Agricultural Futures - The Oxford Topic of Food, Politics, and Society - page 847

dismissed this uproar as a diversion, one that was not based on “sound” understandings
of science and one that resulted in the undermining of poverty reduction and devel-
opment by withdrawing new scientific and technological opportunities, it was a debate
that would not go away.
ManyintheNGOcommunityfearedthattheIAASTDwassimplygoingtoserveas
a front for the backers of GM crops and that the enlistment of NGOs and civil society
groups under an umbrella of participation and consultation was going to provide an
illegitimate justification for recommending GM crops be central to future agricultural
R and D strategies globally. Given the keen interest of some important industry players,
aswellassomemajorGMadvocateswithintheCGIARsystemforexample,thisfear
was, given the timing, probably justified. For example, the pro-biotech, industry-funded
websiterunbytheISAAAarguedthattheIAASTDwouldprovideascientiicassess-
ment of biotech crops and so perhaps “proof ” of their utility.13
Following the report of the steering committee and the subsequent first plenary ses-
sion in Nairobi,14 alongside the thirty government representatives, six members of
NGO/civil society groups had accepted invitations to serve on the Bureau of the assess-
ment(includingGreenpeaceInternational,thePesticideActionNetwork,andPractical
Action),andsotheywerecentraltotheoverallgovernance.Butsohadrepresentatives
from“industry”(includingSyngenta,Unilever),“consumers”(includingtheCenterfor
ScienceinthePublicInterestandConsumersInternational),“producers”(including
InternationalFederationofAgriculturalProducersandtheInternationalFederation
of Organic Agriculture Movements) and “institutions” (including the hird World
AcademyofSciences,theWorldConservationUnion(IUCN),theCGIAR,andCAB
International).hisgroupofthirtytosixtygovernmentandthirtynon-government
organizationswasnotaneasygrouptoconvene,let aloneoneinwhichagreementon
anythingcouldbeeasilyreached.A co-chairoftheassessmentrelected:
hiswasadiiculttime.Noonetrustedanyoneelse.Xkeptwalkingout.Itwasvery
disruptive, and we could not make much progress for a while. We had to be patient.
The GM issue was a diversion. We had to get down to the real issues.15
WhiletheGMdebatecontinuedtobediscussed,andwhileitremainedotenthe
“elephant in the room,” the overall framework and approach of the assessment cast
thedebatemuchwider.Indeed,byframingtheoveralldebateinrelationtobroader
questionsofagriculturalknowledge,science,andtechnology(AKST)withinaloose
framework that looked fundamentally at outcomes relating to poverty reduction and
environmentalmanagement,itwaspossibleforamuchlarger—somewouldsaypoorly
focused—discussiontotakeplace.hiswasframednotintermsofwhetherGMcrops
are somehow “good” or “bad” but in terms of what combination of technologies make
sense given the diverse future requirements of the needs of different peoples in different
partsoftheworld.hus,theoverallframing,andthedecentralizedprocess,managed
at times to get away from the narrow perspective of the GM debate, which dominated
discussion at that time by either firmly pro- or anti-camps. Debates centered on whether
new GM crops met the exacting IAASTD goals on the basis of well-documented