Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Todhunter's response to Professor Trewavas exposes a prominent fault in the GMO

Cindy Boesel | 04.08.2015 10:52 | Bio-technology | Health

The problem of GMO growth and import is making headlines in British newspapers yet again. Prompted by the publication of an open letter by a pro-GMO researcher, Tony Trewavas, the British public instantly saw a heated response issued by Colin Todhunter, who famously criticised a speech made by a former UK Environment Minister, Owen Paterson, in Pretoria at the beginning of this year. Following the exchange of Trewavas, Todhunter and Paterson, it becomes clear that the debate is still lacking and that the language all parties use to talk about GMO doesn’t allow the public opinion develop proper tools to assess the value or danger of introducing GMOs to any market in the world.

It's clear that the topic of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is still sizzling hot on the British scene. On July 31, Colin Todhunter – an independent writer and former social policy researcher based in the UK and India – responded to an open letter published by Professor Tony Trewavas, a plant scientist from Edinburgh University and an active GMO proponent, which made quite a few headlines recently. Here's the gist of the story.

The original message of Paterson

It all started in February 2015, when The UK Telegraph printed a news piece concerning the activity of a former UK Environment Minister, Owen Paterson, who at that moment planned to accuse the European Union and organizations such as Greenpeace of condemning people in developing countries to death by refusing to accept genetically modified crops.

"I call them the “Green Blob” – a reference to a 1950s Sci-Fi movie starring Steve McQueen in which a blob-like alien attacks earth and swallows everything in its path: the environmental pressure groups, renewable energy companies and some public officials who keep each other well supplied with lavish funds, scare stories and green tape,” he was to say.

The report featured several passages from Paterson's planned attack on anti-GMO attitudes present all across the European environmentalist spectrum, including a note on the controversial genetically modified Gold Rice which Paterson claims could save the lives of 6000 African children every day.

"This is a time of extraordinary opportunity for Africa. Progress in the plant sciences is opening up the promise of a second Green Revolution, one that can not only feed the 9 to 10 billion people that will inhabit our planet in 2050, but feed them well – one that can finally end the shame of the nearly one billion who still go to bed every night hungry and malnourished,” he was to say.

Todhunter's response

Two days later, Todhunter published an article in response to Paterson's criticism of environmentalist organizations and their attitude towards the import and cultivation of GMOs – not only in Europe, but also elsewhere, in this case Africa.

Quoting several criticisms of GMOs made by Viva Kermani or Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, he quoted a Statement signed by 24 delegates from 18 African countries to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization in 1998 opposing the actions of “giant multinational corporations to push a technology that is neither safe, environmentally friendly nor economically beneficial”.

According to Todhunter, Paterson's discourse represents “a history of engaging in the type of emotional blackmail and smearing of critics” typical of the pro-GMO lobby. In his article, Todhunter points to a common feature of the contemporary GMO debate – the problem of poverty and huger, which proponents of GMO claim can be solved with the application of accurate technologies.

Those who oppose GMOs, however, suggest that this is a technique meant to divert the public's attention from the real causes of poverty and hunger – Todhunter never states what they are exactly, instead pointing to a report from The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN) showing how GM crops don't decrease pesticide use as promised and aren't a means necessary for increasing crop yields. Apparently, we're already producing enough food to feed all humans on the planet.

Even if Todhunter's criticism is partly valid, one report from an organization that can hardly be described as objective doesn’t provide enough support for his claims. And that's when Professor Trewavas came in.

Professor Trewavas's open letter and Todhunter's response

Speaking from the standpoint of a scientist and an academic, Professor Trewavas's main point was that the anti-GMO discourse employed by environmentalist organizations, ranging from Greenpeace to WWF, doesn't include the idea of choice – a selection of alternative options, which are chosen in accordance with local needs of farmers.

At the same time, Professor Trewavas exhibited an unfailing trust in science as an objective enterprise: “Science is by its nature not politics or political propaganda or anything like it. It deals with evidence not superstition, or political or social philosophies. If you have a political programme then please stop trying to justify it by claiming it has scientific support; it does not,” he said.

Todhunter's response, much longer and written in a decidedly less amicable tone, is a perfect example of anti-GMO reasoning in short. What Todhunter believes in is the existence of a large agribusiness lobbying agency dominating over global economy, politics and, unsurprisingly, scientific enterprise.

“There is an authoritarian, political agenda behind the GMO project – not set by some environmental group (as you say) that you like to use as a whipping boy – but by the agribusiness concerns behind GMOs and petro-chemical industrial agriculture,” he said.

And added another part on science: “When peer-reviewed science is provided by critics to support their claims, the onslaught by the GMO agritech industry and its mouthpieces against those who legitimately and scientifically contest the claims about the efficacy of GMOs is relentless”.

What can we learn from this exchange?

There are several aspects of this debate that immediately catch the eye: the problem of social trust, or lack thereof, in science, belief that science works at the service of large corporations, as well as a lack of proper understanding of the local context of the debate – the large and varied continent of Africa.

Paterson's accusations of environmentalist organizations as being opposed to social and technological progress reflect the kind of technological utopianism that is inherent in the discourse of pro-GMO parties. On the other hand, Todhunter's distrust in science and Professor Trewavas's perhaps sightly naïve view of science expose the underlying problem of the debate on GMOs as a scientific practice.

Instead of theorizing about the existence of a global lobbying agency, we should focus of the immediate reality of GMO introduction – talking about its risks and benefits to African nations, the first step to do would be to include their own choice in the matter and incorporate their voices into the debate.

Cindy Boesel
- Homepage: http://www.timeo.co.uk/

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. Some clarifications and points for Cindy Boesel to consider — Colin Todhunter
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech