The environment as a policy problem7.6 GM crops and agenda-setting
During the 1980s and 1990s the rapid
commercialisation of GM crops, led by large
multinational corporations such as Monsanto,
resulted in their widespread use throughout the
USA. The EU had been gradually developing a
system for the regulation of the release of GM
crops, so it seemed that it was just a matter of
time before European farmers followed suit.
Early in 1999 the British prime minister, Tony
Blair, enthusiastically declared: ‘There is no
scientific evidence on which to justify a ban on
GM foods and crops...weshould resist the
tyranny of pressure groups.’ Just one year later
a chastened prime minister conceded that
there was ‘legitimate public concern’ about
their ‘potential for harm’ to health and the
environment (Guardian,28March 2000).
During 1998–9 a ‘window of opportunity’
opened, allowing the GM issue to be
catapulted dramatically on to the political
agenda and prompting a huge increase in
public concern throughout the EU:
- A compelling problem was identified
A series of well-publicised scientific findings
alerted the public to a problem:
(i)Professor Arpad Pusztai claimed that
the immune systems of rats had been
damaged by eating GM potatoes;
(ii) American scientists reported that GM
crops harmed the Monarch butterfly;
(iii) a series of reports – from English
Nature, the British Medical Association
and Christian Aid – highlighted the
environmental and food safety risks
posed by GM crops. - The right political circumstances
(i)a decision by Monsanto to mix GM and
non-GM grain;
(ii) the imminent approval by the EU of a
range of GM crops;
(iii) high public sensitivity and distrust of
science and politicians regarding food
safety issues following the BSE crisis;
(iv)an obvious ‘bad guy’ – the multinational
corporation Monsanto;
(v)high-profile pressure group
campaigning, especially by
Greenpeace, and repeated direct action
by eco-protesters that destroyed many
of the British government’s GM crop
trials.- Viable short-term solutions existed
(i)Although eighteen GM products had
been approved up to April 1998, the EU
Council of Environment Ministers
announced its refusal to approve further
releases of GM crops until a tougher
regulatory regime, governing labelling
and tracing of products through the
food chain, was approved.
(ii) At a national level, the British
government agreed a voluntary
three-year moratorium on the
commercial planting of GM crops with
the biotechnology industry, pending
further crop trials testing their safety.
The agenda-setting framework shows how
significant policy change can occur. However,
the period of alarmed discovery about GM
crops has passed. Pressure from the WTO (and
especially the USA) and several member-state
governments (particularly those with a large
biotechnology industry) brought the
moratorium, step-by-step, to an end. A new EU
directive on the deliberate release of GMOs
came into force in October 2002, but a blocking
minority of states – Denmark, Greece, France,
Italy and Luxembourg – continued to refuse
approval to new products until May 2004 when
Bt11 maize was authorised for use in food,
although as of January 2006 no products had
been approved for cultivation.
See Rosendal ( 2005 ) and Lieberman and
Gray ( 2006 ).