Something of a recurring theme in this column has been the importance of communicating with consumers about scientific and technical developments in food production. The food industry’s track record for persuading consumers to accept new technology is lamentable. We now find ourselves in a position where important technologies, notably genetic modification, have been effectively sidelined for food applications in Europe because they are distrusted by many consumers. GM foods have become an impossible sell for even the most ingenious marketing professional, with potentially useful processes like irradiation faring little better. Now it seems that nanotechnology is in danger of going the same way. Industry has already been accused of being secretive over how it is using nanotech in foods; though it seems more likely that fear of a consumer backlash has put the brakes on development. Many businesses seem keen to put distance between themselves and nanotechnology, rather than explore its possibilities for developing innovative new products. But it doesn’t have to be this way. In none of these cases has there yet been found any good scientific reason why the technology should not be used. As far as I am aware there are no documented cases of consumers being harmed by GM food, irradiated products, or nanotech-based consumer products.

It seems to me that it is primarily a matter of presentation. I am not talking about applying the sort of anodyne PR-speak that infests so many press releases, but about treating people like intelligent adults and presenting the facts, so that it is clear what is being done and why. Most important of all in my view is to inform consumers how they will benefit from new technology. This was the mistake made with the introduction of GM. It was all too clear how the big biotechnology and agribusiness companies would benefit, but there didn’t seem to be much in for the man in the street. But don’t just take my word for it, some recently published research from the USA provides a fascinating picture of how different things might have been for GM if an alternative approach had been taken.

Wallace Huffman is a professor of economics at Iowa State University with an interest in consumer reactions to GM foods. In September Professor Huffman published a paper in the Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics describing a study designed to investigate those reactions. Huffman and his team presented consumers with fresh produce, such as potatoes, enhanced with higher levels of vitamin C and natural antioxidants by intragenic modification. Intragenic modification means taking genes from other varieties within the same species rather than from different species (transgenic modification), and is effectively a means of speeding up traditional cross breeding techniques, which do not work well for some crops. Not only did consumers accept the modified produce, they stated clearly that they would be prepared to pay up to 25% more for it. This is in marked contrast to earlier work by Professor Huffman, which found that consumers presented with transgenic foods wanted to pay 15% less for them than for unmodified foods.

Imagine what might have happened if the biotechnology industry had adopted a step-by-step approach to the introduction of GM crops. If the process had begun with a clearly explained intragenic modification designed to benefit the consumer, how much easier would it have been to move on to transgenic products, provided they too carried clear benefits. It is possible that such a strategy would have avoided the negative image currently blighting the agricultural biotech industry. We might now be in a position to at least investigate some of the promise that GM crops hold for helping to feed the world’s growing population and protecting our fragile environment. Europe may eventually be forced to accept some GM crops, but they will never be popular and future developments will be a struggle. It may not be too late to avoid the same fate for nanotechnology, but the focus will have to be on the consumer and not on the powerful lure of short-term profits.