The current debate in South Africa is obscuring, not illuminating, the issues David Le Page Genetic modification of organisms (GMO) has become an extremely emotive subject in South Africa, which has led to a swift decline in the quality of debate. The gulf between proponents and opponents was demonstrated in South Africa this week at a public debate involving new anti-GMO organisation Safeage, at a conference on GMOs organised by AfricaBio. The latter is an umbrella organisation of corporates, organisations and academic institutions with an interest in biotechnology. By all accounts, the debate swiftly became extremely heated, allowing little space for those attending to coolly consider the few measured accounts of the evidence for, against and about biotech. The formal conference had closed on Tuesday afternoon with a pro-biotech futurist presentation from a speaker who threw out abundant catchphrases and generalisations based on crude popular science, with graphs that appeared to have been drawn ad hoc and carried little information about what their axes represented. In turn, documents circulated by Safeage referred at one point, somewhat implausibly, to the possible acceleration of the Omass extinction of life on earthO. Fortunately, other presentations were of a higher standard. But following the closing public debate around GMO issues, Africa- Bio released an extraordinarily triumphalist press release, referring to SafeageOs Omind-blowing manipulationO of one speaker, and calling Safeage activists Ouninformed about their target and unburdened by solutionsO. Turning to AfricaBioOs website, one finds amongs the lead articles an example of an anti-GMO pamphlet, unattributed, with an equally unattributed critical commentary. The pamphlet makes simplistic statements about Ostrawberries being crossed with fishO and how Oa few companies who have invested in [genetic engineering] could own the rights to all the seed for all the food in the worldO.
The pro-GMO arguments offered in the commentary are every bit as long on argument and short on evidence: OYes, the public have many questions about GE [genetically engineered] food. They have these questions because anti-GE organisations use sensual [sic] topics to manipulate the public, in order to gain political advantage of some kind … These foods have no negative effects whatsoever on those who eat them. The only valid point for argument might be certain environmental issues. But these can be dealt with by scientists who are experts in the field.O This on a website run by a purportedly scientific organisation which counts among its members the CSIR, the Agricultural Research Council and departments from major universities around the country. If polled individually, these organisations are unlikely to subscribe to the view that the public should abdicate to scientists its right to make decisions about what it eats. But, we are told in the pamphlet commentary, Oscientists donOt know everything, but they certainly come closeO.
In Africa, the GMO debate has taken on a particularly acute moral dimension. GMO advocates at the AfricaBio conference referred constantly to the biotech revolution as the answer to the perennial African problems of drought, famine and hunger. O[To] feed the rapidly growing world population, we must continue to make progress with high-yield agriculture,O said John Kilama of the Delaware-based Global Biodiversity Institute Inc. In other words, it is implied, if you stand in the way of introducing high-yield biotech products into famine-prone countries, you are perhaps obstructing the survival of millions of innocents. Whether or not this is true, making this a direct or indirect accusation makes assessing the issue all the harder. Scientists are not accustomed to debate in the public domain. Their arguments are usually hammered out slowly, over years, in the cool pages of scientific journals, in correspondence and in lengthy but usually dispassionate discussions at conferences all without pressures of the kinds that are being brought to bear on them at present. But now, where necessary, they must grow up, respond quickly and coolly to misrepresentation, work to make the most technical details easily understandable, and patiently educate both media and the public. If you choose to manipulate the stuff of life, you should not be surprised when life takes an interest. The nature of GMOs demands more than most scientific issues that South Africa come up with its own answers to the questions posed by new biotechnologies. Our unique environment, as with any other, may contain a host of crucial variables that will determine whether any particular organism is a disaster or a miracle when cultivated here.
The public, where it is not opposed to GM foods on principle, must prepare itself to understand and consider not one, but a host of answers and problems relating to new products. Those people who are opposed to GM foods on principle may have to reconcile themselves to the more utilitarian inclinations of others. Only if the arguments from both sides mature will the best solutions to the real problems stand much of a chance.