There is an ongoing dispute between the European Union and the US over the EU's refusal to accept genetically modified food. There are a number of NGO’s which believe the US biotech companies want to persuade developing nations to accept GM food and boost their profits. These companies insist that technologies like genetic engineering are key to providing food for the billion or so people who currently live below acceptable levels of nutrition.

Log on to www.ncbe.reading.ac.uk/NCBE/GMFOOD/, a website which is set up by the University of Reading to promote biotechnology education. Then, complete the following tasks:

1. By using the information and publications available on the website, evaluate the benefits and possible danger that GM food may bring to consumers.

2. The liberalization of world trade has brought many choices for consumers worldwide. With the US government’s current threat to impose trade sanctions on the EU through the WTO, does the widening of choices mean consumers have a freedom of choose? Discuss.

How this helps you to learn
This is an interesting debate on the so-called ‘liberalization of world trade’. For the GM technologies companies, this means they should be able to ‘make their products available to consumers’ all around the world. Consumers should be given ‘the choice’ to choose. For the EU, whose action is underpinned by its consumers’ scepticism of GM food, consumers must have ‘the choice’ to refuse what is seen as an unproven hence unsafe product.