Eco Crime and Genetically Modified Food

The GM debate has been ongoing for over a decade, yet it has been contained in the scientific world and presented in technical terms. Eco Crime and Genetically Modified Food brings the debates about GM food into the social and criminological arena. This book highlights the criminal and harmful actions of state and corporate officials. It concludes that corporate and political corruption, uncertain science, bitter public opposition, growing farmer concern and bankruptcy, irreversible damage to biodervisty, corporate monopolies and exploitation, disregard for social and cultural practices, devastation of small scale and local agricultural economies, imminent threats to organics, weak regulation, and widespread political and biotech mistrust – do not provide the bases for advancing and progressing GM foods into the next decade. Yet, with the backing of the WTO, the US and UK Governments march on – but at what cost to future generations?

1. Introduction: Planting the Seed 2. The Politicisation of GM: Terrain, Terms and Concepts 3. The Perils, Prospects and Controversies of GM Food 4. Risk, Public Opinion and Consumer Resistance 5. Biotech, Papal and Trade ‘Wars’: Third World Hunger, Exploitation and the Politics of GM Food 6. Regulatory Regimes: Ensuring Safety or Enhancing Profits? 7. Green Criminology: Power, Harm and (In) Justice 8. Reflections and Conclusions

Reece Walters is Professor in Criminology, and Head of the Social Policy and Criminology Department at The Open University. He has published widely on the politics and governance of criminological knowledge, including Deviant Knowledge - Criminology, Politics and Policy and Critical Thinking about the Uses of Research (with Tim Hope).