Genetically engineered crops and responsible innovation

ABSTRACT

The current debate over genetically engineered (GE) crops is framed as an evaluation of GE crops as a class. This paper is an attempt to reframe the debate by focusing on the question of what responsible research and innovation (RRI) in agricultural biotechnology would look like. With regard to the ethics of agricultural technology, the most important question that we should be asking is not whether a technology is GE, but whether it is responsibly designed. I discuss a report by the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies to the European Commission in order to propose guidelines for RRI in agricultural technology, and I illustrate the possibility of RRI in agricultural biotechnology by discussing a public–private partnership, the Water Efficient Maize for Africa Project. I conclude by examining the implications of this argument for debates over the ethics of agricultural technologies more generally.

KEYWORDS:

• Water Efficient Maize for Africa
• technology assessment
• philosophy of technology
• environmental ethics
• agricultural ethics

1. Introduction

The debate over genetically engineered (GE) crops continues to rage. In the U.S., over 70 bills have been introduced by states that would either require the labeling of foods containing GE ingredients or ban them altogether.¹ A 2013 New York Times poll found that 26% of respondents believe that ‘genetically modified’ or ‘engineered’ foods were unsafe for human consumption or ‘toxic,’ and 93% of respondents believe that GE foods should be labeled (Kopicki 2013).² In 2014, the state of Vermont passed a mandatory labeling bill, which came into effect on 1 July 2016. Later that month, the U.S. Congress passed a nationwide bill (superseding that of Vermont) requiring labeling of most food packages (Strom 2016); the bill, signed by President Obama, has done little to settle the controversy in the U.S. over labeling (AP 2016; Cummins 2016). Worldwide, the passions aroused by GE crops have led to protests of various kinds, from the destruction of field trials in the Philippines to the organization of ‘March Against Monsanto’ demonstrations in more than 50 countries (AP 2013; Kupferschmidt 2013). In June 2016, a group of Nobel Laureates published an open letter responding to protests against biotechnology, in which it suggested that criticisms of GE crops are anti-scientific, ideologically driven, and a crime against humanity.³

An important feature of the current debate is that it is framed as an evaluation of GE crops as a class; that is, many of the relevant questions in the debate concern the properties and consequences of GE crops as such. This paper is an attempt to reframe the debate by focusing on the question of what responsible research and innovation (RRI) in agricultural biotechnology would look like. As many have argued, it is difficult if not impossible to draw a morally relevant distinction between GE crops as a class and non-GE crops (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1999, 2003; NRC 2002; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2016). There are risks and benefits of particular GE crops, but few (if any) of these apply only to GE crops; most (if not all) apply also to conventional hybrid crops. There are also risks that apply to some conventional hybrid crops that might not apply to particular GE crops. This is the case even under a broad conception of risk, which includes not just health and environmental consequences, but also social, ethical, cultural, and economic implications. Because of this, it is misguided to attempt to evaluate GE crops as a class; rather, particular crops (GE or not) should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

With regard to the ethics of agricultural technology, the most important question that we should be asking is not whether a technology is GE, but whether it is responsibly designed. After examining the current debate over GE crops in more detail, I discuss an opinion piece by the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies to the European Commission, Ethics of Modern Developments in Agricultural Technologies (EGE 2008), in order to propose some guidelines for RRI in agricultural technology. I then discuss the possibility of RRI in agricultural biotechnology by examining a public–private partnership (PPP) that involves GE crops, the Water Efficient Maize for Africa (WEMA) Project. I conclude by highlighting one possible implication of this argument for debates over the ethics of agricultural technologies more generally.

2. On the debate over GE crops

Traditionally, the debate over GE crops has considered them as a class, in contrast to non-GE crops. Some critics argue that GE crops as such are ‘unnatural.’ Prince Charles, in his Reith Lectures of 2000, cautioned that we must be ‘careful to use science to understand how nature works, not to change what nature is, as we do when genetic manipulation seeks to transform a process of biological evolution into something altogether different’ (Charles, Prince of Wales 2000, 13). Other critics argue that GE crops have unacceptable risk profiles – or at least that we do not know enough about their potential risks to put them on the market. For example, Greenpeace holds that ‘GMOs should not be released into the environment since there is not an adequate scientific understanding of their impact on the environment and human health.’⁴ Still others argue that GE crops have deleterious socio-economic consequences – for example, that they increase inequality and contribute to financial indebtedness in developing countries (e.g. Shiva 2000; Lotter 2009a, 2009b). Shiva (2013) has gone so far as to claim that GE crops are contributing to such high levels of debt in India that they are causing Indian farmers to commit suicide. While each of these criticisms is unique, they share one important property: they all attempt to evaluate GE crops as a class.

Proponents have responses to each of these criticisms, and some of these responses also attempt to evaluate GE crops as a class. For example, in response to the claim that GE crops have an unacceptable risk profile, many proponents respond by asserting that GE crops are safe (e.g. Borlaug 2000). A recent open letter from Nobel Laureates in support of GE crops asserts: ‘Scientific and regulatory agencies around the world have repeatedly and consistently found crops and foods improved through biotechnology to be as safe as, if not safer than those derived from any other method of production.’⁵ While it is true that GE crops that are currently approved for sale do not appear to be significantly riskier than conventional crops, it is illegitimate to claim that GE crops as a class are safe. It is possible to genetically engineer a crop that is unsafe for human consumption or has detrimental environmental consequences, just as it is possible to develop such a crop through classical breeding techniques. If we understand risk in the standard way (in terms of a probability of a specific type of harm), then it is difficult, if not impossible, to characterize the risks of an entire class of crops. Individual crops (GE or not) have potential benefits, hazards, and probabilities associated with each; but it makes little sense to discuss the risks of an entire class of crops, given that the potential hazards and their probabilities differ significantly from crop to crop (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2016, 4).

