What's in a name? For many years now, there has been a systematic campaign, backed by large sums of money, to persuade us that the word "organic" means good. The supermarkets, the media, organic farming associations and environmental multinationals have all contributed more or less knowingly. If you stood outside a Tube station and asked people whether they thought organic food should be banned, you would find few takers.
But it would depend what you called it. Last month, two researchers asked 121 people, outside three Tube stations, if organic food should be subsidised, or if it should instead be heavily regulated or banned. But they called it a "carbon-based biological technology to make novel foods sold at premium prices in niche markets". They went on to describe how, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control, people who eat the products of this technology are eight times more likely to contract the strain of E-coli that killed 21 people in Lanarkshire in 1997. They added that "these products carry fewer (if any) warning labels than is required for conventional produce".
The result was dramatic: 81 per cent of their sample thought the Government should warn us of the E-coli risk associated with organic food; 65 per cent thought the Government should heavily regulate or ban the technology; 72 per cent thought the Government should not subsidise it.
All the statements about organic food are true. It is far more likely to cause harm through E-coli infection because it relies on manure for fertiliser. It has no warning labels. It is promoted as a new form of farming and is demanding government subsidy. The only thing the researchers, Julian Morris and Roger Bate of the Institute of Economic Affairs, changed was the name.
The organic lobby will whinge that calling it "carbon-based biological technology" was a deliberate attempt to make it sound nasty, but then that would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. They use words such as "Frankenstein food", "genetic pollution" and "terminator technology" about the farming technology they dislike.
Morris and Bate have written a book that takes an unfashionable view of food scares. But the stunt itself drives a coach and horses through the claim, oft repeated by the media, that the public is against genetically modified crops. The public is against what it has been told about GM crops by a well-funded green lobby and a hysterical media. Of course, a dialogue of the deaf between those who call GM foods "Frankenstein foods" and those who call organic farming "carbon-based technology" gets us nowhere. On this, as on so many other issues, we desperately need to escape the straitjacket of media polarisation.
There is a way to do so. It is called a "consensus conference" and it involves picking a random "jury" of 15 or so people to spend two weekends grilling expert witnesses, writing a brief report and then presenting their views to ministers and other high-level decision makers. Pioneered in Denmark, this method produces reasonable and well-thought-through policies that satisfy all sides, and takes the wind from the sails of the self-serving lobbies.
So far, Britain has held two consensus conferences, the most recent one being on nuclear waste. As Sir John Krebs, chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, has commented: "The intelligence, analysis and sanity that prevailed among the citizen's panel for the radioactive waste conference could not have provided a greater contrast to the recent shrill, often ill-informed and dogma-driven objections to GM foods in certain sections of the media and in some lobby groups."
Yet the UK's first consensus conference, held in 1994, was on the very subject of genetically modified foods. As with the radioactive waste panel, the group who studied and reported on GM food reached rational and sensible conclusions. Yet it might as well never have happened. Krebs argues that it was not followed up by a cascade of the discussion throughout society, bypassing the media and special interests.
This only reinforces my view that the best replacement for the House of Lords would be a giant jury randomly chosen by lot to serve for a year or so and get to grips with issues like this on behalf of us. Cut the shrill voices out: cut out the Daily Mail, cut out the Soil Association - and yes, cut out me.
Fearing Food by Julian Morris and Roger Bate is published today by Butterworth Heinemann
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