Genetically Modified crops
Ethical considerations
8.6 The Working Party has reviewed the ethical considerations which should guide the development of this new technology and its application in world agriculture and food production. In some ways these considerations are very straightforward, and in others more complicated. The straightforward considerations have been broadly utilitarian. We have been concerned with the need to ensure that basic nutritional needs can be met world-wide for both present and future generations. We have considered the safety of consumers, care of the environment and the avoidance of environmental degradation. We have also examined the role of the intellectual property regimes on the one hand and the regulatory regimes on the other that are necessary to foster research and development of genuinely useful plants without encouraging monopolies which act against the public interest. We have been much concerned with the global distributional issue: how to ensure that the potential benefits of GM technology address the pressing food needs of the developing world, while at the same time meet market demands of the developed countries.
8.7 The rights at stake are many. They include the right of consumers not to be involuntarily subjected to possible risks posed by the developers and growers of GM crops; the right of consumers to choose not to consume GM foods, and perhaps to have non-GM foods kept available in spite of market pressures tending in the opposite direction. Yet it is in the interests of all to maintain employment and thus prosperity, and so governments have a responsibility to enable companies to trade in an environment of reasonable stability. Rights at stake also include the right of citizens of developing countries to have their interests considered in the policy decisions of the regulators, researchers and agrochemical companies in the developed world. We have not taken sides on the question of whether we have a right to live in an environment of any particular sort. This is because we take the view that there are such powerful utilitarian and welfare-based arguments for treating the environment carefully that no purpose is served by straying into philosophically contentious territory to bolster this case.
8.8 The most complicated ethical considerations have been those implicated in the concern that genetic engineering is ‘unnatural’. Since most human behaviour is in various senses ‘unnatural’, and does not arouse moral comment, the line between those unnatural activities that do not cause unease and those that do is hard to draw. Maize is everywhere very different from its wild ancestor; is Bt maize unnatural in a different and morally deplorable way? It is, of course, true that the presence of Bt will have some tendency to encourage immunities in insects that would not otherwise have developed them. But using Bt insecticides as sprays will also have that effect, and such sprays are used by organic farmers. Breeding insect resistance in crops by conventional means will also encourage the development of immunities in insect pests. In short, it is the deleterious consequences of our farming techniques to our environment and human health, not their 'unnatural' character that should preoccupy us.
8.9 'Naturalness' and 'unnaturalness' are part of a spectrum. At one end of the scale, some modifications of the plants that are now being achieved by genetic modification might also have been achieved over time by conventional means of plant breeding; indeed, this has recently occurred. It would be hard to object to such a modification as a matter of principle as being 'unnatural', since it would only be using a new and presumably more efficient means of achieving a result that could have been achieved by conventional, more 'natural' means. Other plant modifications currently being developed probably could not have been achieved by more conventional means, but their effects in terms of increased yield or improved pest or herbicide tolerance are still not very dissimilar to the kind of changes that have been achieved over time by conventional methods. At the farther end of the spectrum are possible modifications such as putting copies of animal genes into plants. Some of these would be truly novel and unachievable by conventional breeding. Such modifications are felt by some to be 'unnatural'. We ourselves, however, can find no clear dividing line on the spectrum which would provide in advance a generally agreed barrier for defining what types of genetic modification of plants are unacceptable because they are unnatural.
8.10 After examining all the scientific evidence in the light of these ethical considerations, the Working Party takes the view that the genetic modification of crop plants, as so far developed, does not differ to such an extent from conventional plant breeding or other human interventions with the natural world as to make the process morally objectionable in itself. GM technology is a new tool which plant breeders are using to achieve their breeding goals more accurately and rapidly. The Working Party accepts that combinations of, for example, bacterial and plant genes in GM crops are very unlikely to be found or impossible to realise in nature. However, provided that potential side effects are thoroughly assessed, we do not consider that the generation of such new combinations should be prohibited. In our view there is no alternative to assessing individual cases or types of case for their effects on human health and the environment. At the same time, we also need to monitor the cumulative effects of modified crops, since it may sometimes be the cumulative impact that produces results that are perceived to be unacceptable, rather than the specific impact of the individual cases.
8.11 The Working Party concludes that the novelty of the technology, and the speed of its introduction into the agricultural environment and the food supply, along with broader public concerns make it both necessary and desirable to develop and maintain a powerful public policy framework to guide and regulate the way in which this technology is applied. We believe that there is a need for public policy to:
- minimise any risks both to our food and to our environment that might arise from the use of GM plants in agriculture;
- maximise consumer choice, so that consumers are informed when GM material is included in food products and are able to choose whether or not to buy such foods;
- maximise the potential benefits of GM technology for people throughout the world, and particularly to encourage a fair distribution of such benefits;
- determine the ethical desirability of particular types of genetic modification and their cumulative impact on the environment and society at large;
- maximise the dissemination of clear information about GM technology from trusted sources, its potential benefits and potential risks, and what is being done to increase knowledge about these matters.
8.12 In each of these areas elements of the framework are already in place. But we believe that each needs strengthening to guard more securely against the risks, to encourage the fair distribution of the potential benefits, and to improve the quality and reliability of information available to the public. It is clear that some consumers wish to have the choice not to consume food containing GM ingredients for personal reasons and because of concerns about safety.