Social scientists,
like natural scientists,
look for
regularities that explain puzzles.
They're much less successful for
many reasons.
One of which is the number of variables
potentially affecting the outcome.
And the difficulty of controlling for
them.
So, what are the GMO puzzles?
We'll begin with one puzzle.
Why has agricultural genetic engineering
been far more controversial than in
pharmaceuticals, medicine or
industry where
recombinant DNA work is quite accepted and
not in a special category?
Indeed, the only things called
GMOs are agricultural crops.
And we pointed out some reasons that
people are especially worried about
GMOs and why they oppose them.
Secondly, there is a larger
puzzle within agriculture.
Why has acceptance of new crop technology
from the so called Gene Revolution,
that is GMOs, been so much more
controversial than the Green Revolution?
During the Green Revolution of the 1960s,
1970s, newly available
varieties of wheat and rice developed
through conventional plant breeding,
were taken up rapidly by farmers,
both large and small.
Particularly in Asia.
Between 1966 and 1998,
the percentage of crop area in Asia,
including China, planted to modern
varieties increased to 82%, improved
rice varieties originally developed by
the International Rice Research Institute,
eventually were released
to more than 70 countries.
One consequence,
is an enormous increase in yields and
productivity across these crops.
The gene revolution in agriculture was
quite different from the green revolution.
Why is that?
Our study of the objections to GMOs
gives clues to explain this difference.
First, green revolution crops
were developed in not-for-profit
international scientific institutions.
Patents did not constitute grounds for
concern.
It was impossible to think that
everything is owned by Monsanto.
Second, social mobilization around the
environment and opposition to corporate
globalization, were not really developed
in the time of the green revolution.
The Transnational Advocacy Networks, that
are so powerful in opposition to GMOs,
such as Greenpeace had not yet formed.
These clues help us understand
answers to this module's question.
Why does acceptance and rejection of
GMOs differ so much across countries?
The first thing one notes,
is the absence of any single
dimension of the global rift.
Unlike many sources of differences
in the international system,
these variations do not follow.
A north versus south pattern or developed
versus underdeveloped pattern nor
democratic versus authoritarian.
After the United States, for example, the
next five countries in the world ranked by
area planted to GMOs are Brazil,
Argentina,
India, Canada, and China, in that order.
And of course, many countries have no
GMOs whatsoever, at least not officially.
We have already seen an illustration
of one important variable
in the papaya case in Thailand.
Greenpeace and local allies proved able to
defeat government science on the safety
and efficacy of the virus resistant papaya
developed by public sector universities
and collaborating scientists in Thailand,
and the government in particular.
There was no Monsanto in the picture, but
the virus resistant papaya was blocked.
The general cause, in this case,
is transnational advocacy networks and
local allies.
This effect was apparent as well in India
in the Bt brinjal or Eggplant case.
The prime Minister, as well as a secret
report from the home ministry in India,
accused nongovernmental organizations,
that is NGOs,
with foreign funding, of blocking India's
development by opposing biotechnology.
As a result, Greenpeace and
many NGOs have been subsequently
restricted by the government.
The conclusion is just that
social mobilization of opposition
varies over time and space.
And the coalitions that
involve opposition are fluid.
Consumer groups, for example,
often in coalition with anti-corporate and
environmental groups, have also been
influential in many countries including
France and Japan, in the early years.
Often joining this coalition,
are the natural foods industry and
Organic Products Association and
organic farmers.
Export markets have mattered.
After the turnaround in EU policy in 1998,
from support for
agricultural biotechnology,
to a moratorium on GMO imports.
Many countries and
farmers, around the world,
became more cautious about biotechnology.
Sensitivity varies by the export
basket of the country.
Thailand, for example,
does not export a lot of papayas.
So this was not a consideration
in regards to the GM Papaya.
But for Brazil, it could be
a big consideration in rejecting
the virus resistant papaya,
since it exports to Europe.
Mexico's consideration of
a papaya export industry
would be more influenced by the American
market, where GMOs are accepted,
including a transgenic papaya,
than by the EU market.
Worries about markets for export crops was
an issue in South East Asia in the early
years of the gene revolution.
These concerns have been important in
delaying development in biotechnology in
Africa as well.
Third factor is the scientific and
technological capacity of the country.
China and Brazil, both had scientific
capacity, that was quite significant,
to develop their own biotechnology,
on their own terms,
with their own public sector institutions,
utilizing global technology advances
as well as collaboration in some
cases with international firms.
Countries that lack this capability,
this capacity,
are more likely to worry about dependency
relations and foreign control.
And are less likely to be
major adopters of GMOs.
Fourth, there are differences in
farmer demand and organization.
The GM crops, so important to
American farmers, cotton, maize,
soybeans are much less
important to Europeans farmers,
as well as to farmers in
many other countries.
The political weight of farmer groups
can play an important role for
or against adoption of GMOs.
Finally, there is the big
question of regulation.
How is regulatory authority structured
into the national government?
There are many options.
This is important because bio safety
institutions provide choke points
through which GM crops, but
only GM crops, must pass.
Who controls these choke points?
One important difference is
the location of state, science, and
particular parts of government.
We've seen, for example, around the world,
more resistance from institutions
dominated by ministries of environment
than those dominated by
ministries of agriculture.
You can really imagine the reasons for
this difference.
Departments of agriculture are keyed
to benefits, improving agriculture and
farmers well beings, and
responding to their interest.
Their constituency is
likely to be pro GMO.
Environment ministries or departments,
on the other hand,
are more oriented to risk than utility.
And they're used to unknown unknowns
in complex ecological dynamics.
Taking a precautionary approach is
more in keeping with their mission and
their ethos.
And more politically astute,
their power base is not in farmers, but
in environmental NGOs and
trans-national advocacy networks.
We can see the difference in approval and
rejection of a GM eggplant between
India and Bangladesh in recent years.
It's an interesting contrast,
because both nations developed public
sector varieties for seed saving, and
they use the same Bt trans gene, the
Cry1Ac, in an event developed in India.
The Indian eggplant,
Bt brinjal passed nine years of government
scientific tests and field trials.
But was rejected by the Minister of
Environment in 2010, on grounds that
not enough testing had been done,
not all risk had been eliminated.
The Indian cabinet split on this issue.
The Ministers of Agriculture and
Science and Technology and
indeed the Prime Minister were
convinced by the scientific consensus.
But statutory authority lay with
the Minister of Environment.
The structure of India's biosafety regime
thus enabled what political scientist call
a Veto Player.
The Minister of Environment,
whose stance was explicitly precautionary.
He rejected Bt Eggplant,
neighboring Bangladesh used the donated
gene developed in India to develop four
varieties of Bt brinjal in the same period
with power lodged in the Agriculture
Ministry and its institutions.
Those varieties were approved in 2014,
and are now growing in
farmers' fields in Bangladesh.
Most people that know agriculture in
India expect brinjals seeds harvested
from these crops to sneak across the
border, and establish themselves in India.
Many people believe they're already there,
but we don't have any firm evidence yet.
There are many other variables
important in explaining acceptance,
rejection of GMOs across
different countries,
including mobilization of science and
science communication in civil society and
politics, as we explore in
other sections of this course.
