Supported by:
Biotechnology Australia and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry

Biotechnology: The social context
by Craig Cormick, Biotechnology Australia

A lot of people involved in ag-biotech are a bit despondent, to tell the truth. They feel that it has sort of stalled, with moratoriums on and with consumer acceptance going against ag-biotech. But initiatives like this think tank can go a long way towards keeping the impetus going and getting new life into both research and commercialisation – to find new directions to work to, find what the hurdles and how to get around them.

I am going to talk about the social context, which for many scientists is a bit of an unknown quantity. It does involve Mr and Mrs Australia and their children, their uncles, their aunties and their cousins. I want to talk about looking outside the square a little bit.

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Most people are familiar with this type of imagery, and when you ask people involved in the debate, they often say they have a feeling that that is how the general public do perceive GM foods and crops.

The answer is, 'Not necessarily so.' I will talk about that and show you why.

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First of all, this is a biotechnology time line. Very briefly, if we look back over a couple of thousand years of biotechnology development, we can see that the first vitally important discoveries of biotechnology were bread and beer – and we have hardly considered those in [inaudible] since. Up to about the mid-1990s, biotechnology was the right technology in the right place at the right time. Then, in the mid-'90s, something happened. It became the wrong technology in the wrong place at the wrong time. Why was that?

Well, the technology itself didn't actually change, but the world changed enormously. So I want to have a look at what actually changed. So, whatever happened to ag-biotechnology?

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The problem: let's have a bit of a hands-up question here. I want some audience participation, please. Hands up anyone who agrees with these statements. 'Lay people are ignorant about scientific facts': okay, well over half agree. 'The public thinks – wrongly – that GMOs are unnatural': a lot of hands up. 'The public demands “zero risk” – and this is not reasonable': a lot of hands up on that one. 'The public is a malleable victim of distorting sensationalist media': I see everybody with a hand up except anybody who might have ever worked as a journalist. Okay. 'More active promotion of the technology is needed': an overwhelming number of hands go up there.

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Now, to take you outside the mind-set, the answer is, 'Sorry, you're wrong.' The phrase on the left of this slide, 'Public Perceptions of GM Foods', is the general premise upon which most biotechnology strategy communications are developed, and is one of the reasons why they don't work, or they don't work particularly effectively.

[inaudible] on GM foods, they are based on perceptions of public perceptions, not public perceptions. Those things you all just put your hand up to are perceptions of public perceptions, rather than actual public perceptions. There is overlap; there is some degree of rightness there – if you were doing an exam you would probably get 48 per cent right, which mightn't get you over the mark – but it is not the full truth. Let's find out more.

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Traditionally it has been said that we have got a public debate on biotechnology happening, we have a public debate that is very emotionally charged, and a scientific debate, very factually based, and they're talking two different languages – chasms apart. I said, 'Well, the answer is simple, surely. If only the public understood the science, you wouldn't have a problem. Right?' Well, that's only 50 per cent, because also the scientists, developers, commercialisations have to understand the public's point of view as well. So it is very important that we move from the two poles into the space in the middle.

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I was in America in June–July, at a Global Biotechnology Communicators Conference, tacked on to the end of Bio 2005. A very interesting paper was put together by George Gaskell, from the London School of Economics. He looked at the evolution of changes to science and community thinking about biotechnology. Now, traditionally when I am talking to scientists I find that younger scientists tend to 'get' a lot of this, they have grown up with these changes, whereas perhaps an older generation has had to come to an understanding of it.

Gene technology was a radical idea that gained momentum, going back in time. There were calls for democratisation of science, which were initially greeted with incredulity by scientists: 'What are you talking about?' Democratisation was taken up by expert committees and funding bodies, seeking ethical, environmental inputs and more social engagement. We then saw scientists advocate more ethical and community engagements in the journals, moving on to what we should see in the future: broader governance of science finding public support, leading to increased confidence in science, leading to more socially viable directions for S&T.

