GM Nation

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Method(s) Used

Dialogue (Methods)
Online Forums (Methods)

Name of person who posted the project:

Karin Gavelin (Involve)

Location of project:

United Kingdom

Date when the project started:

2003

Date when the project ended/project ongoing:

2003

Background to project:

The late nineties were an era of strong debate on the issue of genetically modified (GM) food and organisms in the UK. Controversy surrounded both the scientific and political aspects of GM, with government advisory bodies being accused of biased behaviour and concerns being raised over the ethical issues of the science behind GM. At the same time there was substantial media coverage of scientific advances including cloning and the production of “Dolly the Sheep” and the BSE crisis that fuelled public concern into the governance of such issues.

It was in this climate of debate, concern and contestation that the UK Government launched GM Nation, a national debate about the future of GM crops and food in the UK.

Purpose of project:

The stated aims of the GM Nation debate were twofold:

Promote an innovative, effective and deliberative programme of debate on GM issues, framed by the public, against the background of the possible commercial production of GM crops in the UK and the options for possibly proceeding with this.
Through the debate provide meaningful information to Government about the nature and spectrum of the public views, particularly at grass roots level, on the issue to inform decision-making.

The focus of the debate was very much on empowering the public to lead the discussion and enabling wide participation, not just involving the usual suspects. The Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission (AEBC) were clear in their recommendations for a wider public debate that it should NOT require a simple yes or no decision. Instead it stated it should “establish the nature and full spectrum of the public’s views on GM and the possible commercialisation of GM crops, and any conditions it might want to impose on this” .

Project activities:

The public debate was organised in three tiers:

Tier 1: six national and regional events directly organised by the Steering Board. These involved a series of roundtable discussions based on the debate stimulus material.
Tier 2: county-level and other large-scale meetings, set up in partnership with councils and other organisations. These varied more in their format; some involved experts, others included debates around specific motions.
Tier 3: a toolkit for local events was produced, to be used by anyone who wished.

All participants across all tiers were asked to fill in a feedback form which included a chance to express views, as well as the 13 questions that came out of the foundation workshops. For example “I believe GM crops could help to provide cheaper food for consumers in the UK”; “I am concerned about the potential negative impacts of GM crops on the environment”. Responses for all questions were to comprise of a choice between agree strongly, agree, don’t know/unsure, disagree and disagree strongly.

It was recognized that participants in the main debate were self-selecting and therefore not likely to be representative of the wider UK public. As a result two further activities were carried out:

A narrow-but-deep study. This took a typical cross section of the wider population and exposed them to GM issues over a two-week period. The views of these 78 participants were tested at the start and finish of the two weeks.
A random sample of the wider debate was checked for standardised responses. Although there were none, this obviously does not detract from the potentially biased nature of a self-selecting group with their own strong opinions.

Project results:

The debate was criticised for not having enough time or funding to give it the publicity it would need in order to reach a truly representative cross-section of the UK public, including at grass roots level. The lack of results from the scientific and economic studies meant that there was no new information available to feed into the debate.

Feedback forms were generally positive about the debate and the chance to express views on such a controversial issue.

Those who had strong opposing views on GM and surrounding issues tended to agree with the outcomes and some did not pay too much attention to the process issues. However, independent evaluators tended to disregard the outcomes as not valid and focused on the process. The general view was therefore not a positive one.

Taking these together, the Secretary of State outlined a precautionary, evidence-based approach, taking a case-by-case methodology for the future development of GM crops in the UK which was a component of all these different reports. She said that whilst there was no scientific case for a blanket approval of all the uses of GM, there was also no scientific case for a blanket ban on the use of genetic modification. A final reference and thanks to the public debate suggested that the Government had been influenced by participants and incorporated their views into policy.

However, key stakeholders debate the extent to which results from the GM Nation debate were actually fed into policy and how other “actors were more influential. Genewatch stated that the results of the debate were “robust and represent a valid and useful body of information to inform policy making” but criticized subsequent GM policy for ignoring them, and for paying more attention to the Farm Scale Evaluations, and the science and economic reviews. The Science, Religion and Technology Project of the Church of Scotland agreed with the outcomes but argued that they were by no means robust.

Contact details:

http://www.gmnation.org.uk/

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