Product, not process! Explaining a basic concept in agricultural biotechnologies and food safety

Abstract

Most life scientists have relentlessly recommended any evaluative approach of agri-food products to be based on examination of the phenotype, i.e. the actual characteristics of the food, feed and fiber varieties: the effects of any new cultivar (or micro-organism, animal) on our health are not dependent on the process(es), the techniques used to obtain it. The so-called “genetically modified organisms” (“GMOs”), on the other hand, are commonly framed as a group with special properties – most frequently seen as dubious, or even harmful. Some social scientists still believe that considering the process is a correct background for science-based understanding and regulation. To show that such an approach is utterly wrong, and to invite scientists, teachers and science communicators to explain this mistake to students, policy-makers and the public at large, we imagined a dialogue between a social scientist, who has a positive opinion about a certain weight that a process-based orientation should have in the risk assessment, and a few experts who offer plenty of arguments against that view. The discussion focuses on new food safety.