Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
PATRICK HOLDEN
AND GUNDULA
MEZIANI
TUESDAY 16 APRIL 2002
Chairman
1. Thank you very much for coming, in your case,
Patrick, again, we have seen you before, and welcome you, Ms Meziani
for the first time, I think, at least, at the front desk. The
purpose of this brief inquiry is to update the Select Committee's
awareness of the genetic modification debate. We approached the
issue last about two years ago, and events have moved on and,
arguably, the heated debate that was happening at that time has
rather quietened down; but our task is to attempt to nail down
where we are going now, and, perhaps more importantly, where we
will be going in the future, post the current trials and the outcome
of those. So, firstly, one of the issues that the AEBC, which
was set up, I think, just after our last inquiry, that their report
has since been published, and one of the key issues has been the
foundations for a public debate and how that public debate can
be conducted in an informative way for the public at large. Do
you believe that they have identified correctly the need for that
debate, first; and then, secondly, perhaps you have views on how
it should be conducted, and what the role of Government should
be?
(Mr Holden) Could you just repeat, who are `they',
that you just referred to?
2. The AEBC.
(Mr Holden) Yes, I think that the AEBC's report is
to be commended, and they have identified the key issues which
need to be publicly debated; so we are very supportive of their
report and its recommendations. Is it alright, by the way, can
we both make contributions to your questions, as appropriate?
3. Yes, please do.
(Mr Holden) Do you want to add to that?
(Ms Meziani) Only that I see a notable lack of a real,
genuine debate amongst the farming community, who are obviously
going to be the ones taking up the crops; and we have a huge amount
of information of how the farming community are experiencing GM
crops in America, and I think they should be consulted equally
and given the chance to debate the issue as well.
4. So what timing do you think this debate should
follow, bearing in mind that there was a very substantial debate,
but not one prompted by any direct Government action, two years
ago; what timing do you think this debate should follow, how should
it be conducted? And you have already said that the farming community
have a significant input, I am sure that is right, but what form
should this debate have; do you think the Government has a role
in it?
(Mr Holden) I think the Government has a role and
responsibilities in the debate. I think its role is to promote
as informed a debate as possible about the issues, and its responsibilities
are, where it falls outside the market alone, to guide developments,
to make decisions that are in the public interest. And it seems
to me that the case of genetic engineering is probably a perfect
example of the development of a new technology, which is an example
of the capacity of science to innovate in ways which potentially
are going to have profound effects on the future of, in this case,
agriculture. And, given the fact that this capacity to innovate
is almost boundless now, because of the power of technology, this
brings upon the Government the responsibility of making decisions
on behalf of society; and the decisions which it needs to make
need to be based, firstly, on evidence and also on other criteria
which are not always evidence-based.
5. Such as?
(Mr Holden) Public opinion generally, intuition, I
think there is a debate about naturalness, which is very interesting,
in historic terms. I think it goes back to the Enlightenment,
and I think there is a profound shift of public opinion taking
place at the moment about the role, you know, of mankind's dominion
over nature, and how we make decisions which involve technology
impinging on naturalness, as it were; choice, liability, lots
of areas.
6. But how do you feel that opinion, naturalness,
or the concept of naturalness, and intuition square with the harsh
disciplines of, how do you square those sorts of concepts with
the obligations of global trading rules, for example, where one
has to demonstrate a scientific basis, or a health basis, for
restrictions on the development of products?
(Mr Holden) I think that is a very important question,
and may have implications for future discussions in the WTO, because
it is clear that there is an ongoing debate about what constitutes
a trade barrier and what rights signatories to the WTO have to
object to trade in commodities, or foodstuffs, that they are concerned
about. But I would have thought that there was enough scope within
the existing problems associated with GM to erect a legitimate
objection to international trade in GMOs and their derivatives;
but there needs to be further discussion about that.
7. The last thing I would ask about is, would
either the Soil Association's attitude to genetic modification
or your perception of public opinion change, should the deliverables
from genetic modification amount to provable health benefits,
or substantial environmental benefits?
(Mr Holden) I do not think one could say that we have
rejected the possibility that those outcomes may already be put
forward by the proponents of GM; but our objections relate to
the range of issues, which we have put in the public domain for
some years now, which are to do with the risks, the dangers, of
unforeseen consequences, both on the environment and on human
health, the denial of choice and the incompatibility of genetic
engineering with what we see to be the principles of sustainable
agriculture.
