Agricultural Biotechnology: Creating Space to Move Forward

I would like to share some of my concerns on the urgent need to craft a market environment that allows the world's consumers to evaluate and adopt, or not adopt, genetically enhanced crops.

At the same time, that marketing system must provide assurance to producers that they will not be penalized for growing genetically enhanced crops.

I grew up on an Iowa farm and spent most of my boyhood assisting in the many chores and activities that go with running a farm. I particularly remember adjusting the rollers on our corn pickers and combines—"creating space" for the crop to move through.

In adjusting these rollers, it was essential the right amount of space existed between the rollers. If there were too much space, part of the crop would fall on the ground. If there was not enough space, the rollers could grind against each other, stopping or greatly limiting performance.

Today it seems the positions of the proponents and opponents of biotechnology are somewhat like sets of rollers set too close together. And, they may become so tightly interlocked that our entire food system is in danger of being trapped from making the progress needed to fulfill society's expectations.

The proponents of biotechnology adhere to the benefit-risk approach in which the benefits of a technology are weighed relative to the risks associated with its use. This approach allows society to gain benefits from an innovation with assurance that known risks have been assessed.

Potential benefits of biotechnology in crop production include less use of environmentally unfriendly pesticides, and expanded production. A weakness is that such assessments can be conducted only on the types of risks known today. Unknown future calamities cannot be measured prior to their occurrence.

Biotechnology opponents generally adhere to the principle that if a potential for adverse consequences exists, then actions should be taken to insure against those potentials, even if the causes are unknown. The rationale is that society should resist innovations when there is the potential for calamity if an innovation is adopted.

The concerns regarding biotechnology in agriculture include introduction of "foreign," potentially uncontrollable organisms into the natural environment and unforeseen damage to animals and humans from consumption of food products from genetically enhanced crops. However, such concerns are not necessarily valid just because intelligent people have concerns about an unfamiliar technology.

If taken to the extreme, imposition of the precautionary principle would effectively put a moratorium on all future innovation. The only way we can be certain an innovation will never produce adverse consequences is to not allow any innovations.

So how can we move forward, given the inherent conflicts of these two approaches to technology evaluation? I do not have a complete answer. However, a middle ground might be to encourage additional monitoring and labeling even after genetically enhanced crops have gone through the extensive testing needed to be approved by regulatory systems.

Even after being approved, scientific monitoring could be conducted to identify adverse environmental consequences if they were to occur. Similarly, scientific monitoring of the effects of consuming food products produced with genetically enhanced crops by animals or humans could be conducted to identify adverse consequences if they were to occur.

In the food marketplace, the availability of alternatives is one way to "create space" in consumers' minds. Access to food products that contain no or minimal amounts of genetically enhanced crops can provide psychological assurance to consumers.

Labeling further could document that genetically enhanced crops are lower in price to alternatives, thereby establishing a direct benefit to consumers. In this way, consumers through the market—rather than politically imposed regulations or threats to food companies—would provide evidence of consumer attitudes and behaviors.

No one component of the agricultural sector, whether it is government, life sciences companies, producers, or consumers, can effectively resolve this dilemma alone.

A concentrated effort across the soybean industry is needed.

Steve Sonka is director of the National Soybean Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana.