‘It’s complicated’: The relationship between science and food

At the same time, the continued application of science and technology in food production is advocated by many as being the solution to ensuring global food security in the face of challenges such as an increasing population, altered distribution of global wealth and a changing climate. However, the claim that science is needed to address food security needs in the face of a changing climate seems to be falling on deaf ears in societies where food is abundant, choice is overwhelming and diseases of excess are increasing. So is science the scourge or the saviour of food production?

We have used science to fiddle with our food for thousands of years; through plant and animal domestication, the development of fermentation and food preservation practices and the introduction of foreign plants and animals into new locales.

We used science not just to make our food safer and last longer or to unlock valuable nutrients, but also to experience new tastes. Foods have acquired socio-cultural meanings beyond their nutritional content, particularly since we stopped eating merely to survive: for example, many religions have food restrictions and consumption practices as articles of faith. Celebratory events became associated with special meals or dishes, and the development of culinary traditions allowed food to become an expression of wealth, status, nationalism and personal identity. However it is the continued development of science and technology and its application to food production, particularly in recent years, that seems to raise anxieties. Issues such as genetically modified (GM) crops and foods and the use of agricultural chemicals are key examples of situations where the use of science in food production is particularly complex.

The development of recombinant DNA techniques and their application to food plants in the 1970s is arguably the most important scientific intervention in the food system in recent years, and also the most contested. It may be less important than the “green revolution” in terms of actual impacts on agricultural productivity, but the ability to alter the DNA of plants and animals in new ways certainly led to increased government and public interest in agriculture and food production.

In its early years, particularly from the scientists’ point of view, GM technology showed great promise as a new and more efficient tool to do what agricultural scientists had always been doing: creating new crops and types of animals to feed a growing and increasingly sophisticated public demanding cheap and convenient food.

As environmentalism became more popular, and more recently with our understanding of climate change, GM was seen as fitting with ideas of producing less with more and was aligned with the sustainable intensification of agriculture as a way to both reduce the contribution of agriculture to climate change and adapt to its effects. The emerging food security issue soon became a dominant part of pro-GM discourse, in particular the idea that GM was needed in order to be able to feed the projected 2050 population of 9 billion people. Overall rates of adoption of GM crops have been more rapid in developing nations than in developed nations overall, since GM is claimed to deliver tangible social benefits to small-scale farmers by increasing agricultural productivity through disease resistance and improved weed management.

The story of community attitudes towards GM crops is a little different. Putting aside the ethical conundrum of whether we should ever manipulate ‘nature’ via genetic modification or anything similar, the central narrative has been that GM foods are perceived as risky in various senses. Although the fear of GM foods, which heightened in the 1990s, seems to have lessened in recent years, many are still concerned that GM foods represent unknown risks not really worth taking. GM is seen merely as a way for “Big Ag” to increase profits rather than something that is beneficial to the individual consumer (by making food more nutritious, for instance) or provides social benefits to farmers more broadly. For many in the community, uncertainty about benefits is reason enough to avoid consuming GM foods.

But the links to large, multinational plant protection companies is also a particularly dominant issue in Australia, where the only GM food crop that has been commercialised is a canola that has been genetically modified to tolerate the herbicide glyphosate, also known as Round Up™. While it is true that in Australia multinationals are involved in the development of GM crops, a quick look at the licence applications to the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator shows that a number of public institutions are also involved, and many GM modifications are not related to herbicide tolerance but are rather intended to provide potential benefits for consumers, farmers and the environment.

The link between GM crops and chemical use is quite strong, with agricultural chemical use also being an issue of concern in the community. The use of pesticides in Australia has increased in recent decades, in part due to the adoption of ‘minimum tillage’ in the grains sector.

Minimum tillage aims to increase soil health, reduce soil erosion and maintain soil organic matter and water-holding capacity by keeping the previous crop’s stubble in the ground. In addition, the use of minimum tillage can reduce the loss of greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide from cropping systems. Agricultural chemical use also has an important role in insect and disease control in the horticultural sector, ensuring that more of the food produced reaches the market. Increased sales of organic food in Australia in the last decade have been linked to a desire to avoid agricultural chemicals because of concerns about their impact on human health and the environment, but there is also a perception among consumers that organic food is tastier and more nutritious than its conventional counterparts, making it difficult to estimate actual levels of concern in the community.

It seems as though those in the developed world – who have arguably gained the most from the use of science-related agricultural practices that provide affordable, plentiful and safe food – are now rejecting those practices. So does this mean that people are rejecting science and technology, in which case the solution is to educate people about the importance of science and technology? Or should we be looking at this problem differently?

The public is right to be concerned about food production. The resources used to produce our food are not limitless, and in Australia it is particularly important to consider the impacts of food production on our unique and often extreme environment. We also have public health issues such as chronic metabolic diseases that are linked to our food consumption habits. At an individual level, consumers have to make choices quickly based on increasingly complex and competing claims about what is better for them, for their communities and the planet. In this situation, people tend to resort to food producers who they trust (or brands, labels or certifications as proxies) based on the perception of shared values.

Research into community attitudes to science in food production is starting to move beyond the idea that rejecting things like GM foods is a rejection of ‘science’ and revealing that our relationships with both science and food are far more complex, involving numerous social and cultural aspects.

We know there are still high levels of trust in Australian farmers but Australians generally know little about current food production practices, which makes it difficult to talk to the general public about the risks and benefits of agricultural innovations.

Although it might be tempting to fill this knowledge gap with facts about agricultural production, we also know from looking at science communication research on public education campaigns that increasing knowledge alone is not the answer to building trust. Shared values are more important, and understanding the values that producers and the broader community share about food production will be key to improving communication. Although we still need more research in this area to understand what these values are, we can already start to shift the conversation away from ‘educating’ the community about agriculture and towards thinking about ways to improve trust in the food system. Science will always have a role in food production, but particularly science that is done by and for the benefit of people. Through our research we hope to identify new ways of looking at public engagement with food production and more constructive ways to engage the community in conversations about how we sustainably produce safe, healthy and affordable food now and into the future.