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Response to Editorial: The Role of EAAP | ||
| Number 45 | |||
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To the Editor, from Associate Professor Pantelis Zoiopoulos of the University of Ioannina, Greece, April 2002.
This is my response to your outstanding, comprehensive editorial in the August 2001 issue of EAAP News on "The Role of EAAP in Changing European Society". I do not intend to answer your 14 questions one by one. I would rather prefer grouping them, but even so, I hope I will touch upon most of the points you raised.
Of course EAAP should engage with the interests of consumers, since the latter form the public, society itself. I will attempt to show what EAAP's posture position should be over public's fears about health risks from animal products and wish for cleaner agriculture by using two examples, namely GMOs and organic or bio-livestock production.
People are frightened by human or animal cloning, which is more or less a banned topic and tend to neglect the area of GMOs of plant origin. Within the latter group, people focus on GMO foods rather than feeds, although most GMOs struggling to be licensed within the framework of the EU are destined in one way or the other as raw materials for animal feed. Maize, soya, rape seed and cottonseed belong to this group.
Animal feeding forms an important component of animal production, since feed is the greatest determinant of production costs, but in addition feed appears to be the gateway for the various contaminants to enter the animal food chain. Recently we experienced the obvious problems caused by meat and bone meals in relation to BSE and the dioxin episode with fats, whereas GMO feeds constitute a very critical and delicate issue. Companies have invested a great deal of money on GMO feed production and the giants of agrochemical production have entered this sector. EAAP should pay particular attention to this area principally through the Animal Nutrition Commission. There are a number of people who believe that an element of haste is present on the part of the GMO producing companies, particularly in the area of risk assessment. There are daring voices of scientists who announced gaps of our knowledge in this area. Among them Arpad Puztai, the ex-Rowett Research Institute researcher. I think that EAAP should have taken part in the scientific debate held by the authoritative journals Science and Lancet a couple of years ago, and it should do this in future for similar cases.
Another area the EAAP should be concerned with is the quality of organic animal production. Recently the EU adopted a piece of legislation governing the production of organic animal production. However, this legislation was the outcome of a number of compromises between Member States in order to secure markets for their organic products. Another factor was not to discourage breeders entering the new system of production by including a series of stringent provisions. In order to achieve this, a great number of derogations were introduced i.e. exemptions to the rules. Due to these loop holes, the genuine character of the Community legislation is questioned and this is also an area the EAAP could be influenced by giving its opinion publicly.
Although, I cannot see the EAAP being an advocate body seeking to promote the production of animal products, since it would thereby be entering a risky area in my view, I would like to see EAAP becoming more active on environmental and controversial issues such as the intensification of animal production. In addition, I would agree with those who support the position that the EAAP should organize conferences and promote a debate on the real costs of producing cheap food. It is now realized that most of the recent troubles occurring in the animal food chain, particularly the BSE scandal and the dioxin episode, were due to the recycling of otherwise rejected materials and the application of less costly techniques in order to maximize profits through minimizing costs.
As you say, society today recognizes that there is an important difference between science and scientists. Increasing public concern is being extended to scientists rather than simply to science itself. Let us take the production of GMOs as an example. In my view, this issue constitutes the greatest achievement of contemporary agricultural science. We should welcome this achievement but we should reserve the right to be skeptical. We should not reject it, but we should understand the demand of the public for more information on this controversial subject. Without generalizing, since generalizations may suffer from a rather superficial approach, it appears today that a number of scientists have unjustifiably taken the part of GMO companies, even if the risk assessment situation has not been yet clarified. Some scientists left academic positions to join companies, others hold shares, whereas there are a number of scientists who created and own GMO companies themselves. In this way, scientists avoid understanding the fears of the consumer, the public, the society.
It is stated at the end of your editorial that the basic problem is that the livestock industry with which the EAAP is associated is under pressure from society and we can not reject this as unfair. Things have changed for everything over the past years. The EAAP, a body of professional animal scientists, is also destined to change. Animal production problems have a social character as well. A central element in all scientific organizations, including the EAAP, is the scientist himself or herself.
It is not irrelevant that there was a very poor response, including myself, to your excellent editorial and we are all scientists. Scientist should come closer to listening to the public's concerns so that, if science is not progressing desirably, we can at least hear the voice: The singer not the song.
Professor Pantelis Zoiopoulos,
Department of Animal Science,
School of Natural Resources,
University of Ioannina,
2 Seferi str, Agrinio 30100, Greece
Email: pzoiopul@cc.uoi.gr
Next: 53rd EAAP Annual Meeting, Cairo, 2002