A more effective response to the above criticisms is to point out that none of them successfully identifies problems with GE crops as a class. GE crops might be ‘unnatural,’ but they are no less natural than crops that have been genetically modified through classical breeding techniques (e.g. Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1999, 2003; Dawkins 2000). It is possible that a particular GE crop will have an unacceptable risk profile, but the ones that are currently approved for sale do not appear to be riskier than conventional crops, and there is nothing intrinsic to the technology of genetic engineering that raises the risk of the crops (e.g. NRC 2002, 5; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2016, 16).⁶ Finally, although it is possible for particular GE crops to contribute to inequality, there is nothing intrinsic to the technology of genetic engineering that makes GE crops less socio-economically acceptable than non-GE crops. Many non-GE crops (e.g. hybrid varieties planted during the Green Revolution) have been targeted by critics for having deleterious socio-economic consequences (e.g. Shiva 1991), and there are many who argue that some GE crops can, under some circumstances, reduce global inequality (e.g. Tripp 2001; Juma and Fang 2002; Wambugu 2002; Juma 2011). I discuss the WEMA Project in Section 5 in order to specify the types of institutional arrangements that might allow GE crops to have this beneficial effect.

One might argue that the fact that GE crops are protected by intellectual property rights (IPRs) constitutes a significant difference between GE crops as such and non-GE crops. It is true that protection of IPRs is easier in the case of some GE crops than some non-GE crops. It is possible to patent conventional hybrid crops, but it is in some cases difficult to enforce these patent rights. With regard to GE crops, it is not only the plant that is patented, but also some of the genes within the plant. Because of this, it is relatively easy to determine whether someone has infringed upon another’s patents; one can simply test whether a particular plant contains the patented genes and determine whether the user has the legal right to access the crop. For conventional hybrid crops, it is only the plant as a whole that is patented. In some cases, there is a quick and easy test that one can perform to ascertain whether a given conventionally bred plant is patent protected (e.g. Hamilton 2014); in other cases there is not.⁷

Given the extent of patenting and licensing and the strength of patent protection in agricultural biotechnology, one might argue that GE crops as such have deleterious consequences that non-GE crops do not. Many have argued that patents and patent licenses are giving seed companies too much control over agricultural production (e.g. Kloppenburg 2005; Pechlaner 2012). Patent licenses that cover GE seeds standardly prohibit farmers from saving and reusing seeds. These same patent licenses also prohibit others from doing some types of research on patented GE crops, which gives seed companies significant control over the kinds of research that are done and the kinds that are not (Biddle 2014). Many seed companies have been very aggressive in enforcing patent protection by testing farmers’ lands and filing patent infringement suits against those found to be growing GE crops without authorization (Pechlaner 2012). In some cases, seed companies have filed injunctions against farmers with seed cleaning businesses for encouraging patent infringement, as opposed to actually infringing (e.g. Monsanto v. Parr).⁸ In addition to these worries about control over agricultural production, patents allow patent holders to charge monopoly prices for their inventions, which can put important innovations out of the financial reach of many in developing countries (Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1999, 2003).

These are legitimate concerns about the impact of patents and patent licenses in agricultural technology. Despite this, there are important reasons for separating evaluations of GE crops as such from evaluations of the types of control that IPRs allow over GE crops. First, under the current patent system, the primary mechanism for controlling the use of GE crops is not the patent itself, but the patent license – that is, a contract that patent holders can require licensees to sign, stipulating the ways in which the invention may and may not be used (Biddle 2014). As noted, many patent licenses currently prohibit users from saving seeds and performing certain types of research on some GE crops. But this need not be the case. Through regulation, public pressure on patent holders, or other means, patent holders could be forced to weaken the restrictions that patent licenses often include. For example, Syngenta, which holds the patents on ‘Golden Rice’ (or rice that is GE to produce beta-carotene), allows those earning less than US$10,000 per year to access the crop royalty free.⁹ Patents need not be accompanied by restrictive patent licenses.

One way of reducing the incidence of restrictive patent licensing could be to place greater emphasis on public funding for GE crops. If more research in the future is publicly funded, and if patents over these GE crops are held by public entities (such as governments or universities), then the restrictions included in patent licenses would likely be relaxed considerably. Indeed, many commentators who are both optimistic about the potential of GE crops and worried about the socio-economic consequences of current GE crops argue along these lines (e.g. Serageldin 1999; Chrispeels 2000; EGE 2008; Montenegro 2015).

Second, it is not only GE crops that can be subject to patents and patent licenses, but also conventionally bred crops. As noted earlier, it can in some cases be difficult to enforce intellectual property (IP) protection over conventionally bred crops, but this is not always the case. If a patent covers a property of a conventionally bred crop that is easy to detect – for example, the location of a head of broccoli with respect to the leaves – then patent protection can be relatively easy (Hamilton 2014). In cases such as this, patent holders can exert the same types and degrees of control over conventionally bred crops as they can over GE crops.

