Philipp Aerni

Risk, regulation and innovation: The case of aquaculture and transgenic fish

Abstract.This paper reviews the public and scientific debates over the risks and benefits of aquaculture and aquatic biotechnology worldwide, and in the United States in particular. The basic argument is that business tends to respond to uncertainty with innovation in management and technology. Technological evolution in the fish business is therefore interpreted as a continuous response to new environmental and socioeconomic uncertainties and subsequent regulation. The use of aquatic biotechnology in fish breeding is just the latest technological response, but also the most controversial. Growth-enhanced transgenic salmon may become the first bioengineered animal product approved for use as food in the United States. The fish may boost future salmon harvests, contribute to productivity increases in aquaculture and lower consumer prices for salmon. But it also faces public opposition, reluctant investors and scientific skepticism due to mainly environmental concerns. The paper argues that even though the regulatory framework in the United States is well-elaborated, it may not be able to reassure public opposition once transgenic salmon should be approved as a ‘new animal drug’. Analogous to genetically modified food crops, the consumer market rather than regulation will determine the ultimate fate of transgenic fish.

Towards a Theory of Negative Knowledge (NK): Almost-Mistakes as Drivers of Episodic Memory Amplification

This contribution offers a new view on how negative knowledge emerges from the experience of mistakes in firms and factories. In general, negative knowledge relates to the episodic memory, which means to incidents that are in their consequences negative and must be prevented in the future. In a couple of new studies, we can, on the one hand, show that there is a positive correlation between the quality of a culture of mistakes in firms and self-efficacy-belief, performance-motivation, and self-concept by male apprentices (but not by women). On the other hand, we would like to introduce the concept of almost-mistakes which elicits the issue of not really making the respective error, but being afraid and indignant at the moment at which it could have happened. This new idea must, of course, be differentiated by the importance of the respective action and situation on the one hand, and on the other hand to the social embeddedness of a person to whom the almost-mistake could have occurred. To prevent a substantial mistake that “nearly” could have happened, there is usually someone outside who helps in the last moment to hinder the act that would have been followed by the mistake. This person plays an important role because he/she reacts on the basis of their own memory of mistakes, which means their own negative knowledge and their respective meta-cognitive regulation. The mistake is an important, until now unseen but mostly impressive, motor for building up negative knowledge. After a couple of studies on the influence of a culture of mistakes in firms, we now begin to see how much negative knowledge helps to structure innovative firm behavior and the respective learning potential, but also how the concept of a culture of mistakes itself must be modified from the point of view of almost-mistakes.

Competition for Public Trust: Causes and Consequences of Extending the Transatlantic Biotech Conflict to Developing Countries

In this chapter, we argue that the agri-biotech controversy in affluent societies has become largely symbolic in content. Rather than trying to address the challenges and opportunities of agricultural biotechnology, political stakeholders are seeking to appropriate public trust, often as self-appointed representatives of the poor and the environment. In this context, public trust may be regarded as a political resource like money and political power. However, public trust, managed as a private good in politics, cannot be exchanged for money or political power and therefore fuels radicalism and prevents compromise.

Resistance to agricultural biotechnology: The importance of distinguishing between weak and strong public attitudes

Empirical research shows that European governments and retailers are unlikely to be directly punished by taxpayers and consumers if they move away from their anti-GMO positions and policies. However, it is ultimately not the weak attitudes of taxpayers and consumers that matter to governments and retailers but the strong attitudes of the noisy anti-biotech movement. (Image: Highway signs: ©maxmitzu - Fotolia.com; woman and balance: ©lassedesignen - Fotolia.com).

Agricultural biotechnology and its contribution to the global knowledge economy.

The theory of neoclassical welfare economics largely shaped international and national agricultural policies during the Cold War period. It treated technology as an exogenous factor that could boost agricultural productivity but not necessarily sustainable agriculture. New growth theory, the economic theory of the new knowledge economy, treats technological change as endogenous and argues that intangible assets such as human capital and knowledge are the drivers of sustainable economic development. In this context, the combined use of agricultural biotechnology and information technology has a great potential, not just to boost economic growth but also to empower people in developing countries and improve the sustainable management of natural resources. This article outlines the major ideas behind new growth theory and explains why agricultural economists and agricultural policy-makers still tend to stick to old welfare economics. Finally, the article uses the case of the Cassava Biotechnology Network (CBN) to illustrate an example of how new growth theory can be applied in the fight against poverty. CBN is a successful interdisciplinary crop research network that makes use of the new knowledge economy to produce new goods that empower the poor and improve the productivity and nutritional quality of cassava. It shows that the potential benefits of agricultural biotechnology go far beyond the already known productivity increases and pesticide use reductions of existing GM crops.

