In food we trust

The new patent regime allowed biotech companies to supplant farmers as the guardians of our food heritage by securing control of the beginning of the food chain. A buying spree ensued creating an oligopoly in which just four companies now control more than 60 per cent of all the world’s commercial seed sales - the final act in the usurpation of the food chain was complete. Farmers, and by extension, consumers would now become serfs to the dictate of major biotech companies who would determine what crops would be grown when and by whom.

The question is: are we as consumers ready to cede our trust to a handful of multinational biotechs in this dramatic takeover of our food sovereignty? Trust in food has two important dimensions: trust in the food products themselves and trust in food control institutions.

The latter assumes greater importance the further the consumer is “distanced” from the product, that is, in terms of the complexity of its makeup. Current Australian biotech food regulation has meant that GM food breaks both cardinal rules. Such is the radical departure of GM food from its traditional counterpart, there is in intuitive mistrust of it by consumers. Having failed this hurdle, this leaves just one other channel for trust to be built - trust in food control institutions.

Australian governments and industry have stumbled on that one too, having failed dismally to allay valid consumer concerns. Rather than an inclusive approach, the government, at the behest of biotech interests, has chosen to restrict access to the clear and independent information on GM food that consumers demand, further exacerbating the climate of distrust.

Increasingly isolated, consumers turned to labelling and assurances of independent scientific testing by reputable agencies without financial ties to the GM industry, yet current GM labelling laws in Australia are so weak that 48 of the 50 or so approved GM foods would escape labelling, including the entire maiden GM canola crop this year.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ), the body charged with the responsibility of ensuring food safety, does none of its own testing on GM foods - it merely accepts data from the biotech companies themselves and evaluates the data on the fundamentally flawed concept of “substantial equivalence” - if the GM products looks, smells and tastes like its non-GM counterpart, then no further testing is required.

Throughout the world, food is revered for its ability to define culture, family and social identity and trust in food is a powerful cohesive social force. Until such time that genetic modification can ingratiate itself into those social and trust structures, GM food will always be rejected by the consumer.