Third, while the patent is one type of IP that can govern plant use – and it is currently the most common type – it is not the only one. There are a variety of types of IP that might apply to plants, and these different types allow different kinds and degrees of control (Wilson 2002). Before patents were granted on plants, plant varieties were governed by the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants, or UPOV system, which did not allow for prohibitions on seed saving or research. As will be discussed in Section 4 of this paper, the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies to the European Commission recommends an analysis of the shift from the UPOV system to the patent system and leaves open the possibility that we should shift back to the UPOV system.

Critics of GE crops are right to point out the problems with the current system of patents and patent licenses, and they are legitimately worried about the effects of allowing seed companies such extensive control over crops. But communicating this legitimate point effectively is not aided by framing it as a criticism of GE crops as such. Again, evaluations of GE crops as such should be distinguished from evaluations of the various regimes that might govern the uses of these crops. I will return to this point in Section 6.

3. On the potential of particular GE crops

It is important that we move beyond the traditional GE vs. non-GE debate, because some GE crops, developed and deployed appropriately, have the potential to benefit humanity significantly – in particular, they have the potential to help to feed a growing world population in a sustainable manner. Assuming continued population growth, and given that the amount of land under cultivation cannot expand significantly without environmental degradation, it is imperative to develop methods to increase productivity and reduce loss. Additionally, given our obligations to future generations, it is imperative that these methods be sustainable. These challenges are especially significant given the disruptions caused by global climate change; many parts of the world are experiencing reductions in the amount of arable land, and global climate change is likely one of the causes of this (e.g. Allali et al. 2001; Nelson et al. 2009). These are prodigious challenges, and some GE crops have the potential to help meet them. Genetic engineering can assist in developing crops that are tolerant of abiotic extremes (such as drought, heat, and cold); that can grow in more acidic soil areas; that are more efficient in their use of fertilizers, and that have enhanced nutritional contents (e.g. Chrispeels 2000). The causes of world hunger are complex, and addressing them requires more than simply increasing productivity (Foley 2013). Currently, we produce more than enough food to feed the entire world; food waste and inadequate distribution are enormous problems. That being said, if we assume that the world’s population will continue to grow, then we need to face the problem of increasing agricultural productivity in a sustainable manner (Chrispeels 2000). Some GE crops have the potential to do so.

The argument just given differs from many other versions of the ‘feed the world’ argument. Many versions of the argument make exaggerated claims about upcoming food shortages (see Foley 2013 for discussion). Many suggest that GE crops are necessary to feed a growing population and that putting more resources into agricultural biotechnology and reducing regulatory hurdles will automatically lead to GE crops that will help to feed the world (e.g. Borlaug 2000). Many assert that the primary obstacle to securing abundant and sustainable food supplies through GE crops is ‘radical anti-genetically modified organism (GMO) organizations’ (Potrykus, quoted in Nestle 2010, 160). I make none of these claims. Rather, I argue that, in a changing global climate, feeding a growing world population sustainably will be challenging, and to meet this challenge, we should avail ourselves of all of the resources at our disposal. Some GE crops, developed and deployed in appropriate ways, could be an important part of an overall strategy for feeding the world sustainably. Not all GE crops will be helpful in this regard; indeed, many of the GE crops that have been developed thus far do not contribute to this end (e.g. Foley 2013, 2014). But some could. Similarly, some non-GE crops could help to contribute to this end, while others might not. What is needed are guidelines for helping to distinguish between those crops that contribute significantly to important humanitarian goals and those that do not – whether or not the crops are GE. Such guidelines should go beyond mere technical effectiveness and include broader considerations, such as whether a crop will contribute to sustainability and whether it will be affordable and/or accessible to those who most need it. Many of the most important criticisms of GE crops, again, do not focus on technical potential, but rather upon broader ethical and socio-economic considerations (e.g. Magnus and Caplan 2002; Thompson 2002, 2010; Nestle 2010). In evaluating the potential of GE crops to reduce world hunger in a sustainable manner, these additional considerations should not be ignored.

4. The European Commission report, ethics of modern developments in agricultural technologies

The concept of RRI has been gaining importance in the policy worlds in North America and Europe over the last two decades (e.g. Schot and Rip 1997; Guston and Sarewitz 2002; Owen, Macnaghten, and Stilgoe 2012; Stilgoe, Owen, and Macnaghten 2013; von Schomberg 2013; Guston et al. 2014). According to the European Commission

Responsible research and innovation is an approach that anticipates and assesses potential implications and societal expectations with regard to research and innovation, with the aim to foster the design of inclusive and sustainable research and innovation.¹⁰

It does this through an emphasis upon public engagement in research and innovation, incorporation of ethical considerations within the research and innovation processes, and facilitation of enhanced access to research results. While there has been much discussion of RRI in general, there has been rather little on RRI in agricultural technology specifically.

An important exception to this is the 2008 report by the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies to the European Commission (EGE), Ethics of Modern Developments in Agricultural Technologies, an advisory piece commissioned by José Manuel Barroso, then-President of the European Commission. The report was requested in part because of recent increases in the numbers of people suffering from hunger due to rises in food prices, among other factors (EGE 2008, 60). It provides ethical guidelines for the production and distribution of agricultural plant-based technologies, as well as guidelines for policymaking in agriculture. The report departs from some traditional treatments of technology, in that it does not treat technologies as value neutral. Those who believe that technologies are value neutral acknowledge that there are important ethical issues concerning the distribution of technologies, the treatment of workers, and so on, but they deny that ethical considerations are relevant to the design of technologies themselves.¹¹ The EGE report explicitly affirms that the design of agricultural technologies is morally significant, and it identifies norms that can guide such design. It argues that the ethical principles of respect for human dignity and justice (including intergenerational justice) should be embedded in the design of agricultural technologies, as well as in trade and agricultural policy.

