Funding

Initial Grant: $20,000, October 2001. Renewal grant of $35,765, received February 2003.

As a result of IMBA support, the Investigator has published extensively, lectured, and organized panels and presentations on ethical, legal, and social issues in agricultural biotechnology. For example, a collection of papers, Genetic Prospects: Essays on Biotechnology, Ethics, and Public Policy (Verna V. Gehring, editor; Rowman & Littlefield, forthcoming August 2003), includes "Genetic Engineering and the Concept of the Natural," by Mark Sagoff, and a reply and discussion by Paul Thompson, "Unnatural Farming and the Debate over Genetic Manipulation." This book is part of a series that is widely adopted for classroom use.

Executive Summary

Over the last year and a half, Sagoff has written a series of papers, now either published, forthcoming, or under review on normative issues related to genetic engineering in agriculture. These papers are listed and described below. Second, he has organized and participated in a series of conference presentations as well as lectured at several universities on the ethical, legal, and social aspects of agricultural biotechnology. A list of these appearances follows. Finally, Sagoff has developed and submitted related research initiatives, which are also identified.

Articles And Essays

An initial paper, "Biotechnology and the Concept of Nature," appeared in Allan Eaglesham et al. eds., Genetically Modified Food and the Consumer, NABC Report 13, National Agricultural Biotechnology Council, Ithaca, New York, 2001, pp. 127-140. It also appeared in Philosophy and Public Affairs Quarterly, Volume 21, Number 2/3, Spring/Summer 2001, pp. 2-10. The paper generated a great deal of commentary and will be republished with a lengthy response by Paul Thompson (now of Michigan State University) as cited above.

The second paper addresses the belief that advances in biotechnology as applied to agriculture are needed to feed the world's growing population, particularly in developing countries. It appeared as, "Biotechnology and Agriculture: The Common Wisdom and Its Critics," Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 9(1)(Fall 2001): 13-34. A large portion of this paper will be reprinted in Richard G. Botzler Susan J. Armstrong, Environmental Ethics: Divergence and Convergence (3rd edition; New York: McGraw Hill, 2003).

A third paper, "New Plants for Old: Biotechnology and the Invasion Nature," which editors of a special edition of Euphytica (a major journal of plant-breeding) invited, takes up the conceptual possibility that genetic engineering, by producing a limitless variety of new species, could add to the world's biodiversity but at the same time raises concerns that it might "contaminate" natural biodiversity. In this context, the paper examines the boundary between nature and artifice to recognize the extent to which concerns about
agricultural biotechnology can be understood as attempts to policy or defend this boundary. The essay is available in manuscript because it has not yet appeared.

A fourth major paper, "Native Is and Native Does: An Analysis of the Distinction between Indigenous and Non-indigenous Species," which has been submitted to the journal BioScience, addresses concerns that crops and imported exotic ornamental and other species are not native and may threaten indigenous plants, animals, and ecosystems. Although the paper is still under review, the editor of BioScience has been encouraging, calling the paper "enticing" on an initial reading.

Besides these four major articles, Sagoff has published other relevant papers during the grant period, including:

1. Mark Sagoff, "Intellectual Property and the Products of Nature," The American Journal of Bioethics 2(3)(2002): 12-13. This essay addresses criticisms of patents on genetic information.
2. "Are Genes Inventions? An Ethical Analysis of Gene Patents," in Justine Burley and John Harris, A Companion to Genethics (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), pp. 420-437. Another essay on the patent issues.
3. Mark Sagoff, "Transgenic Chimeras," The American Journal of Bioethics 3(3)(2003): 30-31.

Presentations

During the last 18 months, Sagoff has lectured widely on legal, social, and ethical issues confronting agricultural biotechnology. This is a representative list of presentations ion chronological order.

1. Panelist, "Restoration Ecology and Native Environments," American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting, Boston, Mass., February 16, 2002. A presentation and debate on the role of non-native crop and other domesticated species in relation to wild and natural environments.
2. Symposium Speaker, Sustaining Landscapes: The Science and Policy of Marine Resource Management, American Museum of Natural History, New York City, March 7, 2002. This talk concerned aquaculture, not agriculture, but raised exactly the same questions — e.g., whether genetically engineered species "threatened" natural varieties by competition, predation, and hybridization; whether efficiencies of production or spare wild populations from overharvesting, etc.
3. Speaker, Moderator, Choices and Challenges Symposium, "Food Frights," Virginia Polytechnic Institute, March 28, 2002. This was a major conference on genetic engineering and food safety held at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA. It was videotaped and broadcast; see: http://www.cddc.vt.edu/choices/2002/main.htm.
4. Sagoff presented a two hour seminar on April 19, 2002, to a large audience of plant biotechnologists at the University of California, Davis (organized by Dr. Martina Newell-McGloughlin), as part of their regular Progress in Plant Biotechnology series. The talk addressed the ethical, legal, and social response to genetic engineering in agriculture.
5. Seminar on ethics and agricultural biotechnology presented as a Hart Lecture on July 25 at the University of Pennsylvania, Center for Bioethics.
6. Seminar presentation on agricultural biotechnology at the New York University Law School, September 5, 2002, as part of a project centered there to explore relevant international regulation.
7. On October 26, Sagoff moderated a panel he organized on ethical, legal, and social issues associated with genetic engineering at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities, Baltimore, Maryland. Paul Thompson presented a reply to Sagoff's earlier work and a defense of the role of "craft" farming.
8. Sagoff has organized upcoming events as well. For example, on August 29, 2003, in connection with the Annual Meeting of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences, Sagoff will participate in two panels he helped to organize, one on agricultural biotechnology, the other on genetic engineering and the concept of nature.

Research Initiatives

This past year, Sagoff submitted to the Ethics and Values Studies Program in the National Science Foundation a proposal for modest funding to study the normative and conceptual issues involved in the breeding of plants that may enter — either intentionally or inadvertently, wild environments. The proposed project, "The Impacts of Invasive Non-Native Plants: A Normative and Conceptual Analysis," has been recommended for funding. Here is the first paragraph of the Project Summary:

The proposed project examines the normative and conceptual framework in which plant breeders, nursery professionals, plant ecologists, government officials, and others may understand and assess the possibility that plant breeding, crop domestication, and the introduction of plants for ornamental purposes may lead to the release of invasive species that cause unwanted effects to natural systems, to biological diversity, and to the environment. The research seeks to understand which impacts on natural systems are undesirable and why. It will try to clarify the concept of an invasive plant and related concepts of damage to native biodiversity and to ecological systems.