Gene changes are fought in Europe

Extremist environmental groups in Europe are mobilizing to fight genetic engineering – and are having some success.

In seemingly effective publicity stunts, they have organized groups of volunteers to cut down test plots of genetically engineered crops. There was no opposition, and in at least one case local police observed without interfering.

Predictably, the environmentalists’ language in their news releases was sensationalist:

“The controversial crop was beginning to show signs of flowering, an event that would lead to the irreversible spread of genetic pollution,” said an Earth First release about the “mutant crop” they destroyed.

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In another action, at a major supermarket, a group led by a demonstrator in a Frankenstein’s monster costume unveiled a “disloyalty card” for customers to use to protest products with genetically engineered soya.

A Greenpeace spokesperson declared: “We’re working together to stop consumers becoming human guinea pigs in a global experiment. Scientists can no more guarantee the safety of genetically engineered foods than they could predict the BSE crisis.”

It would be easy to dismiss these as fringe groups, but they are getting some mainstream support.

The British government’s Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment recently publicized a list of organizations it said had violated conditions for their field experiments. Some were forced to plow under their test plots.

According to New Scientist magazine, the companies included such leading firms as Monsanto, Plant Genetic Systems of Belgium and AgrEvo. The list also included public institutions like the National Institute of Agricultural Botany in Cambridge.

“Most of the breaches concerned failures to stick to procedures designed to prevent engineered crops straying outside their plots or hybridizing with neighboring plants,” said a summary of the magazine report.

No matter how trivial the transgressions may have been, incidents like this only serve to reinforce the extravagant claims of the environmental extremists, on a continent that has already been frightened by “mad cow” disease.

Is North America moving too fast to push genetically modified crops on the rest of the world? As a Canola Council of Canada official noted, “you have got to realize somewhere along the line the customer is always right.”

With good science, good market development, and good public education, there is a great future for new crops. But it may also require more patience than some expected.