With regard to production and distribution, the group considers three goals as ‘first priorities and guiding principles to which any technology in agriculture must adhere’: food security, food safety, and sustainability (EGE 2008, 60). That is, any agriculture technology should be designed in such a way as to promote these aims. The goals of food security and food safety have their origins primarily in the ethical value of respect for human dignity (though the value of justice is also relevant). In the international community, these have the status of a human right, namely the right to food: everyone should have ‘sufficient access to safe and healthy food corresponding to their particular cultural background[s] and available scientific data’ (EGE 2008, 61). The right to food is recognized in a number of international agreements, including Article 25 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights; correspondingly, food security and food safety are obvious places to begin any discussion of the ethics of agricultural technology. The goal of sustainability, according to the report’s authors, has its origin primarily in the ethical value of justice – in particular, justice between generations. In characterizing their notion of sustainability, the authors of the report state:

1. there is a need to optimise processes involved in primary production, distribution and storage of food;

2. use of arable land needs to be optimised and methods are needed to turn areas not accessible at present, due to adverse environmental conditions, into arable land;

3. all other processes involved, ‘from farm to fork’, need to be optimised and simplified (to reduce harvest losses and waste and, where possible, to implement waste recycling systems) (EGE 2008, 61).

The EGE authors elaborate on each of these three primary goals of food security, food safety, and sustainability by outlining lower-level goals, such as biodiversity and soil and water protection, that contribute to the primary ones.

Agricultural biodiversity contributes to both food security and sustainability; loss of biodiversity makes innovation more difficult, which in turn makes food security more difficult to achieve (EGE 2008, 62). Moreover, loss of biodiversity impacts sustainability by making regions less resilient to shocks caused by climate change and other disturbances. Given this, the EGE supports efforts to protect biodiversity, such as the International Treaty on Plant Genetics and Resources for Food and Agriculture (FAO 2009) and the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (since updated to the Second Global Plan) (FAO 2011), both put forward by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Soil and water protection also contribute to the three primary goals, especially food safety and sustainability. The authors of the report recognize that, at present, the dominant methods of achieving food security do not sufficiently protect soil health and clean water. Chemicals such as herbicides and pesticides pose risks to humans, animals, and to the environment – especially when used in high concentrations. Because of this, steps should be taken to reduce their use, ‘whilst maintaining yield and quality’ (EGE 2008, 62). In addition, soil erosion and water pollution are growing problems associated with modern agriculture; as a result, no-tillage techniques, improved water management programs, and other steps should be encouraged. These include bioengineering for sustainability purposes, modern genetics for improving and selecting beneficial crop varieties (e.g. marker-assisted selection), and information and computer technology (ICT) tools for the optimization of agricultural plant products (EGE 2008, 63). Notice that techniques from genetic engineering are explicitly advocated here, so long as they contribute to the ethical goals specified above. This point will be discussed in more detail below (see also Section 10.3.4 of the report).

In order to determine whether a particular technology does in fact contribute to the goals discussed above, the EGE authors recommend regular ‘impact assessments’ (e.g. EGE 2008, 61–62). Impact assessments, according to the authors, go beyond risk assessments; in addition to examining risks to human health and the environment, they also evaluate technologies in light of the moral goals of food security, food safety, and sustainability. Technology impact assessments should consider safety issues, and also:

address the social implications, e.g. how agricultural technologies will affect social, economic and institutional structures, with particular concern for justice (equal access and participation in decision­making) and fair distribution of goods. Furthermore, the group suggests that the Commission should, inter alia, continue to fund studies on the social effects of agricultural technologies. Such research should also focus on macroeconomic trends, trade implications and possible international problems and, in particular, examine the risk of creating a technological divide which could widen the gap between the developed and developing countries. (EGE 2008, 62)

In line with the recommendation for regular impact assessments, the authors recommend increased European Union (EU) funding for the ‘agricultural sciences, green biotechnologies and all other sustainability-oriented agriculture research sectors’ (EGE 2008, 64). Though the funding should come from the EU, it should include not only funding for research that is important to the EU but also to developing countries that have not yet achieved goals such as food security (ibid).

With regard to policymaking, the EGE authors recommend policies that will facilitate the objectives discussed above. While their discussion is wide ranging, they emphasize in particular the importance of laws and policies concerning IPRs. While the group supports agricultural innovation, it is concerned about the impact of patents and patent licenses. As noted, many authors have raised concerns about the use of patents and patent licenses to control access to seeds, especially GE seeds (e.g. Kloppenburg 2005; Thompson 2010; Pechlaner 2012; Biddle 2014). Standard license agreements, again, prohibit farmers from saving and reusing GE seeds, and many have argued that seed companies use license agreements to increase market share; standard license agreements also prohibit certain types of research on GE crops. While the group does not go into specifics, it finds some of effects of patents and patent licenses problematic; ‘the move to control use of seed by means of license agreements is … troubling’ (EGE 2008, 66). It recommends an analysis of the shift from the UPOV system – discussed in Section 2 of this paper – to the patent system, and ‘whether it produces a system that effectively stifles innovation’ (ibid). In addition to these concerns about IPRs, the group also notes that monopoly pricing of patent-protected technologies can often put those technologies out of reach to the world’s poor. ‘In order to disseminate useful new developments in this field, patent pools should be considered to ensure availability to farmers in developing countries’ (ibid).

