All technologies are ultimately directed toward consumers: they are not simply sciences but the application of scientific knowledge and understanding to generate goods and services for sale (in one way or another) to willing customers. The term “consumer” with respect to GM-technology does not necessarily mean the men and women in the street, shoppers in the food stores. They may well be unaware of the involvement of particular technologies in the goods on offer to them, technologies which are addressed primarily to manufacturers, processors, producers, traders, distributors, and retailers, and hence contribute out of sight and out of mind to the final products which consumers buy.
Beginning with scientific innovation stimulated both by curiosity and by perceived commercial opportunity, discovery proceeds through proof of concept to development, manufacture, and marketing. In the case of GM crops and foods there are the further complications of meeting regulatory requirements and, perhaps, of countering antagonistic publicity and propaganda. In any event, the products of GM are ultimately intended for consumers be they people purchasing their own food supplies or farmers providing feed for their animals. The role of consumers is vital for the success of any GM initiative: if they will not buy, or are prevented from buying, the technology, or a part of it, will fail in the marketplace and be abandoned.
Continuing the practice of GM Crops and Food to address in due course all aspects of the technology, we are devoting this issue largely to consumer considerations: what consumers think, what they do with respect to GM products on offer, and a view of some of the factors which might influence their decision-making. Farmers are both providers and consumers: their activities may be influenced by policies and practices addressing questions of the co-existence of farming in which some farmers use GM-seeds while others choose (or are forced) not to do so. Finally, we give consideration to the concept and practices of “GM-free” food and what that means both for suppliers and consumers.
The complexities of modern agriculture and food production increase continually. GM is one of the most recent factors to play an important role in food and fiber production, one which has, of course, rather uniquely given rise to a worldwide discussion on its desirability. That dialog is characterized in many of its aspects rather more by heat than by light. Therefore, from time to time, specific issues of GM Crops and Foods will be examining individual aspects of this important development in modern agriculture so that we may better understand the breadth of its influence as well as the benefits (and some of the problems) to which it has already given rise and will do more and more as the future unfolds.