TOM STOCKILL for TIME Christopher Lewis' farm, where he has been testing genetically modified crops for the past three years, has been attacked seven times by ecowarriors, who fear health dangers from GM foods

Posted Sunday, July 20, 2003; 16.11BS
Few Europeans share Lewis' conviction. A Eurobarometer survey carried out in 2001 found that 94% of respondents wanted the right to choose whether to consume GM foods — and 70% don't want to eat the stuff at all. And Lewis has paid a high price for his willingness to experiment. Anti-GM activists ripped up his crops seven times, intimidating him and his family; and some of his neighbors have shunned him for "meddling with nature."

Opponents of such meddling fear that the genes inserted into crops could confer new and undesirable traits on wild species, damaging biodiversity and creating "super-weeds." They also worry that GM foods could affect human health in unpredictable ways. "We need to be extremely cautious, because once the GM genie gets out of the bottle, it's going to be very difficult to put back in," says Mike Grenville, 53, a mobile-phone industry consultant who, last month, led a protest against GM crops in Forest Row in East Sussex.

Opponents of gene modification also allege that GM crops are being foisted on the public by agro-chemical conglomerates interested in nothing but profit. It's true that multinationals stand to gain. These firms often control the rights to genetically modified seeds as well as the pesticides to which the crops are made resistant. Monsanto sells glyphosate under the name Roundup and a variety of seeds resistant to the weedkiller as Roundup Ready. But GM crops could benefit others too, especially farmers in the developing world. In many countries, supplies of arable land and water are diminishing as the demand for food increases. The U.K.'s Nuffield Council on Bioethics, an independent think tank, recently suggested that gene technology could improve the livelihoods of poor people in developing countries by enabling them to increase crop yields, grow drought-resistant plants and cultivate salinated soil.

The economic impact in the U.K., however, is likely to be minimal in the short term, according to a new report by the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit. Only a few GM crops so far are suited to the British climate, and public mistrust of GM will probably ensure that the market for it is small. The government's review of GM science, published this week, concluded that the health risks from current products were "very low" but some uncertainties remained, and that crop approval should be granted on a case-by-case basis. So are GM foods safe? The results of a recent Danish trial, published by Denmark's National Environmental Research Institute (NERI), suggest they are. For three years, researchers at the NERI monitored fields of conventional and GM sugar beet, the latter genetically altered to be resistant to glyphosate. They found that the GM plots supported more plant species and insects than the conventional plots, thus providing more food for birds and other types of wildlife. And in May, Britain's Royal Society produced a GM science review that "found nothing to indicate that GM foods are inherently unsafe."

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	Are First World Fears Causing the Third World to go Hungry? [July 10, 2001] People in the U.S. and Western Europe have qualms about genetically modified foods. But does that mean we should deny those foods to developing nations? Read Any Good Fruit? [Nov. 24, 2002] The E.U. approves tough new labeling for GM food, pleasing activists and complicating trade relations To Greener Pastures [Mar. 12, 2001] Germany's new farming minister is up to her ears in food scares and dead cows. Her answer: Go organic When Pigs Go Bad [Feb. 27, 2001] British farming, in its worst slump since the 1930s, is hit by a new plague: foot-and-mouth disease Slaughterhouse [March 12, 2001] Cattle burn, farmers despair and consumers worry as a new food-related catastrophe hits Europe Search all issues of TIME Magazine