by Boris Johnson » Fri Oct 12, 2012 4:34 pm
I think the issue here is that, give the information that 'this is genetically modified' to the public at large and all your going to get is a massive scare. As we had here in the late 90'ies.
GM is bad, because tampering with nature is bad. It's all the same thing.
You still have fanatics who stampede GM drought-resistant crops test fields and such. Simply because its tampering with nature. Despite the fact, we really need that technology.
I think this is one of those very modern issues where you simply cannot, on a level of policy expect informed consent.
So whilst I think the technology should be prone to more regulation as its fairly cowboy at the moment. I think involving Mr. uniformed public 'customer is always right' who believes any old shit they find on google in the debate, is not a great idea. It happened here and we now can't grow GM crops here for love nor money (in fact I believe there is legislation against it), despite the fact we can barely produce enough of our own food as it is.