GM food - the problems
Genetic research can deliver enormous scientific advances, both in medicine and in our understanding of the natural world. But when that research is applied to alter the genetic make-up of living organisms, it has the potential to cause enormous damage to human health and the environment.
By manipulating the genetic make-up of plants and animals, genes from one species can be artificially inserted into another, unrelated one. This is supposed to give genetically modified (GM) organisms new abilities - such as maize that produces its own pesticide - which will be disease and drought resistant as well as being able to provide more food for the world's poor.
At least, that's the theory, but after decades of research there are no GM food crops that live up to all this hype.
Instead, the use of herbicides has increased and a wealth of contamination scandals (in which non-GM crops become polluted with GM material) have erupted. On top of that, farmers who were supposed to reap the benefits of GM technology are instead facing financial ruin and starvation.
Corporate interests
The multinational biotech companies such as Monsanto and Bayer Cropscience, who develop GM crops, own the rights to the varieties they develop, increasing their stranglehold on global agriculture and allowing them to generate vast profits. They make even more money by making their crops resistant to just one brand of herbicide - their own.
As a result, the production of our food is governed by economic models rather than natural ones, and bodies such as the World Trade Organisation, the European Commission and several national governments are keen to force GM products on the global market.
An international agreement called the Biosafety Protocol aims to regulate the use and movement of genetically modified organisms, but again biotech companies and governments sympathetic to their interests are attempting to disable it, making the familiar argument that environmental protection is a barrier to international trade.
Contamination scandals
Once GM crops are planted, cross-pollination means other crops often become contaminated and GM material ends up in the food chain. Contamination scandals are now commonplace, often originating from farm trials in which the GM crops are unapproved for human consumption.
GM organisms are also serious threat to biodiversity. Designed to grow faster and stronger, they out-compete native varieties and, again, cross-pollination (which its supporters insisted was impossible) could result in their genetic material spreading far and wide, potentially altering entire species. Once they make it out into the wild, there is no way to recall them and we will have to live with the consequences.