The EGE report provides some helpful guidelines for designing agricultural technologies in a responsible manner. The report does not claim that the guidelines that it provides are exhaustive; indeed, they are almost certainly not. La Vía Campesina, the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), and other organizations have criticized the notion of food security as being overly limited and have emphasized food sovereignty.¹² According to the EGE report, ‘food security incorporates the concepts of availability, accessibility, acceptability and adequacy and is inextricably linked with issues related to ethics, trade, humanitarian aid, etc.’ (EGE 2008, 34). One concept that is missing from this list is that of local autonomy, including control over labor practices, agricultural methods, and how food is conceptualized – e.g. whether it is seen as just another commodity to be bought and sold on the global market or, alternatively, as something that has a ‘multifunctional role’ of ‘reducing poverty and social/gender inequality, stabilising rural cultures, reversing environmental degradation, and mitigating climate change’ (McMichael and Schneider 2011, 132). The notions of food security and food sovereignty need not conflict; food security, understood broadly in terms of access to safe and appropriate food, could be supplemented with more specific notions of food sovereignty. In this case, food sovereignty is a plausible additional guideline for RRI in agricultural technology. The issue of food sovereignty will receive further discussion in the next section.

For the moment, it is worth noting that while the EGE report provides a helpful (though probably incomplete) list of guidelines for RRI in agricultural technology, the GE/non-GE distinction plays no role whatsoever in the guidelines. Some GE crops might be examples of RRI, and others not – just as some conventional crops are responsibly designed, and others are not. In order to illustrate more precisely what RRI in agricultural biotechnology might look like, it will be helpful to discuss an example.

5. The WEMA project

In order to examine the potential of some GE crops, developed within particular institutional environments, to benefit humanity in a significant way, it is helpful to discuss a concrete example – in this case, the development of water efficient maize for Sub-Saharan Africa. Drought is a serious threat to agricultural productivity, and in many parts of Africa this threat is becoming greater with climate change. Maize, which is a staple crop for over 300 million people in Africa, is frequently affected by drought. Insects can exacerbate the problem, as they can reduce the ability of a plant to use for growth the limited water and nutrients that it receives. The WEMA Project, begun in 2008, is a PPP for developing drought-tolerant and insect-resistant maize using techniques from conventional breeding, marker-assisted breeding, and genetic engineering.¹³ The project aims to develop these varieties for use by smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa; the seeds will be available to those farmers royalty free and will be produced and distributed by African seed companies. The project is led by the African Agricultural Technology Foundation (AATF) – a non-profit organization that coordinates public–private partnerships – and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Howard G. Buffet Foundation, and USAID. Monsanto is a participant in the project, offering agricultural expertize, technological know-how, and royalty-free access to its drought-tolerant and insect-resistant traits.

There are a number of characteristics of the WEMA project that make it a potential example of RRI. I emphasize that it is a potential example of RRI because the project is still in the early stages, and risks and benefits of the crops – including their socio-economic risks and benefits – are still uncertain (Whitfield 2016). Furthermore, peer-reviewed literature on the project is in its infancy; much of the information about the project comes from project participants, particularly AATF, and thus should be treated with care.¹⁴ But despite all of this, the project can help to illustrate what RRI in agricultural technology might look like.

One characteristic that makes the project a potential example of RRI is that it is targeted toward a genuine humanitarian problem that is recognized as such in the local context. Drought and insects, again, are real threats to agricultural productivity that are expected to worsen in Sub-Saharan Africa as the climate continues to change, and farmers and consumers in Sub-Saharan Africa are looking for solutions to these problems. This much is acknowledged by all, including critics of WEMA (e.g. ACB 2015). The WEMA project is based on the hypothesis that developing drought-tolerant and insect-resistant traits could reduce the incidence of hunger, malnutrition, and starvation and thus benefit not only seed companies but smallholder farmers and consumers as well. Some agricultural technologies have been criticized for failing to address issues of genuine humanitarian concern; this criticism does not apply to WEMA varieties.

Second, much of the research and development (R&D) is conducted in local contexts – in this case, by the National Agricultural Research Systems (NARS) in five African countries: Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda (Oikeh et al. 2014). The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and Monsanto are also assisting the research efforts. Undertaking R&D in local contexts increases the likelihood that the targeted varieties can thrive in local environmental conditions. Some Green Revolution crops were criticized because they required environmental conditions that do not occur naturally in the targeted geographical areas; as a result, the crops required installation of extensive irrigation systems as well as artificial fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides. WEMA varieties, however, are designed to tolerate non-ideal conditions, particularly conditions of drought. Additionally, assessments of the benefits and safety of the varieties are conducted according to the regulatory requirements of the respective African nations, which could increase the acceptability of the crops in the local contexts (Oikeh et al. 2014).

Whether the WEMA project has gone far enough in incorporating concerns of local stakeholders is up for debate. Field trials in Kenya, for example, have been limited to one site, Kiboko (WEMA 2014; Whitfield 2016, 87), and according to Whitfield, ‘there remains significant uncertainty about how [these results] will translate into farmers’ experiences of the varieties, when grown under the location-specific conditions and land management choices of their fields’ (ibid). This, of course, is a general problem; it is not feasible to test any crop on every plot of land, and as a result, there will always be uncertainty about how field trials in one location will translate to other locations. But it is important to recognize these uncertainties and to monitor how projects such WEMA address them.

