Not the time for knee-jerk reactions

Being a former beekeeper, I was interested to learn that agrochemicals firm Monsanto was working on a new form of Varroa mite control. The mites are one of the big challenges facing our troubled bee populations.

Monsanto is developing a gene control pesticide, using one of the molecules that control genetic expression.

This will “silence” particular genes, effectively killing the mite.

Although technically not genetic modification (GM), it is in effect a genetic engineering procedure.

So when we had a visitor at the farm the other day, a French dairy farmer who also produces organic honey, I was interested to hear what he thought about the Monsanto work.

“Too risky” was the immediate reply, quickly followed by “and not needed, as we use traditional selection techniques to breed bees which clean very well and keep the mites at bay”.

I didn’t pursue the conversation, but it strikes me that the response reflects the problem any genetic work in agriculture faces.

A quick dismissal from the environmentalist is as predictable as the ready denials from the industry that there might be any problems with these fast moving technologies.

Alongside mites, one of the problems facing our bees appear to be the pesticides that are routine in much of farming.

German firm Bayer, which is in the process of buying Monsanto and also makes an anti-mite product, produces the neonicotinoid pesticides that have been implicated in the bee decline.

Visit the Bayer website and you would think there was no field evidence that there might be a problem here.

Sadly, there is, but as long as the industrial side appears to be in denial of environmental problems, the other side will have the knee-jerk response that my French friend showed.

How do we progress the arguments surrounding these new technologies which show such promise in dealing with all sorts of environmental and potential food security problems, but which do undoubtedly carry risk?

Through its funding support for research bodies, government has always played a key role in examining new approaches such as GM.

But what if government has taken a position that is against a new technology on principle?

The Scottish Government is, understandably, against genetic modification on the basis that any adoption of such technologies would be a risk to our reputation as a green, clean producer of food.

But does this position prevent government funding reaching those research organisations that could, in theory, help answer some of the questions of risk that surround such new technologies?

With the lines blurring around the edges of GM, there has to be the risk that allied technological advances bypass our research community. That would be a pity. Perhaps the action will all happen elsewhere.

It also seems that the public are more receptive to novel genetic techniques being used on people, with the first gene editing trials involving cancer treatments already under way in China.

That these techniques will be developed, both in medicine and agriculture, is not really in doubt, but it would be a huge shame if the Scottish agricultural research community could not play its full part – and to a large degree, that is up to government.

It would be a huge shame if the Scottish agricultural research community could not play its full part