right is dif-
ficult (Fukuda-Parr 2007b).
Two case studies that enable us to elaborate upon this discussion are those of the sto-
ries of Bt brinjal (what is called “eggplant,” or aubergine, in Britain and North America)
in India, and of Bt rice in China—two food crops, neither of which has been officially
released for cultivation in the countries in which they have been developed.
Bt Brinjal
Brinjal (aubergine) is a significant food crop in India, widely consumed by poor people
and grown extensively by small farmers (who, unlike cotton farmers—producers of a
highly important commercial crop, and who successfully won the battle to cultivate Bt
cotton against stiff opposition from anti-GMO activists and from the Government of
India—have little political clout).2 It is highly susceptible to attack from the fruit and
stem borer (FSB), which reduces the value of much of the crop, and against which pes-
ticides are relatively ineffective—but which encourages their excessive use, to the detri-
ment of the health both of farmers and of consumers. Bt brinjal, developed as a result of a
USAID-funded project led by Cornell University (Agricultural Biotechnology Support
Project [ABSP] II: see Gregory et al. 2008), has the potential, according to extensive tri-
als, carried out over nearly a decade, greatly to reduce pesticide use, increase farmers'
incomes, and improve the health of farmers and consumers. Under ABSP II, Cornell