August 22, 1999 | The Toronto Star | Thomas Walkom
The Frankenstein food fight has, according to this companion story, finally crossed the Atlantic.
Three years after genetically engineered foods were, the story says, quietly introduced into the country's grocery stores, Canadians are beginning to take notice.
And that's making food manufacturers -- as well as the powerful agribusiness interests that have been pushing genetic engineering -- nervous.
The nub of the problem is simple. On one hand, surveys show consumers prefer not to eat foods into which genes from other species have been artificially spliced.
On the other hand, the story says, the biotechnology industry has invested literally billions of dollars to make such genetic splicing possible, arguing that by so doing it is making food cheaper and thus contributing to the alleviation of world hunger.
Along the way, the industry has wooed universities with visions of lucrative research opportunities, farmers with expectations of cheaper costs and governments with promises of new, high-technology jobs.
Indeed, it is the laissez-faire attitude of government regulators that has proved to be one of the most curious elements of the entire affair.
Up to now, any conflict between consumer and producer interests in North America has, the story says, been avoided through what can only be described as a deliberate government policy of keeping consumers in the dark.
Under pressure from farm organizations and the biotechnology industry, both the Canadian and U.S. governments have refused to require that genetically modified food be labelled.
Governments say they don't want labelling because genetically modified (what the Canadian Food Inspection Agency calls "novel") foods are not "substantially different" from their normal counterparts.
But the real reason may be more practical.
If consumers could tell which foods were genetically engineered, they would be able to avoid buying them.
Or, as Tom Francis, Canadian research director for Novartis Seeds Inc., a subsidiary of one of the world largest biotechnology firms, puts it:
"When you label it, the premise is that there is some difference ... When you start labelling, what is the message sent to consumers?"
But now that uneasy equilibrium is beginning to fall apart.
Canadians are becoming more aware of the vigorous -- and sometimes violent -- opposition to genetic engineering in Europe.
So when mainstream environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace announced earlier this year that they were preparing to target certain genetically engineered grocery products in North America, the big food companies paid attention.
Late last month, both H.J. Heinz and Gerber announced they were moving to rid their North American baby foods of genetically engineered materials.
