Agricultural Biotechnology: Why Do Europeans Have Trouble Accepting It?

Abstract

Agricultural experts expect "massive changes in agribusiness" when biotechnological methods and products finally penetrate the market place, as Professor Burke reminded us recently in London(Consumer acceptance, 1998). He also mentioned concern about the way in which this penetration will be carried out, "..consumers feel that they have lost control and they do not know where the control lies." Politicians, apparently, do not know how to handle the questions posed by genetically modified organisms (GMOs) either (ibid.). Yet genetically modified crops have already arrived.