Press
Value Sets Collide over GMOs in the Food Chain
Three scientists, an ethicist and a community activist aired their widely divergent views, issues and concerns and even day-to-day practices relating to the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture at a Napa wine industry forum on Wednesday.
It quickly became clear at the four-hour event why the possible use of so-called GMOs in the food chain is one of he most contentious contemporary issues facing virtually all food and beverage companies, from rice growers to winemakers.
The first genetically engineered wine yeast, known as ML01, was made commercially available by Springer Oenologie in North America this week, the first such market in the world to be opened for GMO wine yeast, with the claim that it can complete alcoholic and malolactic fermentations in just five days.
The forum at Copia put on by the Napa Valley Grape Growers actually was a follow-up to an inaugural discussion on the issue by the same speakers two years ago. A continuing lack of any movement toward a meeting of the minds seemed perhaps more painfully evident this time around. The Napa Growers neither condones nor condemns genetic engineering, said Executive Director Jennifer Kopp, but is trying to foster a better understanding of the issues.
The highly charged public debate over the possibility of using genetically modified or engineered organisms to induce characteristics or behaviors not commonly found in certain agricultural products that would be grown essentially alongside conventional crops seems now to be more deeply divided between researchers and government regulators on one side and social, community and political groups on the other.
Researchers and regulators generally have views steeped in the recognition of the potential value that GMOs offer in new scientific and commercial applications. But the public and political/community leaders increasingly are uneasy and untrusting about what many perceive as a lack of respect or even acknowledgement of their views, steeped more in cultural, religious or even political outlooks.
One well-known Napa Valley grape grower and winery owner expressed both his uncertainty about allowing such work to continue in open field trials and his frustrating precaution caused by "not truly knowing." Restricting such research and commercial applications could hurt him because as both a vintner and a grower his businesses might see solutions to such things as incurable grapevine diseases. His other views, based on lifelong beliefs that may not necessarily be applicable in this case, could needlessly delay a potential improvement in the health of the food chain and subsequently in human health.
"I'm in a pickle; we all are," said the vintner/grower. "Today all I saw was a clear lack of any common ground at all, in fact, less than there was at the original discussion, but don't quote me by name on that, it'll just drive one more wedge between everybody on this and there's already way too many."
Almost all of the advanced work in GMOs in regards to agriculture has been on commodity crops such as corn, although papaya and summer squash were singled out early on in an effort to differentiate crops being tested. The agricultural cultivation of vitis vinifera grapevines and the winemaking process, dependent upon various microorganisms such as yeasts, theoretically hare prime candidates for GMOs among key secondary crops. In France , early genetic modifications have been tried and tested for 20 years in an effort to artificially induce a grapevine's natural ability to fight fanleaf virus, which infects 60 percent of the country's grapevines and causes production losses totaling U.S. $1.5 billion annually.
What People Really Care About
The denouement of the day's conflicting views and opinions, although cordial, seemed to come just in the nick of time and most aptly from the ethicist, David Magnus, who holds the unusual title of director of Stanford University for Biomedical Ethics.
Magnus declared what he sees as the core conflict in the debate. He said those in favor and those against are each basing their views and opinions on differing value sets-and the inherent conflict is that these are not being reconciled. The scientific values of university researchers and government regulators are not the same set of values that most of the public uses to develop their stances.
"Government regulators and academics fail to capture what people really care about," Magnus told the audience of some 100 wine industry professionals. "In fact, regulators say, 'These are the real issues. In turn, regular people feel they are being ignored and shut out and that their set of issues is being dismissed. But these issues are very real, and are embedded in values that the public feels are very important."
Scientists and regulators approach GMO issues by balancing risks and assessments of perceived dangers with the benefits of unlocking scientific advancement for specific crops, those farming industries and for the private companies willing to fund such research upfront.
"But 'people' balance risk of GMOs against their emotional sense of dread and outrage," said Magnus, who in the past year has conducted several focus groups with various community groups to determine the psychology of their opposition to GMO research.
Magnus said consumers are so concerned about GMOs that they repeatedly are using "promethean" images to illustrate their issues. Two images are nearly universal-Frankenstein, with some GMO food even being labeled by critics as "Frankenfood," and Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel artwork of the index finger of God reaching out and meeting the outstretched index finger and hand of man. One group opposing GMOs ran an full-page newspaper ad to announce it, never once addressing the detailed scientific points. Instead, the ad's headline asked: "Who Plays God in the 21st Century?" Both images, among the most embedded in Western Civilization, convey fears the GMOs are transgressing boundaries and there may be consequences for his hubris, said Magnus.
The focus groups found anti-GMO beliefs are driven by five core values:
- Justice-who will be exposed at the frontline? Who benefits? How are these products to be distributed? Is the regulatory system fair?
- Consumer Sovereignty: the right to be informed; the right to choose whether they want GMOs in their community
- Balance: man's ability to improve on nature vs. his responsibility to act as a steward over the land.
- Boundary Transgressions: questions over "patented life forms:; mankind's hubris, a sense science lacks humility.
- Authenticity: harmony with nature.
Retired University of California grapevine geneticist Carole Meredith, who lives on a vineyard in the Napa Valley from which she makes commercial wine that sells for $50 per bottle, said consumer acceptance of GMOs in the food chain is so tenuous that she still would not plant GMO grapevines if it were legal and safe to do so, despite any benefits they might have, a statement she made at the first conference.
"The consumer acceptance just isn't there, and that's why I said it two years ago-I don't want to chance not being able to sell my $50 Syrah because the people I sell it to might not accept it," she said.
Magnus said current local, regional and statewide efforts in some locations to either put GMO usage up for a vote or hold referendums on the issue are an excellent way for communities to get informed about the issues and for them to express their preferences. [wmr]