| Popis: |
Notions of risk, benefits and expectations from technology are part of the debate on LMOs and their socio-economic assessment. This chapter provides a sociological perspective on this, taking into account the findings from the field surveys as reported in chapters in Sect. 4.2. The socio-cultural factors in risk perception are important and notions of good life are linked with this. While technology advances, perceptions of risk and benefits also change and as some technologies are perceived to be riskier than others, the public perception really matters. On the other hand, attempts to identify the public perceptions of agricultural biotechnologies have resulted in mixed outcomes as in the case of Bt Brinjal, and there is no guarantee that public perception will be uniform across countries or same for similar technologies. With new technological options like genome editing the old questions on risk and acceptability inevitably rise and studying these should be part of any exercise on SE assessment. The experience with and public perception of a non-edible GM cotton crop cannot be extrapolated to a GM food crop. Finally the technological choices and policy options have to be discussed and choices should not be limited one category of technology. Governance of technology should consider issues relating to risk, and perceived benefits from technology so that governance is not reduced to a technocratic exercise based on a narrow idea on risk, safety, and benefits. |