Third, the project explicitly incorporates mechanisms to ensure that smallholder farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa can access WEMA varieties affordably. More specifically, the varieties will be made available to local seed companies royalty free, which will allow those companies to sell the seeds to smallholder farmers at lower prices.¹⁵ Once farmers purchase the seeds, their use of the seeds will not be restricted by license agreements; they will, for example, be free to save seeds for reuse in future growing seasons.¹⁶ Again, whether WEMA has gone far enough in ensuring affordable access is open to debate. Patent licenses can be altered at the discretion of patent holders. At the very least, the project should be monitored to ensure that the licenses continue to allow for affordable access. More broadly, as argued in the EGE report, alternative systems for governing the use of these crops should be examined.

The characteristics of the WEMA varieties discussed above – that they target a genuine humanitarian need, are developed to grow in non-ideal conditions (thus reducing the need for extensive inputs), and are available to smallholder farmers at affordable prices – suggest that the varieties have been designed with ethical norms in mind, including food security and sustainability.¹⁷ Whether the norms that have been applied are sufficient is a matter of debate, particularly given that the WEMA project is still in its early stages. The preceding discussion also suggests ways that the project can be monitored to ensure that further R&D is done responsibly. Such monitoring is crucial, and as further studies on WEMA varieties are conducted, their results should be made available to the public (Whitfield 2016).

The WEMA project is, of course, not uncontroversial, and there are groups in Sub-Saharan Africa that oppose the project. One of the most important objections, in my view, relates to the question of what type of agricultural system is best for promoting the interests of smallholder African farmers, and local African populations more generally. A report by the African Center for Biodiversity (ACB) – which is highly critical of the WEMA Project – distinguishes between proponents of two different agricultural systems.

On one side are those like the international peasant movement, Via Campesina, and the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), who have advocated for an agricultural system based on environmental sustainability, social equity and democratic participation and decision-making – which could be termed ‘food sovereignty’. On the other side stand those who champion concepts such as ‘sustainable intensification’ or ‘climate smart agriculture’ (CSA). The concept of CSA emerged from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (UNFAO) in 2010 and, according to the original definition ‘sustainably increases productivity, resilience (adaptation), reduces/removes greenhouse gases (mitigation), and enhances achievement of national food security and development goals’. (ACB 2015, 6)

This distinction is similar to that made between development regimes that emphasize the integration of agricultural products into the global market and those that emphasize the ‘multifunctional role’ role of agriculture (McMichael and Schneider 2011).¹⁸

The debate over which of these agricultural systems is preferable, and for whom, is a complex one that is beyond the scope of this paper. It seems to me, at least, that reasonable arguments can be made on either side. The point that I would like to emphasize here is that the debate is between different systems of agriculture and how these systems relate to a broad set of human concerns; the fault lines of the debate do not correspond to a simple divide between GE and non-GE crops. To see this, notice first that a paradigm case of the climate smart agriculture (CSA) strategy in action is the Green Revolution, which included only non-GE crops. The WEMA Project, which according to ACB also falls within the CSA strategy, includes both GE and non-GE crops. Second, there is nothing in the criticism of the CSA strategy that implicates GE crops per se; or, to put it another way, there is nothing inherent about the process of genetic engineering that implies that GE crops be placed within a CSA strategy. This point is acknowledged by some organizations with goals similar to the AFSA, such as the Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (to be discussed in the next section). It is true that most GE crops that are currently on the market are privately appropriated, grown in monocultures, require extensive inputs, and sold on the global market. But the reason for this has nothing to do with the processes of genetic engineering, and everything to do with the systems that govern the production and dissemination of the crops (in particular, the current system of IPRs). Under a different system of governance – for example, one in which R&D was publicly funded – GE crops could play an important role in multiple agricultural systems for multiple purposes (Montenegro 2015).

6. Impacts on debates over agricultural technologies

It is worthwhile at this point to take a step back and examine how reframing the debates over GE crops in the ways suggested here could impact debates over the ethics of agricultural technologies more generally. Current debates, again, focus heavily on the ‘GE crop controversy’ and the attempt to evaluate GE crops as a class; this way of framing the issue, as I have argued, is not conducive to constructive debate on ethics and agriculture. While there are a number of ways in which shifting our attention toward RRI could be beneficial, I will focus on one in particular – it could improve communication between different stakeholders and, hopefully, contribute to the formation of more inclusive deliberative processes for the governance of agricultural technologies.

To see this, consider again the case of golden rice, which was raised briefly in the introduction to this paper. Golden rice is GE to produce beta-carotene, which can be converted by the body into vitamin A; it was developed for the purpose of combating vitamin A deficiency (VAD), which is widespread in many developing countries and can cause blindness and, in some cases, death. While many support the crop for its purported ability to combat VAD, some international environmental organizations (such as Greenpeace) and some activist groups in Asia oppose it, with some going so far as to vandalize field trials in the Philippines (Kupferschmidt 2013). Greenpeace has been highly critical of golden rice, and it was its criticisms that, in part, led to an open letter by Nobel Laureates suggesting that criticism of GE crops is a crime against humanity.¹⁹ The conclusions arrived at by many critics of golden rice are similar; but despite this similarity, some of the arguments for these conclusions are different, and these differences are relevant to the question of how debates over agricultural technologies should be framed.