Mr Drew
8. But, Patrick, if the world had been different
and you had been faced with not a food alternative but a fuel
alternative, or a health crop, it would have been much more difficult
to mount—I am not saying you personally, I am saying generally—a
campaign. GMOs happened at the time they did happen partly because
of the public's complete distrust of some of the things that were
happening to the food chain. And does it not say something, and
we are going to go on later to look at regulation, about how you
need to encompass food within other products, to make sure there
is a balanced debate, because possibly you would not have had
that full-scale debate if it had been the other way round; would
you agree?
(Mr Holden) Do you mean if it had been a non-food
product?
9. Yes?
(Mr Holden) I do not agree with that. I think that
food is probably a more emotive area, because you put it in your
mouth; but my view is that the debate is about to start about
cotton, the Indian Government recently having given the go-ahead
for GM cotton to be grown in India. I would not rule out market
rejection of non-food GM crops, I think that is still to come.
So, personally, I think that the principles for non-food crops
are exactly the same as those for food; the only area where we
have differentiated is in the field of medical use, where our
Council took the view that, derivatives of GMOs used for medical
application, where individual citizens elected to treat themselves,
and the derivatives were non-viable, we did not feel that was
our territory to pronounce on.
Mr Curry
10. Anybody who thinks that man has conquered
nature is welcome to half a day in my vegetable garden, and they
can look at the ravages of rabbits, pheasants, pigeons, partridges
and all the other pests; life is one long battle against nature,
and on the whole I am losing. So I do not buy that. I am bothered
about intuition as one of your criteria. Here we are, if you look
at the last five or six years, we had BSE, and what did Government
say, we have got to try to judge things on the basis of the most
recent, the most available science, the most up-to-date science.
If you are trying to settle, let us say, there has been a series
of arguments between the European Union and the United States
on various food products, they all wrote returns about who has
got the right science; if you are trying to arrange trade and
acceptability and the mutual acceptability of products, how can
you do it on any proper basis, on some form of scientific basis,
how can you organise world trade on the basis of intuition? It
does not seem to me that it is going to work?
(Mr Holden) I think that is a very good example, and
I would like to cite an example of precisely where we had a problem,
in relation to the Soil Association Organic Livestock Standards
Committee, which sat in the early eighties, and made a decision
about the feeding of animal protein to ruminants. And we deliberated,
I was on the Committee at the time, for several hours, and we
had absolutely no evidence that there was likely to be any risk
from feeding animal protein to ruminants, but we felt, we had
a gut feeling, that it was against nature to feed animal protein
to ruminants, that the public would not like it, intuitively,
we felt that it was not a practice that was compatible with the
principles of sustainable agriculture. So, based on those criteria,
which were entirely unscientific and non-evidence-based, we made
a decision; and later it proved that there were problems. But
I do not think that relying only on intuition and gut feeling
and commonsense is good enough for decision-making criteria, and
that is why I think it is very important not to reject evidence
or a science approach but to combine it with a non-evidence-based
list of criteria. And, in relation to this discussion, I sent
a paper to Michael Meacher, about two years ago, after one of
the meetings that we had with him to discuss this issue, proposing
some non-evidence-based criteria for this sort of decision-making
process.
11. And what did he say?
(Mr Holden) Nothing has happened yet; but we submitted
the paper anyway.
12. There is a lot of concern that the precautionary
principle, as enunciated here and in the European Union, can be
used by people to sort of load in all sorts of objections, which
may have nothing to do with the inherent merits of a product but
have a particular spin; how do you measure intuition objectively,
if you see what I mean?
(Ms Meziani) I have been following the debate quite
closely. I just want to say, my reading of the way in which the
Government is guiding the process on GMOs is that it is highly
political, and that it is based more on a principle that GMOs
are somehow good, rather than any evidence that actually they
are; and, to some extent, you could say they are going more by
their own opinion, you could say, than the actual evidence. And
I think what we are just trying to say is that we are absolutely
certain there is a huge range of risks, and the problem at the
moment is that it is the same as with BSE, it is an absence of
evidence rather than evidence of an absence of risk, and the Government
does not seem to have learned from the BSE disaster. So, at the
moment, in terms of world trade, you can use the precautionary
principle, and if there is not the evidence then what do you have
to go on; you have to go on experience, informed opinion and,
yes, intuition. If, in 20 years' time, these risks have been dealt
with then, fine, we can reconsider, but why go down the road when
so many people are sure there are so many risks. And I think what
I find difficult, when you suggest, if there are clear benefits
identified, would we then accept it, is the problem that those
benefits would not actually negate the whole range of risks that
had been identified; until those are dealt with, the fact that
there might be some benefit from another area does not mean that,
as a whole, it is actually going to be good for the world in any
way.