So it is both science developing an understanding of what the community will accept and won't accept, what the ethical barriers are, and also working around those, rather than just developing it in isolation.

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A quick word on the voices of dissent: I spend a lot of time talking to anti-GMO activists, as much as I spend talking to scientists, trying to nut out what their issues are. And we found out something very interesting. (I took these pictures over at Bio, in the USA. These were people walking round Philadelphia.)

Most people are familiar with Chinese whispers – you know, the old joke, 'Send reinforcements, we're going to advance,' which is heard by a person as, 'Send three and fourpence, we're going to a dance.' The same thing happens with biotechnology.

There is a study done by an American psychologist who found that when you say 'Genetically modified organisms' or 'GM food' to people, they actually hear something very different, depending on their mind-set. So if you say 'GM food', what people are hearing is 'Multinationals control the food chain'. Or they're hearing, 'The government's dictating your choice.' Or they hear, 'A fear of new technologies,' or it triggers off, 'Science gone too far'. So GM foods have become a focus for many other concerns in society. It's not the GM food itself that people are often concerned about; it is the implication of what it sets off in their mind-set.

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I said before that biotechnology was the wrong technology in the wrong place at the wrong time for GM foods and GM crops, and the world had changed, rather than GM foods. And here is what we see in the world in the last 5 or 10 years.

We have seen a lack of trust in public institutions grow enormously; anti-globalisation and anti-multinationalisation; increased democratisation of decision making; increased empowerment of consumers; public health scares and environmental disasters; enormous growth of the internet as an alternative media; and increased demand for scrutiny and consultation of government.

So things we were developing 20 or 25 years ago no longer fit happily into this model. To develop technologies now that raise public concerns, you have to understand these issues and work with them.

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To turn to 'GM foods and the consumer – the real facts': something very interesting came out of the workshop we were doing in the USA. Everybody who was, I guess, considered a world leader, got together and we put together everything we know about GM foods and the consumer, beyond the top-level surveys but probing in deeper. And we found a lot of very interesting things.

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What consumers say in surveys is not how consumers actually behave. People lie in surveys. They say what they'd rather say, then they'll go into the supermarket and do something very different.

As a relative concern, attitudes to GM foods are comparable to attitudes to artificial preservatives in foods. So, yes, people say they don't want GM foods. They will also say they don't want preservatives in food. And, as Jim Peacock pointed out, there has never really been a time in society when our dislocation from the production of agriculture and food, or knowledge of food, has been so enormous.

General attitudes to foods are the biggest predictor of attitudes to GM foods. It is very, very important to understand this. It is your attitude towards food in general that governs whether you will accept or reject GM foods. So if you are a person who eats a lot of junk food, you tend to be not worried about the food you eat, then you will also not worry about having GM food. If you are a person who is very health conscious about the food, you want to shop not at the supermarket but at markets and so on, or buy organic foods, then you will also put GM foods into that bucket of things you are very worried about, such as industrialisation.

There is a poor understanding of what foods are GM, with a wide belief that many fresh fruits and vegetables in Australia are genetically modified.

And attitudes to GM foods are also influenced by a hierarchy of values – as I will show you in a moment.

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In surveys in Australia, roughly 50 per cent say they would eat GM foods or couldn't care, and 50 per cent say they wouldn't eat GM foods. But, as I said before, what people say in surveys doesn't actually equate to when they go into a supermarket and start shopping.

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Now, that is influenced to a large extent by what type of food the GM is in. On snack foods/processed foods we have done a lot of focus group tests. I've got a beautiful film clip I could have put in today, if I'd had a bit longer, of people sitting round a table saying, 'No, I wouldn't eat GM foods. Not interested. No, no way, no way.' Then out comes a pack of lamingtons, and you say, 'These could have GM canola in them.' 'Oh, yeah, but I'd eat lamingtons. That's all right.' Or, 'Oh well, they're bad for you anyway, so who cares?' So, again, in what people say when confronted with the food, the type of food will make a difference.

