Social Controversies and Agricultural Biotechnology
Rick Welsh, PhD, Department Chair, Department of Public Health, Food Studies &
Nutrition, Syracuse University
ABSTRACT
The commercialization of genetically modified organisms in agriculture (GE crops)
beginning in the 1990s has led to debates over their efficacy, environmental and health
impacts. Industry and most academics believe any criticism or resistance to the new
technologies is largely without merit. Environmental and food safety/consumer groups
however, have mounted effective campaigns to force state governments to label foods
containing genetically engineered material in an effort to alienate consumers from such
foods and GE crops. I argue that the very crops traits, industry structure and regulatory
approval process which have facilitated extremely rapid and extensive adoption rates of
GE crops, have also created social and economic conditions and product characteristics
that have engendered unease among consumers and others. This unease has proven
to be exploitable by anti-GM groups attempting to develop negative images of the
industry and the technology.
BIOGRAPHY
Rick Welsh joined the Department of Public Health, Food Studies and Nutrition as a Professor
of Food Studies in August, 2012. Prior to taking this position he worked at Clarkson University
as a Professor of Sociology. Previous positions have included Policy Analyst with the Henry A.
Wallace Institute for Alternative Agriculture and the Director of the U.S. Department of
Agriculture's Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program for the Southern
Region. He also serves as editor-in-chief for the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food
Systems published by Cambridge University Press. His research and teaching focus on social
change and development with emphases on agri-food systems, science and technology studies
and environmental sociology.
th
8 Annual NYS Biotechnology Symposium
- May 19 & 20, 2016 -