The Dialectic of Pro-Poor Papaya - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 765

successfulirstmajorcampaignaterestablishingitselfinarapidlyemergingandeco-
nomically important region.
The case of PRSV-resistant papaya in Thailand therefore illustrates the potential fate
ofanytransgeniccropperceivedasa“gatewayGMO”andthereforeprioritizedforoppo-
sition by activists. Related arguments have been made about other non-commercial GE
crops developed with ostensibly humanitarian objectives, such as vitamin A-enriched
GoldenRice,whichhasbeensimilarlycriticizedbyactivistsasa“Trojanhorse”for
theentranceofbiotechcorporations(Pringle2003: chap. 2).Moreover,hadhailand
successfully gone ahead with transgenic papaya, governments and scientific agencies
in neighboring Asian countries might have been emboldened by a GE success story
to move forward faster with their own agricultural biotechnology programs. Thus the
“gateway GMO” crop might have been regional or global as well as national in impact.
As an alternative outcome, a failure to deploy transgenic papaya could have a chill-
ing effect on biotechnology throughout the entire region, especially given the ban
applied to all GE field trials and applications in Thailand triggered by the protests. This
impact would also encourage activists to expand their campaigns elsewhere, and indeed
Greenpeace campaigners have since opposed Golden Rice in Bangladesh, China, and
the Philippines, and they have carried out a direct action attack on a Bt talong (egg-
plant)ieldtrialinthePhilippinesinFebruary2011(GreenpeaceInternational2013;
Greenpeace Philippines 2011; ISAAA 2011). Genetically engineered eggplant, like
papaya, is the product of international cooperation in which technology fees and pat-
ent claims are foregone by the developers and farmers are exempt from any additional
charges(KoladyandLesser2008).
One of the most salient lessons from the Thailand case is how the political and media
debate played out. Once Greenpeace had successfully framed the media and politi-
cal narrative of GE papaya as being primarily about “contamination,” its activists had
established a battlefield on which the agricultural scientists had little chance of win-
ning public support. The idea of “contamination” evokes visceral fears about pollution
and loss of purity in food, always an emotive and controversial issue for obvious rea-
sons. Once placed on the defensive, the scientists were unable to make a clear case for
why virus-resistant papaya was needed, safe, or useful in Thailand. The lesson here is
clear: unless those charged with developing transgenic crop varieties demonstrate that
they can control deployment of the technology in accordance with established regula-
tory procedures, opposition has an important political tool. The irony is that the “ter-
minatortechnology”soefectivelyusedinmobilizinganti-biotechnologyforcesinthe
early2000swouldpreventthegenelownowconsidered“pollution.”Yetitwaspoliti-
caloppositiontothe“terminator”that—alongwithdoubtsabouteicacy—preventedit
from being deployed in any crop, popular media accounts notwithstanding.
Another clear lesson is that activists are better at politics than are scientists.
Although their case might well have been hopeless, in retrospect it is also clear that
the Thai scientists failed to mount a coordinated rearguard campaign to defend their
work.heydidnotsucceedinmobilizingfarmers,theintendeddirectbeneiciaries,
into a vocal constituency supporting the introduction of virus-resistant papaya. Nor