If we plonk a GM tomato on the table, however, they may still say no. We know there are no GM tomatoes; we say, 'If this tomato was GM, would you eat it?' and they are still concerned. So the type of food it is going into is really important in understanding attitudes towards it.

We also know the other things that will govern or move people's attitudes towards or against a GM food.

First, is there a benefit? Jim Peacock has touched on that: where is the benefit to the consumer? If there is a lack of benefits, they will go against it.

Social trust: who developed this food? Was it a large multinational organisation? Was it CSIRO? That will move it.

Whether it is plant genes or animal genes: people are much more comfortable if the gene in the GM plant comes from a plant, and they get very, very nervous when you cross the kingdom barrier and jump with an animal gene.

Faith in regulation: do they trust the regulators or not? We see the difference in the USA and Europe. In the USA there is great trust in USFDA; in Europe there is very poor trust in regulators.

And price: what is the difference in price? That is a minor differentiator.

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We discovered this thing we called value chains. We found this works for embryonic stem cells, it works for GM foods.

The first-level question have traditionally looked at is: would you or would you not eat GM food? Yes or no? It is as simple as that.

But then we find out that Yes or No is governed or moved around, depending on what a value is. The first-level value is: is there a benefit? So, would you eat GM foods? Perhaps I have said no. What if it was a tomato with increased selenium that could decrease prostate cancer? Oh, there's a benefit; then I'll head towards yes.

Social trust: who developed that, Monsanto or CSIRO? That will move you as well.

How long have I been eating it? Did you know you have been eating GM foods for 8 years? Oh, well, maybe it's not so bad after all. That will swing you.

Source of the genes: that is as I have talked about before. Regulation and cost are further values.

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These last few slides give a quick summary.

The Australian public are least likely to approve of any GM foods that benefit a company over the public; involve gene transfer from species that are not closely related; are not undertaken for a societal benefit; are perceived as being possibly harmful to people or the environment; were not developed with perceived consultation or regulation; and are present in foods that align with 'health conscious' consumers.

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However, GM foods the Australian public are most likely to approve are those that have direct consumer benefits; have a gene modification within the organism, or from an organism that is closely related (plants being preferred over animals); have direct societal benefits or align with societal values; are perceived as being not harmful to people or the environment; were developed with some perceived consultation and regulation; and are present in foods consumed by those who are less 'health conscious'.

I want to touch on a meeting we had on Friday – we called it a Meeting of the Minds. We pulled together 100 people, right across the ag-biotech spectrum. We had the Network of Concerned Farmers, we had the big crop companies, we had CSIRO, we had everybody who is a key player.

We looked at two hypothetical crops, rust-resistant wheat and acid-tolerant lucerne.

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We looked at these five or six hurdles: segregation, unintended presence, pollen drift, liability, market access and consumer acceptance – the last one rolls together with market access. We said to people that a crop to be modelled had to get over all of those hurdles. So let's look at those two crops, and I will very quickly explain to you what people in the audience found.

Is there end-user acceptance of lucerne in Australia? Most people said yes; there was a small percentage for no; the percentage of those who were unsure was still fairly high. For the wheat it was quite the opposite, with an enormous percentage for no. That was based on lack of consumer acceptance. People are very scared by GM wheat.

We are going to do a report on that as well and pass it out with this one; the two should come together very comfortably.

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I am going to end by drawing your attention to a report put out by the USDA Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture. I won't go through these in detail; I would just refer you to the report. They have looked at modelling what are going to be the key impacts on global world biotechnology.

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This first group of things includes an ageing Western population, more people being conscious and concerned about the health value of their food, increasing public concern with health and nutrition – as I talked about before, they are the ends that people who have concerns about GM foods need to be aware of – and the influence on different countries, with South America coming on line, China getting into GM crops, et cetera.

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They also touched on the big unknowns – which none of us can particularly predict – and how they are going to affect agricultural production.