Food, Inc.: Mendel to Monsanto 鈥� the promises and perils of the biotech harvest by Peter Pringle, Simon & Schuster, $24/拢15, ISBN 0743226119 Reviewed by Tim Lang
JOURNALISM is about conflicts, and about presenting two sides fairly. Peter Pringle, an experienced journalist, has brought his sceptical mind to bear on the battle over genetic modification. Setting out to walk a middle road between the claims and counter-claims of proponents and opponents is, however, a risky strategy. Firstly, there may be no middle road. Secondly, such an approach can easily slide into a patronising and even spurious 鈥渘eutrality鈥�, as though only the author, and no others before, can see all sides.
Happily, Pringle avoids these dangers. Even-handedness is important, not least because much coverage in the US has portrayed the debate as progressive Americans versus illiterate reactionary Europeans. Food, Inc. is a racy account of the battles so far. Pringle tells the tales simply but well, bringing out the key points of contention, argument and counter-argument. He covers well-known territory: tomatoes, rice, wheat, neem trees, cauliflowers, potatoes, corn/maize, Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), and much more.
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I would have welcomed, though, more use of primary sources such as interviews with the players. I know from experience how important luck and timing can be. I received, for example, a large brown envelope containing the entire strategy of the US firms marketing GM Bovine Somatotrophin hormone. It transformed European policy-makers鈥� understanding and led to a huge investment being written off as public resistance grew.
Some argue that GM is a 21st-century test case for whether science can win out over non-science, truth triumph over Luddism, or whether the long-term public interest is won by bigots with narrow sectarian self-interest. But, Pringle argues, the battles are not mainly between scientific rationalism and belief, but within science itself 鈥� between ecology and molecular biology or the life sciences in general. And today, he concludes, what matters is less the manipulation of genes and the technical fallout 鈥� momentous though those are 鈥� than the astonishing rise of corporate power, not least through control of GM.
He is right, and I suspect that if GM is pushed out, even in the European heartlands of resistance, protagonists will later rue its politicisation. To some extent, what matters is not the brilliance or efficacy of the GM project but how it was framed 鈥� the language and way of seeing food that it assumed. The battle is poised to continue and this book is a quiet, timely reminder of why. 鈥淭here is no point producing food that people refuse to eat,鈥� he concludes. Quite.