In February the University of East Anglia (UEA) announced the introduction of an M.sc in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security. Under a press release titled "New postgraduate degree will help dispel 'Frankenfood' myth" the university set out how a "groundbreaking new course will explore the cutting edge agricultural techniques needed to feed a rocketing global population."
The one year Masters course will be hosted by the University's Centre for Contemporary Agriculture, a newly launched initiative financed by the John Innes Centre, the Sainsbury Laboratory, the National Institute for Agricultural Botany (NIAB). UEA has an established reputation as one of the country's leading crop science research institutes and has been instrumental in previous GM crop trials in the UK.
Despite launching the degree with the modest assertion that biotech will feed the world, course Director Professor John Turner is confident that the M.sc will be purely objective in its outlook: "The launch focused on one aspect of the course, genetic engineering, but the fact is that although organic solutions have lower inputs, crop improvement is still going to be by conventional breeding methods."
Readers might be interested to know that Professor Dale Sanders, the recently appointed CEO of the John Innes Centre has been outspoken in his support for genetically modified technology, the Sainsbury Laboratory has conducted four of the last five GM crop trials to be completed in the UK, while Tina Barsby, CEO of NIAB has complained that a restrictive European policy on GM crops is "outdated and inadequate".
Far from wincing at a possible conflict of interest however Professor Turner remains cheerfully positive that the new course will make the most of its corporate backing: "The John Innes Centre is a pro-GM laboratory, as is the Sainsbury laboratory, but the Centre for Contemporary Agriculture is an umbrella organization in which those members participate. I think we have to be impartial because its going to be the consumer who decides whether or not we are able to adopt GM technology."
And did Professor Turner regret advertising an impartial and objective course with such a provocative title? "The title for the press release came directly from our press officer and I saw it afterwards, it was something I wouldn't have necessarily written myself, and yes it was deliberately provocative."