End the Biotech Food Fight
Opponents of biotechnology have raised some legitimate concerns. In doing so, however, they have often employed guerrilla tactics and outlandish rhetoric. Instead of educating people, they have merely exploited the public’s limited knowledge about genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.
Some biotech foes have vandalized fields of genetically modified crops, destroying test plots, while they criticize industry for insufficient field testing. Anti-biotech groups also have demonized those who do not share their point of view, referring to the Monsanto Co. as “Monsatan.” A full-page ad in national newspapers accused the biotech industry of wanting to “capture the evolutionary process and . . . reshape life on Earth to suit its balance sheets.”
The biotechnology industry and its proponents have done their share of name-calling as well, throwing around terms like “Luddites” and “food terrorist.” In my mind, the biotech industry also has come across as arrogant, dismissing biotech skeptics and assuming that the public would automatically embrace GMO products. Most new GMO products were designed to help farmers use fewer pesticides or generate a higher yield using less land. Of course, I believe we should do whatever we can to help American farmers become more profitable, especially in this sluggish farm economy. But, by steering product development in this direction, the biotech industry overlooked the ultimate end-users of their products: consumers.
Instead of carefully reading the marketplace, the biotech industry has been captive instead to a kind of tone-deaf technophilia. It often seems as if far more thought was given to laboratory research and what is possible than to market research and what is actually desirable. What good is technology if people think it’s dangerous and choose not to accept it? New products are only useful--and their benefits fully realized--when they are embraced in the marketplace by consumers.
The biotech industry, so far, has given most consumers few compelling reasons to accept and embrace genetically engineered foods. In the meantime, opponents were happy to fill the information void and set the tone of the debate, defining these technologies in the most starkly negative, and often exaggerated, terms.
The complex issues regarding genetically modified foods deserve a thorough and thoughtful public dialogue. Instead, what we have is a shrill debate. As the two sides become increasingly estranged from each other, the loser is the American consumer, who cannot make an informed judgment about biotechnology amid the cacophony of aggressive spin.
The federal government regulates biotech products, protecting public health and environmental safety. We will continue to fulfill this essential role. In addition, our neutral function uniquely qualifies us to lead the way in the effort to make room for a sensible center in America’s biotechnology debate. Government can and should promote public insight into biotechnology issues as well as carry out the oversight responsibility that is its mandate. We must work to create forums for responsible, civil discourse on the important and complex questions regarding biotechnology.
The Food and Drug Administration held a series of helpful public meetings across the country last year to provide all those interested in biotechnology issues the opportunity to publicly air their views. While this was a positive step, I believe that we must go even further to stimulate an open and balanced public discussion. In January, I created the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Biotechnology Advisory Committee--a panel unique in its broad diversity of opinion and expertise. Its members include farmers, industry representatives, consumer advocates, environmental activists and even an ethicist. I hope the group’s public meetings will be a model for the kind of discussion about biotechnology that needs to take place on farms, in research facilities, corporate offices, town halls, coffee shops and living rooms all across this country. It is time for American consumers to join in the effort to start a real conversation about biotechnology. It is time for all the parties in this debate to talk to each other rather than at each other. It is time for the food fight to end.