Commentary: The futility of ‘Flour Power’

British protestors attack a field of GM corn in England Scientists in Great Britain who are collaborating on development of a new generation of genetically engineered food crops have sent an open letter to anti-GM protesters, pleading with them not to destroy “years of work” by attacking their research plot.

According to a report in The Independent newspaper, the activist group Take the Flour Back has pledged to “decontaminate” a test site in Hertfordshire, England, where agricultural researchers are growing the world’s first genetically modified wheat that can repel insect pests by emitting specific volatile pheromones.

According to the report, the chemical signal exuded by the new strain of “whiffy wheat” is naturally produced by aphids as a warning signal to deter other aphids. If successful, the crop could significantly reduce the use of pesticides needed to control insect damage.

However, the activists claim that the wheat contains an artificial gene “most similar to a cow” and that open air trials represent an “imminent contamination threat to the local environment and the UK wheat industry”.

Appealing to the protesters as “fellow environmentalists,” a group of scientists led by Professor John Pickett, Distinguished Research Fellow in biological chemistry at England’s Rothamsted Research center and director of its Centre for Sustainable Pest and Disease Management, called on the activists to “reconsider before it is too late.”

The scientists were reacting to the threat contained in a call to action posted by Take the Flour Back last month: “This open air trial poses a real, serious and imminent contamination threat to the local environment and the UK wheat industry. We’re calling on the Government and Rothamsted to remove the GM plants themselves, but if they fail to do so, then May 27 is the last weekend action can safely be taken before pollination. This crop is a threat to our thriving wheat industry and our food security.”

In their letter, the scientists replied that, “Our research is trying to shed light on questions about the safety and usefulness of new varieties of the staple food crops on which all of us depend. We do not see how preventing the acquisition of knowledge is a defensible position in an age of reason.”

Nice try, guys.

The source of their angst

Unfortunately, the most radical leaders—and more so their followers—among the anti-GMO movement are not fighting against the development and application of genetic engineering to food production because they’ve carefully evaluated the risks and benefits and concluded that the former outweigh the latter. Their opposition is emotional, visceral, instinctive.

Rather than sober science, their aversion to biotechnology is driven by gut feelings, by a vague but potent fear of what “Frankenfoods” might do to our agricultural infrastructure and more importantly, to our collective well-being.

That and the reality that the biotechnology community—academia and industry—blundered badly in its first couple decades of existence. Instead of positioning the deployment of biotech as a way to protect the environment by reducing the use of chemical herbicides and pesticides, consumers were treated to such spectacles as square tomatoes and steel-skinned strawberries, developments that only benefitted agri-business.

Sadly, the battle over biotechnology is one where its proponents could—and should—prevail. The imperative of feeding another two or three billion people in our own lifetimes trumps the notion that all food production ought to revert to good old labor-intensive, small-scale, organically managed farmsteads. We have neither the resources, nor the people power to pull that off on a scale necessary to provide sustenance for everyone expected to be alive on Earth this century.

The best and brightest hope for a significant increase in agricultural productivity is genetic engineering. Although still in its infancy, relatively speaking, the potential of genetic engineering is incredible.

But in order to cultivate the depth of public support for funding the necessary research, and to reach a rapprochement with anti-GM radicals, the research focus, the PR messaging and the private sector investment must be directed toward ecologically positive outcomes first and foremost, and solving the problem of hunger and food shortages secondarily.

Unless and until the benefits of biotech are clearly directed at solving problems people care about, the fear of Frankenfoods will outweigh the intellectual validity of the science.

No amount of appealing to “fellow environmentalists” can shortcut that process.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Dan Murphy, a veteran food-industry journalist and commentator.

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