The economic power of the Golden Rice opposition

Wesseler, Justus; Zilberman, David

doi:10.1017/s1355770x1300065x

Cited by 113 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…In Europe, the lack of public support for GMOs has led to a de facto moratorium within the EU on new GM crops from 1999 to 2004 and has steered the development of an extremely strict and expensive regulatory framework concerning the import and cultivation of GM crops [5]. In Africa and Asia, the resistance to GMOs has had tragic consequences, costing thousands of lives [6,7].…”

Section: Explaining Public Opposition To Gmosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fatal attraction: the intuitive appeal of GMO opposition

Blancke

Breusegem

Jaeger

et al. 2015

Trends in Plant Science

167

146

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Explaining public opposition to GMOs 11Concerns about health, environmental and socio-economic hazards have resulted in a strong 12 public opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) [1][2][3]. These worries tend to have a 13 large impact on national and international policies. For instance, in India, the government 14 suspended the culture of Bacillus thuringiensis-engineered Solanum melongena (Bt brinjal), 15 despite the initial approval for commercialization [4]. In Europe, the lack of public support for 16 GMOs has led to a de facto moratorium within the European Union on new GM crops from 1999 17 to 2004 and has steered the development of an extremely strict and expensive regulatory 18 framework concerning the import and cultivation of GM crops [5]. In Africa and Asia, the 19 resistance to GMOs has had tragic consequences, costing thousands of lives [6, 7]. 20However, research shows that cultivation of GM crops does not pose any specific health 21 or environmental risks, but instead can bring benefits to local farmers [8][9][10][11]. The reason for the 22 discrepancy between public opinion and scientific evidence needs clarification. Some people 23 suggest that post-Christian beliefs or romantic notions of nature are responsible, whereas others 24 blame the lack of direct benefits for Western consumers [6, 12, 13]. These accounts are definitely 25 on the right track. Nonetheless, they fail to explain why opposition also occurs in non-Christian 26 cultures, why people do not reject every technology that brings no immediate benefits or why 27 people prefer romantic views in the first place. 28Here, we suggest a cognitive approach to account for the opposition to GMOs. In other 29 words, we use ideas from the cognitive sciences, evolutionary psychology and cultural attraction 30 to rationalize the popularity and typical features of this phenomenon. We argue that intuitions 31 and emotions make the mind highly susceptible to particular negative representations of GMOs. 91In their campaigns, opponents of GMOs explicitly appeal to these essentialist intuitions by intuitions. These intuitions tend to translate in religious beliefs, but they can also contribute to a 103 quasi-religious view on nature [30, 31]. Indeed, large parts of Europe, where the resistance 104 against GM food is strong, are highly secular. In the cognitive science of religion, religion is 105 commonly assumed to be a byproduct, generated by the peculiarities of our mental make-up that 106 includes essentialist thinking, but that is also highly receptive to the feeling that the world has 107 been designed for a particular purpose [32][33][34][35]. This design illusion has effectively been 108 debunked by evolutionary theory, but the mix of essentialist, teleological and intentional biases 109 continues to allure a lot of people in believing that a certain order exists in nature that should not 110 be meddled with. Indeed, genetic engineering is considered the opposite of "natural" [3, 36]. activists bombard the public with edite...

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Section: Explaining Public Opposition To Gmosmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fatal attraction: the intuitive appeal of GMO opposition

Blancke

Breusegem

Jaeger

et al. 2015

Trends in Plant Science

167

146

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…A meta‐analysis by Klümper and Qaim () shows that ‘the average agronomic and economic benefits of genetically modified crops are large and significant’. Second‐generation GE crops such as micronutrient enriched food crops are expected to improve the health, life‐expectancy and welfare of especially impoverished consumers (Wesseler and Zilberman, ; De Steur et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Trends in Approval Times for Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States and the European Union

Smart

Blum²,

Wesseler

2016

J Agricultural Economics

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Genetically engineered (GE) crops are subject to regulatory oversight to ensure their safety for humans and the environment. Their approval in the European Union (EU) starts with an application in a given Member State followed by a scientific risk assessment, and ends with a political decision‐making step (risk management). In the United States (US) approval begins with a scientific (field trial) step and ends with a ‘bureaucratic’ decision‐making step. We investigate trends for the time taken for these steps and the overall time taken for approving GE crops in the US and the EU. Our results show that from 1996–2015 the overall time trend for approval in the EU decreased and then flattened off, with an overall mean completion‐time of 1,763 days. In the US in 1998 there was a break in the trend of the overall approval time. Initially, from 1988 until 1997 the trend decreased with a mean approval time of 1,321 days; from 1998–2015, the trend almost stagnated with a mean approval time of 2,467 days.

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“…Undue delay in India to making Golden Rice available has cost the Indian economy $199 m per year for a decade [56][57][58].…”

Section: Economicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An overview of agriculture, nutrition and fortification, supplementation and biofortification: Golden Rice as an example for enhancing micronutrient intake

Dubock¹

2017

Agric & Food Secur

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The worlds growing population and limited land resources require high intensity of food production. Human nutrition needs both macronutrients and micronutrients. One way of providing micronutrients in staple crops of the poor is biofortification, through plant breeding. All methods of plant breeding are acceptable and safe, and some methods can deliver micronutrients not achievable by other methods. Vitamin A deficiency is responsible for around 4500 preventable child deaths daily, and Golden Rice, biofortified with provitamin A, has proven potential as a costless intervention where rice is the staple crop. The Cartagena Protocol's concentration on a very narrow concern for environment is changing to embrace concern for sustainable development, food security and climate change. The World Bank is recommending the use of biofortified cereals, including Golden Rice as an example, as the norm rather than the exception in addressing malnutrition, noting that education, social marketing and mass media are important to optimise the effectiveness of any food-based approaches to malnutrition alleviation. Regulatory applications have been made for Golden Rice, transformation event GR2E, relating to the safety of human food and feed, which has been confirmed by one regulatory authority at the time of printing. Attitudes to gmo-crops, after two decades, appear to be changing, which is expected to benefit humankind and the environment.

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The economic power of the Golden Rice opposition

Cited by 113 publications

References 50 publications

Fatal attraction: the intuitive appeal of GMO opposition

Fatal attraction: the intuitive appeal of GMO opposition

Trends in Approval Times for Genetically Engineered Crops in the United States and the European Union

An overview of agriculture, nutrition and fortification, supplementation and biofortification: Golden Rice as an example for enhancing micronutrient intake

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