Greenpeace’s opposition to golden rice is framed in terms of opposition to GE crops as such. According to its online report on golden rice:

Greenpeace opposes the release of GE crops, including GE ‘Golden’ rice, into the environment. GE crops are prone to unexpected effects which can pose a risk to environmental and food safety. GE ‘Golden’ rice has long been a poster child for the GE crop industry in an attempt to gain acceptance of GE crops worldwide. However, using GE crops to try to solve problems of malnutrition is simply the wrong approach, and a risky distraction away from real solutions. (Greenpeace 2015)

Greenpeace does criticize specific aspects of golden rice – arguing, for example, that golden rice is unlikely to reduce significantly the incidence of VAD (Greenpeace 2015). But from the start, Greenpeace frames its opposition to golden rice in terms of opposition to GE crops as such. Compare this, on the other hand, to the criticism of golden rice by the Southeast Asia Regional Initiatives for Community Empowerment (SEARICE):

In essence, the issue on GMO is not on genetic engineering per se, but on how this has been used and is being used to wrest control and access over the plant genetic resources on which the farmers’ over time have been the stewards and innovators … . Science and technology then for the farmers should be able to strengthen not supplant their traditional knowledge and it should democratize access to plant genetic resources and not control or monopolized it [sic]. (SEARICE 2013, 5, emphasis in original)

This criticism is explicitly framed not in terms of opposition to GE crops as such, but rather in terms of the specific social, cultural, economic, and political implications of golden rice for southeast Asian farmers.

Some of Greenpeace’s specific criticisms of golden rice are legitimate and well-grounded. For example, there are legitimate questions concerning the effectiveness of golden rice in combating VAD in countries such as the Philippines, particularly given the technical difficulties of growing golden rice in those local contexts and the recent successes in reducing VAD using conventional nutrition programs (e.g. Stone and Glover 2016). At the same time, Greenpeace’s framing of the issue in terms of a GE/non-GE divide is misleading and unhelpful. As argued earlier, it is difficult if not impossible to characterize the risks of GE crops as such, given that particular crops will have different hazards and probabilities associated with them. If, in asserting that ‘GE crops are prone to unexpected effects which can pose a risk to environmental and food safety,’ Greenpeace means to assert that GE crops pose risks that are significantly higher than non-GE crops, then its assertion lacks empirical support. If, in the other hand, Greenpeace means only to assert that GE crops have risks, then its assertion is trivial, as all agricultural technologies have risks. Framing its opposition to golden rice in terms of opposition to GE crops as such is unhelpful because it can create the impression (justified or not) that Greenpeace is more interested in advancing an ideological agenda than policies based on evidence. This plays directly into the narrative that any criticism of a GE crop reflects an anti-science bias. It is this narrative, for example, that underlies the previously discussed open letter from Nobel Laureates.²⁰

SEARICE (2013), on the other hand, puts forward a criticism that is much more precise in its characterization of the problem. The problem is not with genetic engineering as such, but rather with the way in which some GE crops are, in fact, being used to consolidate control of agriculture in the hands of a few stakeholders. This criticism, of course, requires further scrutiny, but as discussed in Section 2, there are legitimate concerns about the types and extent of control that the current system of IPRs gives to patent holders (e.g. Kloppenburg 2005; Pechlaner 2012; Biddle 2014; Montenegro 2015). Farmers have a legitimate interest in retaining control over the seeds that they plant and the types of crops that they grow; as such, SEARICE’s criticism is plausible. Furthermore, because SEARICE avoids overgeneralizations about the risks and benefits of GE crops as such, it is not susceptible to the objection that it is ‘anti-science.’

If we are to move forward in debates over agricultural biotechnology – if the debates are to become less polarized, less marked by misunderstanding and ad hominem attack – then it is crucial that stakeholders articulate their arguments with care and precision, avoiding overgeneralization. Unfortunately, institutions for the governance of science and technology in the U.S. are not conducive to careful debate about agricultural technologies generally, and GE crops in particular. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulate different aspects of GE crops, with the FDA being responsible for regulating foods produced with GE ingredients (Nestle 2010). The FDA regulates GE foods according to a ‘science-based’ framework that explicitly prohibits considerations that are social, ethical, economic, cultural, or political in nature; according to Nestle (2010) and Thompson (2010), this has led to a situation in which stakeholders who are primarily concerned with socio-economic consequences feel the need to couch their arguments in terms of safety. If debates over agricultural technologies could be re-framed in terms of RRI, and stakeholders in the debates were careful in addressing specific issues with particular crops, distinguishing clearly between implications for human health, environment, and society, then perhaps different stakeholders could achieve some common ground in the debates, and even advocate more effectively for the creation of institutional spaces in which such conversations could be advanced.

