AGRICULTURAL BIOTECHNOLOGY AT A CROSSROAD?

Special issue editors: Jeffrey Burkhardt (burkhardt@fred.ifas.ufl.edu) and Frans W.A. Brom (fbrom@theo.uu.nl)

Deadline for this issue is May 1, 2001.

The current EU climate surrounding agricultural biotechnology and more stringent regulations likely to be forthcoming in the US and Canada raise important questions for scientists, universities, and corporations engaged in food and agricultural biotechnology. What are they going to do?  What ought they to do?  Continue a "business as usual"approach, assuming that Europe will eventually "loosen up" on GMOs, and that US and Canadian regulations are only short-term responses to negative publicity? Assume that problems will disappear when people become accustomed to biotechnology over time? Alternatively, will or should those in the biotechnology establishment communicate to the public and government agencies more intensively about the benefits of their work? Will, or should, individual scientists and institutional actors change the direction of their research, focusing on less controversial (but even more strictly regulated) human and animal pharmaceutical applications of biotechnology?

For this special issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics, we invite contributions on this theme, including but not limited to papers that address issues such as the following: … What are the underlying values, moral and otherwise, which have led to the current public opinion and regulatory climates regarding agricultural biotechnology in Europe and in North America?  Are they similar on both sides of the Atlantic? Different? How so? … What values are at stake, public debates and/or corporate communications about agricultural biotechnology? … What are the likely or morally defensible strategies for biotechnology scientists, biotech companies or governmental on non governmental organizations as they face increasing consumer and governmental scrutiny? … What are the current or morally defensible communication strategies for biotechnology scientists, biotech companies or governmental on non-governmental organizations in the current and developing climate? In what way(s) do these communication strategies foster or hamper genuine moral dialogue? … Is there a future for agricultural biotechnology? If so, what is it likely to be? And, what should scientists, biotech companies or governmental on non-governmental organizations do in order to communicate to citizens and consumers about this future? … Is Agricultural Biotechnology in fact at an important crossroad at the present time?  Are current public opinion and regulatory hurdles only temporary inconveniences to an industry whose future is unlimited? Or, has the context changed to the extent that new visions, strategies, and products are now practically and ethically required?

Contact: Jeffrey Burkhardt and Frans W. A. Brom

Submission format