Precaución, riesgo y sostenibilidad en los organismos agrícolas modificados genéticamente

Abstract

The debate over GMO crops and their commercialisation becomes the source of a large number of conflicts with important social, economic and ecologic consequences the resolution of which often calls for the application of a precautionary approach and of the precautionary principle. This article introduces and analyses such discussions, and does so within the framework provided by the EU project Precautionary Expertise for GM (PEG). Based on first material gathered for the Spanish case study, the authors argue that a large majority of the disagreements around practical application of precaution over agricultural GMO in Spain come from a conception of precaution which is to a different degree more or less reductionist or systemic while assessing risks or benefits of their use. Thus, analytically, is it possible to observe a rather clear-cut division between those discourses, interpretations and practices which promote a case by case kind of precaution against those who orient their discourses and practices on the basis of a systemic precaution, closer to the conceptual and political framework sustainability.