(Mr Holden) To answer your question about the science
behind intuition, I do not think it is possible to answer that
yet, but maybe in ten years' time we will have the scientific
tools to understand more about intuition. But what I think would
be fair to say is that most hypotheses, many hypotheses, which
were tested by scientists, whose names went down in history later,
probably will be ascribed to intuitive feelings, which they then
tested, by those that invented them. If it were intuition only
that was leading to a decision about a technology, I think we
would be uncomfortable about that, but you have got to include
it in a range of other criteria.
Mr Jack
13. Can I just explore with you for a moment
the question of how you deal with risk; we live in a risky world,
there are all kinds of risks that life-threatening events will
occur. In previous evidence from the Soil Association, we have
heard of the risks that you see with genetically-modified crops,
particularly various forms of contamination. What work have you
done to identify what an acceptable level of risk would be, if
somebody said, for example, that a separation distance of X would
stop, as far as you could work out, a crop contamination occurring,
and you could apply to any absolute statement an element of risk
that something was wrong with it? Have you done any analysis as
to what level of risk in a situation like that you would be prepared
to accept, or are you arguing for an entirely risk-free scenario,
in terms of the debate on GM?
(Mr Holden) I will say something about that, and Gundula
may want to add to it. I think that the buffer zone debate, which
is not yet resolved, resulted from our acceptance that, despite
our principled opposition to the trial plots, they were going
to be planted, but we had to come up with a reasonable proposition,
which could be implemented by the Government, to protect organic
producers who are producing crops for a market which wishes to
purchase a product which is completely free of contamination by
GMOs. So we commissioned a third party to do some research on
contamination, and we stuck by their recommendations. So, risk
was not exactly the right word, I think, that I would use in that
case, because what we were trying to do was to ensure that we
could uphold what we regarded as our responsibility to deliver
to the public what they expected from organic food.
(Ms Meziani) I think what we are asking for is the
minimum risk and the maximum level of possible benefits.
14. But let me ask you what you mean by the
word "minimum"; is that an event that is one in a million,
one in 100,000, never?
(Ms Meziani) I will explain. I think it depends on
your alternatives, and, in terms of GMO, we would have to say
what is the certainty that something negative is going to happen;
and, if I list in my head just the range of possible risks, I
would say, there are ten to 20, plus unknown risks. What are the
chances that any of these are irreversible, quite high; what is
the certainty of any benefit, why are we doing this at all.
15. You are giving me a—
(Ms Meziani) No, we have not got a figure. I am saying,
you have to look at all of these factors and compare them with
the alternative.
16. The line of questioning before was to try
to probe the science that lies behind the assessment of risk,
and I am always very interested to know how people rate risk,
and what you have described to me is a whole series of descriptions
of risk. And that was why I was interested to know, in the context
of—
(Ms Meziani) I was just going to say, I do not think
it is a science, I think the decision has to be a—
17. No, the decision about it may not be scientific,
but the statement, the odds on an event happening are mathematical,
like actuaries predict, in general population terms, when people
are going to die.
(Ms Meziani) That is, if you have enough knowledge
of the actual scientific processes.
18. So you are saying that we will never have,
in your judgement, enough knowledge—
(Ms Meziani) I did not say `never'. In the current
situation, we are absolutely sure, and scientists have said this
themselves, that we do not have enough knowledge to assess the
level of risk, and that is the problem.
19. The public were given a real-world opportunity,
when Sainsbury's and other supermarkets sold a genetically-modified
tomato paste. When you looked at the way that that argument was
presented to the public, what did you think was wrong with the
way that the arguments were presented, because quite a lot of
them rather liked the product, until, in the nicest sense, alternative
arguments were put to them, where not only perhaps some of them
shied away but the providers ran like mad? I am interested to
know though, in the first instance, what you thought were the
failings of the argument that enabled people actually to say,
"Yes, I know there's a risk, but I'll buy this product"?
(Mr Holden) I think, the fact is that the tomato paste
product sold, in the early days, was partly to do with price,
because it was attractively priced, but, more significantly, it
was to do with a lack of information-most of the people who were
buying the product were buying it unaware of all the issues, which
subsequently became the subject of public debate. And if I take
me, as it were, as a focus group example of that, when I first
encountered this debate, which was at the beginning of the nineties,
I was agnostic about GM, I thought, surely, there must be some
benefits, and we should treat the introduction of the technology
on a case-by-case basis. And it was not until two or three years
after I personally had been exposed to the arguments for and against
that I reached the conclusion, in parallel with the Soil Association
Council, it was the trustees that debated this, that, firstly,
there was no place for the technology in organic farming, and
then, in 1997, that we saw no place for its application in agriculture
at all; and the evolution of the opinion was based on facts, and
then making an informed decision. And I believe that if you trace
the evolution of public opinion in the UK it follows the same
course, and America is just a bit behind.
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