The relationship between RRI and institutions is important, and it has received insufficient attention – not just in the case of GE crops but with regard to technology in general.²¹ A crucial component of encouraging RRI should be encouraging examinations of institutions and organizations that are conducive to RRI goals; these examinations could then provide bases for further normative proposals or experiments. The question of which institutional and organizational spaces would be conducive to RRI in agricultural technology is beyond the scope of this paper; but the controversy over GE crops, and the need to incorporate societal perspectives on the technology, provides an urgent reminder of the need to create new spaces devoted to this end.²²

7. Conclusion

This paper has criticized the way in which current debates over GE crops, and agricultural technologies more generally, are framed. Currently, the debate is framed in terms of a distinction between GE and non-GE crops; this way of framing the debate is misleading, because there is no set of risks that applies to all and only GE crops. Some particular GE crops have risks that are also shared by non-GE crops, and there are some risks that apply to some non-GE crops that might not apply to particular GE crops. A more helpful way of framing the debate is in terms of the question of whether particular agricultural technologies (whether or not they are GE) are responsibly designed. The EGE report Ethics of Modern Developments in Agricultural Technologies and the discussion of the WEMA project provide some guidelines – food safety, food security, and sustainability – by which this might be achieved. Reframing the debate along these lines could facilitate communication between different stakeholders, as it allows for an acknowledgement of the potential benefits of biotechnology while, at the same time, taking seriously the concerns that many have about particular agricultural technologies, especially with regard to their implications for society.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Michael Hoffmann, Britt Holbrook, Bryan Norton, Paul B. Thompson, the participants of the second annual meeting of the Consortium for Socially Relevant Philosophy of/in Science and Engineering at the Michigan State University Detroit Center, and two anonymous referees for their comments. Thanks also to the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study for support.

Notes on contributor

Justin B. Biddle is an Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests are interdisciplinary in nature, drawing on fields such as philosophy of science, bioethics, environmental ethics, philosophy of food, ethics of emerging technologies, and science and technology policy.

Notes

1. http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/976/ge-food-labeling/state-labeling-initiatives#. Accessed 30 July 2016.

2. For links to other polls on GE labeling, see:

http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/issues/976/ge-food-labeling/us-polls-on-ge-food-labeling. Accessed 30 July 2016.

3. http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/nobel-laureate-gmo-letter_rjr.html. Accessed 30 July 2016.

4. http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/agriculture/problem/genetic-engineering/. Accessed 30 July 2016.

5. http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/nobel-laureate-gmo-letter_rjr.html. Accessed 30 July 2016.

6. Some have raised concerns about risks resulting from the process of genetic engineering (e.g. Lotter 2009a, 2009b). Typically, these are concerns not about the process of genetic engineering as such, but rather about particular processes that have been, or currently are, in use. To claim that these concerns raise doubts about genetic engineering as such is to assume that the processes of genetic engineering will not evolve. This assumption is false (e.g. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2016, 16). Furthermore, while this might have been less clear twenty years ago, the scientific community is now largely in agreement that the processes of agricultural biotechnology are not inherently riskier than conventional agriculture (e.g. Nuffield Council on Bioethics 1999, 2003; NRC 2002; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine 2016).

7. For discussion of the different types of property protection in agriculture and some of their implications, see Wilson (2002).

8. http://www.fr.com/files/Uploads/publications/DSU-Medical-Corp-v-JMS-Co-Ltd/Monsanto_v_Parr_NDIN_4-07-cv-00008_Apr_22_2008.pdf. Accessed 23 May 2015.

9. http://www.goldenrice.org/Content4-Info/info.php. Accessed 30 July 2016.

10. http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/horizon2020/en/h2020-section/responsible-research-innovation. Accessed 30 July 2016.

11. There is now a consensus (or near consensus) in science and technology studies, philosophy of technology, and related fields that technology is not value neutral (e.g. Winner 1989; Tiles and Oberdiek 1995; Borgmann 2007).

12. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for emphasizing this point. For further discussion of food sovereignty, see McMichael and Schneider (2011), Navin (2015), and Scoones (2008).

13. I am indebted to Mark Edge, Director of WEMA Partnerships at Monsanto, for discussion of the WEMA Project. Further information on the project can be found on the WEMA homepage <http://wema.aatf-africa.org/about-wema-project>, accessed 26 July 2014. Though I have discussed the WEMA Project with representatives from Monsanto, I have no affiliation with – and have never received financial support from – Monsanto or any other agricultural biotechnology company.

14. Information from AATF can be found at: http://www.aatf-africa.org (accessed 30 July 2016). At the time of this writing, a Web of Science topic search for “water efficient maize for Africa” yields three articles or chapters directly on the WEMA project: Oikeh et al. (2014), Prasanna (2016), and Whitfield (2016). The most substantive consideration of socio-economic implications is found in Whitfield (2016).

15. http://wema.aatf-africa.org/about-wema-project. Accessed 29 July 2016.

16. http://wema.aatf-africa.org/about-us/frequently-asked-questions. Accessed 29 July 2016.

17. Given that the crops are still in the testing phase, it is premature to make definitive declarations regarding safety for human consumption. There is nothing in the peer-reviewed literature that suggests that the crops are unsafe for human consumption – though, as noted, there are very few peer-reviewed articles on the crops at all. Further research is required.

18. See Lacey (2015) and Scoones (2008) for similar distinctions.

19. http://supportprecisionagriculture.org/nobel-laureate-gmo-letter_rjr.html. Accessed 30 July 2016.

20. For a helpful argument that criticism of GE crops need not be ‘anti-scientific,’ see Millstein (2015).

21. Once exception in the RRI literature is Fisher and Rip (2013), which examines “multi-level dynamics,” or interactions between organizations and institutions, on the one hand, and RRI, on the other. Some of the social epistemology literature examines relationships between organizational structure and epistemic outcomes (e.g. Biddle 2007, 2013, 2014). This work is relevant to RRI, even if RRI is not an explicit focus.

22. The U.S. Office of Technology Assessment (OTA), created in 1972 and destroyed by Gingrich-led Congress on 1995, was founded in large part to provide policy options for decision makers on complex technological questions. See Mooney (2005) and Sadowski (2012) for two calls to create a similar kind of office.