White Hat

What information is available?

What further information is required?

The sudden increase in human population has made food production a priority. Crops are more energy efficient than livestock.

Genetic modification of crops has occurred for decades. Transformed plants:

Can be disease, herbicide or drought resistant and so increase yield.

Have increased nutritional value.

New genes can be introduced into plants using:

Gene guns

microinjections

Bacterial vectors.

Success stories include:

Soya beans – modified to show resistance to herbicides to increase yield. Used in 60% of manufactured foods.

Tomatoes – Have been given an insecticide making gene from Bacillus thuringiensis which is expressed only in their leaves, not the fruit.

Red Hat

Consider the feelings or emotions involved.

Is taking a gene from one organism and placing it into another where it did not exist before ‘playing god’?

Does using bacterial vectors to move genes cause you any concern?

What is more important, considering ethical or religious arguments against the technology or providing enough nutritious food for all the people on earth?

Can we ever know if these technologies are entirely safe?

Yellow Hat

Considers the positives or advantages.

Higher crop yield as GM crops can be engineered to resist pest attack.

Higher yield means more people can be fed.

Less use of pesticides so there is less risk of dangerous environmental effects such as bioaccumulation.

Improved nutritional quality of food, e.g. golden rice has been engineered to contain enhanced vitamin A in consumers which prevents blindness in children.

Pharming - where modified crops can make antibodies, blood products, hormones, human and veterinary vaccines.

Black Hat

Considers the negatives or disadvantages.

What if the pollen of GM crops were to transfer to wild relatives conferring herbicide resistance and the possible creation of ‘super weeds’

Giving plants a gene to produce its own pesticide agents may encourage insects or fungi which are resistant to the pesticide.

What if using antibiotic resistant genes to mark DNA with required characteristics in GM crops could confer this resistance to bacteria in the gut of the consumer.

Plant breeding of GM crops would be a commercial project and few species would be favoured reducing biodiversity.

Does this follow organic farming principles?

Can we be sure there will be no adverse health effects from eating crops that are expressing a new gene as a new protein?

Green Hat

Creative thinking, considers alternatives.

Could selective breeding be an alternative to GM crops that can also confer hardiness to the crop?

Could we focus resources on creating more effective herbicides or pesticides?

How could we encourage a wide variety of crops that is better for a healthier countryside?

How could we study the use of current GM crops to learn the best methods for their use.

Blue Hat

Controls the process and summarises the findings.

Liam insists that the production of GM crops is the future of food production for a growing global population.

Max disagrees and thinks that to focus on the use of GM crops to solve our resource problems could have dangerous consequences.

DISCUSS