How are we to deal with the new types of agricultural biotechnology emerging? Dr. David Castle, of the University of Guelph, suggested in a bioethics symposium last Wednesday at the Joint Centre for Bioethics that we must revolutionize our ways of thinking about food technology. Our conventional ethical analyses of biotechnology are seriously limited, he said, and as such, solutions are a long way off. In a media culture hungry for stories, hot issues such as agricultural biotechnology get much attention, forcing the average citizen to choose sides before knowing many of the facts.

Too often we get caught up in hype and lose sight of the actual issues at hand: should we be tampering with genetics, producing radical new plants or even sentient beings?

Castle discussed the Enviropig, a newly developed pig-bacteria hybrid engineered at the University of Guelph that can break down the dangerous phosphorous compounds pigs produce. The Enviropig, argues Castle, is likely to make farms less polluted places, but citizens must not succumb to alarmist notions of destructive Frankenstein-like creations roaming the Earth and creating havoc.

A prevailing idea is that, in some way, human-based culture is distinct from nature. This distinction locks us into a power struggle for control over our natural surroundings. If we are able to let go of this idea, society can look more rationally for solutions.

Strangely, it seems that new developments in agricultural biotechnology will feed a much-needed ethical overhaul by forcing us to confront our convoluted relationship with the natural world.