The Great Debate: What does the public really think about GM crops?

Matthew Freeman, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge

What does the public really think about GM crops? This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer, given how polarised the discussion around them has become. It is not safe to assume that the media speak for the public in a simple or representative way, particularly as several major newspapers have decided to campaign against GM. Even less is it obvious that the pro or anti-GM pressure groups are honest brokers of the views of that large proportion of the public for whom GM crops are not something they think much about. Nor do most public opinion surveys have great value - think how often your precise opinion is not captured by the multiple choice options offered by the person with the clipboard.

This general problem has become a pressing specific issue for the Government, as it will have to decide over the next year or so whether to allow the commercialisation of those GM crops that have been the subject of the controversial farm-scale trials. But this decision also exemplifies a wider problem: how can properly democratic decisions be made about technically complex issues, when the majority of the population is not well-informed?

Think of carbon emissions and global warming, or cloning of human tissue, or animal experiments - there's a long and growing list of political issues that are rooted in science and technology. Some may have profound effects on our future. There is a real risk that power is handed by default to unelected expert committees, or the media, or the NGOs, or the companies promoting a particular technology.

The Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC) is part of the Government's answer to the GM crop debate. As I wrote in these pages a couple of years ago, the AEBC - of which I am a member - is charged with giving the Government strategic advice on GM issues. It is not an expert regulatory committee, instead it comprises a wide range of opinion, from GM industry to the campaigning environmental pressure groups, scientists, philosophers, lawyers and social scientists (for full membership see the AEBC website).

The first report we published was called 'Crops on Trial' and specifically examined the farm-scale trials. Reaching a consensus on such a charged issue was difficult, even bruising, but several concrete conclusions and recommendations were unanimously agreed. For example we agreed that the trials were valuable and should continue - not at all an obvious conclusion given our membership and the extensive ripping up of fields that was occurring at the time. But we also agreed that there was a lack of transparency in how the trials were being conducted and that the Government were not being clear about the limited scope of the trials. They focus solely on impact on biodiversity, using a number of indicator species, and do not address other safety or environmental issues (on the grounds that these have already been included in prior regulatory hurdles).

As a result of the limits of the trials, we concluded that it was incorrect to view the trials as the last piece in the jigsaw before commercialisation could begin. Public opinion, for example, had not been clearly incorporated into any part of the whole process and this was an obvious gap.

In its formal response to the report the Government called our bluff. It asked the AEBC to design and carry out an effective public consultation exercise, albeit at arm's length, through an independent steering board. To make this challenge even harder they provided rather little money (£250,000) and a short timescale (report by June 2003). This 'great GM debate' will run in parallel to two other investigations - into the science and the economics of GM commercialisation.

It would be fair to describe the view of this exercise, even within the AEBC, as being mixed. Some people consider it unnecessary, some that it has been too constrained, some that it is too difficult. But overall, we decided that the goal is sufficiently important to be worth our best shot. My own view is that it is an interesting experiment: how feasible is it to consult the public in this kind of way? Which techniques work and which are unsuccessful? On what scale does this need to be done? Answers to these and other questions could provide some insight into those questions about democracy in an increasingly technically-orientated society.

By the time you read this, the great debate should have started - although whether you will have noticed is certainly a considerable question. As I write, there is still much discussion of exactly what it will comprise. Maybe a widely-distributed film; certainly some focus groups; possibly some large public debates; conceivably a high-profile TV event. Members of the Genetics Society have the technical expertise to be valuable participants in the process and if you have the opportunity, do get involved. Whether you are a believer or a sceptic, there is a strong argument that the experiment is a worthwhile one.

In the end we elect politicians to form governments and take important decisions for us. But for democracy to work there must be some way for them to gauge and respond to the opinion of the majority of the public - not just vociferous minorities. The great GM debate just might be a valuable step towards making this process more efficient, honest and accountable.

AEBC website: http://www.aebc.gov.uk/
GM public debate website: http://www.gmpublicdebate.org/