GM cotton and its possible contributions to environmental sustainability and rural development in Turkey

Cotton farming in Turkey faces economic, environmental and socioeconomic challenges. Organic cotton has been a successful response that greatly benefited low-input farmers; but, worldwide, it will eventually become a mature niche market with limited growth potential. Since no Genetically Modified (GM) varieties have been approved so far in Turkey, we want to find out how the potential adoption of GM cotton by input-intensive producers could contribute to economic, social and environmental improvements. When experiences with GM cotton in other countries are applied to the Turkish context, GM cotton is likely to encounter the highest adoption rates in regions that already face significant pest infestation rates. It may eventually mprove the economic and environmental situation in these regions and in the rapidly expanding and increasingly input-intensive cotton growing area of Southeastern Anatolia. To ensure its long-term sustainability Turkey needs to pass an enforceable biosafety law and invest in homegrown agricultural biotechnology research.

The motivation and impact of organized public resistance against agricultural biotechnology

Fifteen years of experience with the commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) corps and countless national and international risk assessments of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) suggest that the risks related to this new technology are not any different from those already known in conventional agriculture. Despite these reassuring findings, public distrust toward GMOs has not decreased. Europe has even further tightened its de facto ban on genetic engineering in agriculture and most African countries continue to be reluctant to approve any GM corps for commercial cultivation, even if they may prove to be particularly beneficial for small-scale farmers. In order to understand this puzzling situation, we have to look at the global controversy on GMOs in the larger historical context. Professional pressure groups against GMOs have their roots in the environmental movement of the 1970s. At that time they criticized the negative environmental consequences of the Green Revolution. By assuming that the current Gene Revolution would largely represent a repetition of the mistakes of the Green Revolution, they were able to shape the risk narrative of genetic engineering in agriculture to a great extent. As an alternative to GMOs, they advocate the concept of ‘food sovereignty’ which envisions a type of agricultural system that helps countries to ensure food security without having to rely on agricultural trade and the use of new technologies in agriculture. In this chapter we argue that this kind of bipolar world view of good and evil agriculture is unlikely to be helpful in addressing the multiple sustainability challenges of the twenty-first century because it tends to burn rather that build bridges between the actors that would be most suitable to join forces in the fight against hunger and climate change.

The Prospects of International Trade Regulation: Reframing sustainable agriculture

KEY MESSAGES ∙ ‘Sustainability’ and ‘non-trade concerns’ in agriculture are political terms used for different production and trade policies. ∙ WTO rules and disciplines provide ample policy space for pursuing sustainable agricultural policies, but they must be improved to avoid protectionist misuse. ∙ The sustainability challenges in least developed countries (LDCs) are high non-tariff trade barriers and lack of investment in agriculture. Introduction The Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) was arguably one the most significant General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) achievements of the 1986–1994 Uruguay Round. It came into effect with the successful establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1995. Yet, while the AoA managed to bring agriculture within the disciplines of the multilateral trading system, Members took advantage of the wide policy space available and exploited many loopholes in the agreement to ensure that they could continue with their highly protectionist policies. While global average tariffs have progressively fallen from above 40 per cent to below 4 per cent during the GATT period, the trend in agriculture seems to be the reverse in many areas. The level of effective protection against the flow of agricultural trade has been rising. Even though a fundamental principle of the AoA was the decoupling of support to the farming sector from production decisions, it did not prohibit market price support and other trade-distortive forms of support.

Is Agricultural Biotechnology Part of Sustainable Agriculture? Different Views in Switzerland and New Zealand

Most countries claim to be committed to sustainable agriculture. Yet, the meaning of the term ‘sustainable agriculture’ is largely shaped by influential stakeholders in the public debate and their respective agendas. The resulting national policies to promote sustainability may therefore not always be conducive to improving the economic, social, and environmental conditions of the farming sector. Two recent surveys on sustainable agriculture conducted with stakeholders in Switzerland and New Zealand highlight how such political interests and attitudes determine the role of technology in promoting sustainable agriculture. Whereas stakeholders in Switzerland largely consider precision agriculture and agricultural biotechnology to be a threat to sustainable agriculture, their counterparts in New Zealand think these factors must be essential components of the future of sustainable agriculture. The progressive attitude about sustainable agriculture in New Zealand is related to the influence of innovative food research organizations and entrepreneurial producer associations in public policy. The defensive attitude in Switzerland is largely due to the importance of government institutions, NGOs, and large retailers in particular.

The Sustainable Provision of Environmental Services : From Regulation to Innovation

This book addresses the ability of market-based instruments to improve the sustainable provision of environmental services. The author combines field research and insights from the multi-stakeholder dialogue at the FAO to analyze the gap between the predictions provided by theory and the corresponding outcomes in practice. In particular, the author challenges the theory behind Payments for Environmental Services (PES), a concept derived from neoclassical welfare economics, by demonstrating that PES projects often lack financial sustainability unless local entrepreneurs make use of the resulting new networks to create innovative markets for environmental goods. The author calls for a shift of focus from regulation to innovation in projects and policies designed to improve the provision of environmental services. Its spotlight on the positive social impacts of companies that engage in hybrid PES schemes will make the book appealing to practitioners and policymakers alike.