University of Guelph
Centre for Safe Food, Department of Plant
Agriculture.
Food Under Fire: Risk in the
Public Sphere
By
Shane Morris
www.plant.uoguelph.ca/safefood
Manifestation of attitudes! - Humour
OUTLINE
• Risk in Food
• Risk Theory
• Biopolitics and social actors
• Examples of Biopolitics:
1.Rats and Risks
2.Biopolitical Resistance to
Resistance Genes
• Consumers and Risk Model Farm Project
• Organic report
• Take home
Risk Types in Food
• Health Risks
• Environmental Risks
• Social and Economic Risks
• Ethical and Moral Risks
Irish Biodiversity Failure!
Risk Theory
Risk Components:
• What is Risk Analysis ?
Risk Assessment: characterizing risk mathematically
• Risk Management?
- deciding what to do about the risk
• Risk Communication ?
- explaining the risk
- the method of understanding scientific and technological risk
and how it is communicated within a socio-political structure
- Interactive process of information and opinion exchange
among individuals, groups and institutions
Risk Communication Model
Identifying
Issues
Evaluating
Results
Public
Implementing
the Strategy
Selecting a
Strategy
Assessing
Risk &
Benefit
Identifying and
Analyzing
Options
Risk Communication Points
Good risk communication :
to facilitate an informed understanding of the risks and
benefits (William Leiss, Pres. Royal Society of Canada, web
site)
SAFETY
Rules of Risk Issue Management (Leiss):
1. Understand Risk Issue Management
2. Risk Issue Forecasting
“intensity of backlash surprised” KW-Record Feb. 22, 2001
3. Become fully engaged
4. Be proactive
5. Stay in for the long haul
Public Sphere
a domain of our social life in which such a
thing as public opinion can be formed.
Habermas: in the public sphere discourse becomes democratic
through the "non-coercively unifying, consensus building
force of a discourse in which participants overcome their at
first subjectively biased views in favor of a rationally
motivated agreement"
GM Food In Ireland - To Date only
Experimental Field Trials
GM Sugar beet trials,
1999
Social Actors in Irish media
• Fundamentalist Critique Coalition
neo-modernist movement/ reflexive modernization (Beck)
• New Left Coalition
fusion of the socialist frame of international equity
with that of environmentalist protection
• Counter Science Expertise Coalition
“bad science” - scientists
• Biotechnology Solution Coalition
Those support of technology: (a) Commercial
(b) Positive
Biopolitics
as the politicization of modern biotechnology issues within
the political stream that can influence public policy at local,
national and international levels. The concept of the political
stream is derived from John Kingdon's book called Agenda,
Alternatives and Public Policies (1984).
(2000, Trends in Biotech)
Local: School boards in the UK banning GM food in dinners
National: Field trials
International: EU member states or Biosafety Protocol
Meath Chronicle April 1999
Rats and Risks
Imagine………………...
Rotenone Pusztai’s
This formulationPotatoes
of
Product on the
Market
naturally occurring
pesticides is perfect X
for organic
gardeners
X
Mode of action
known
X
Peer-Reviewed
Media & Public
Reaction
X
The Lancet , Jan. 2001
Antibiotic Resistance Genes
Belgium: (December, 1999)
"The fact that the feed or food has a transgenic origin, implicating or not the
insertion of transcriptionally-functional antibiotic resistance gene should not
mathematically modify significantly the global probability of gene transfer
from natural bacteria."
French: (April 2000)
The resistance gene (nptII) meets these criteria. Therefore, it can be used in
plant transgenesis."
EU: (April 2000) “No scientific evidence that all GMO of this type (Ab
-resis.) present adverse effects to human health or the environment.” BUT
“I am fully aware of the political importance...of proposed amendments”
Canada: (Feb. 2001) Royal Society recommended a ban on Ab-resis.
MODEL FARM PROJECT
Bt vs. Conventional Sweet Corn
  Bt Sweet Corn



No insecticides
No fungicide
Herbicide and fertilizer
applications were the
same for both Bt and
Conventional in all
plantings
  Conventional



Planting 1:
3 Carbofuran
applications
Planting 2:
2 Carbofuran
and 1
pyrethroid
Planting 3:
1 carbofuran
and
2
pyrethroid
MODEL FARM PROJECT
Bt vs Conventional Potatoes
  Bt Potatoes
No insecticides
  20% less fertilizer
  2 fungicide
applications

  Conventional

2 applications
of:Admire OR
Actara
OR
3 Bt applications.
  2 fungicide
  1 cymbush

MODEL FARM PROJECT
Bt and Regular Sweet Corn Sales
  Bt Sweet Corn: 680 dozen
  Regular Sweet corn: 452 dozen
Recorded until the regular was no longer
saleable
  Ratio of Almost 3:2
  Many people bought some of each
  The Bt sweet corn had a longer shelf life

Organic
Organic Risks and Benefits in Ireland
Risks:
Benefits:
• labour shortages
• positive public
perceptions
• depends on economic
buoyancy
• Market premiums
• lack of year round
supply - Irish weather!!
• direct selling potential
• price premiums may fall
because:supply incease
or retailer competition
• some organic systems fit
well with part-time
farming
• extra employment
• retailer lack of
commitment
East Cork Regional Office (EU Leader Project)
Biopolitics, Risk Communication and the
Public Sphere
All All
(‘bio-’)
politics
politics
is local!
is local!
Take Home
“I know of no safe depository of the ultimate power of society
but the people themselves, and if we think them not enlightened
to exercise their own control with a wholesome discretion, the
remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their
discretion”
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820
Thank You
Any Questions?…...
www.plant.uoguelph.ca/safefood