Genetically modified foods provoke many questions and ethical issues about which everyone should take a view.

Ethics is all about what we can do and what we should do. It's about the difference between good and bad - right and wrong. As a consumer, you decide what is ethical.

Here are a number of examples of some of the ethical issues surrounding the genetic engineering debate.

Using gene technology, a characteristic from a daffodil can for example be transferred to a rice plant. The purpose of this would be to grow rice with a large Vitamin A content. A daffodil and a rice plant will never pollinate each other and exchange genes of their own accord.

You can also pass on characteristics from an animal to a plant. This does not occur naturally either.

The sceptics might ask:

• Aren't scientists playing God, when they change the characteristics of a plant?
• Is it right to change inherent characteristics?
• Is it right to permit changes which cannot occur naturally?
• Can scientists allow themselves to interfere with many millions of years of natural development? And is it right that they are allowed to affect the natural order of nature?

The supporters might ask:

• If genetic modification of foods is unnatural, aren't all other elements of agriculture unnatural? Cows today produce much more milk than they used to, chickens grow more rapidly and hens lay more eggs than their predecessors.
• Is there any difference between genetic modification of foods and non-genetically engineered changes permitted to crops and livestock through the history of agriculture? The original sweet corn was a little vegetable about the size of a finger. Today it is larger than a man's hand. A change purely made through agricultural development.
• Isn't genetic modification just an extension of the development, which has occurred over thousands of years in order to ensure quality produce?

Is genetically modified food dangerous, or are people just frightened of something new?
We don't know the risks involved in the genetic modification of food.

Perhaps in the long term, genetic modification of foods may be the cause of changes that are undesirable or directly dangerous. Nature may become standardised. People may become ill or infertile. We don't know with any certainty.

On the other hand, the telephone has not led to the unwanted consequences sceptics feared. i.e. that the telephone would make people isolated and remove their need to meet up with friends and family. Many today would suggest that the telephone in contrast binds people more closely together. So perhaps humans are by nature frightened of new technology.

The sceptics might ask:

• Do we know enough to eat genetically modified food safely? How safe is the scientist's assessment of the risks involved in eating genetically modified food?
• Dare we run the risk of using genetic modification of foods, when we don't yet know the long-term effects?
• Is it fair to compare genetic modification of foods with a discovery such as the telephone? Telephones don't have children!
• Dare we run the risk of exposing the environment to genetically modified plants? If they are discovered to be harmful, we won't be able to do anything about it. And the damage can spread if the plants multiply.
• Are genetically modified foods really necessary? Are there any reasons to accept a risk to health and the environment, if we can manage without genetically modified foods?

The supporters might ask:

• Aren't genetically modified foods just a natural part of man's development? Who today could imagine a world without telephones?
• Can we allow ourselves to say no to technology, which can reduce the use of crop sprays and provide healthier foods, just because we are scared by nature?
• Is it really possible to predict the risk in a world that is constantly changing?
• Will it be reasonable to accept a degree of risk if the benefits are big enough? Isn't this a gamble connected to any kind of development?

Should we always have the right to choose what we eat?
In Europe the packaging must display that a food is genetically modified, if it contains genetically modified material.

Foods that unintentionally contain less than 1% of genetically modified material do not need to be labelled. The same applies to foods that are produced from genetically modified plants but do not contain genetically modified material.

Milk and animal products, derived from animals fed with genetically modified feed, need not be labelled. In other words, a food product can be produced with the help of genetic modification without the consumer being informed by the packaging.

The sceptics might ask:

• Is it right that sugar from genetically modified sugar beet and oil from genetically modified rape seed doesn't need to be labelled?
• And that meat and milk from animals fed with genetically modified feeds does not have to be labelled?
• Isn't the important issue that where genetic modification has been used, we as consumers are told so that we can avoid such products?
• Shouldn't the consumer be able to see on all foods if they are produced using genetic modification?

The supporters might ask:

• If sugar from a genetically modified sugar beet is identical to all other sugars, isn't it just the same to the consumer whether the sugar is produced with the help of genetic engineering?
• If a label is going to mean anything - shouldn't it allow you to discern the difference between products?
• Isn't there a completely different debate here? A debate over how we produce our foods today and how we want them to be produced in the future. Is it for example reasonable that many foods are pumped full of chemicals which cause cancer and allergies?

Who owns the genes?
Generally, large multinational companies finance the development of genetically modified products.

When a company has developed a new product is it usual for the company take out a patent on the product. This may mean that a farmer who has purchased genetically modified seed, cannot cultivate seed to plant in subsequent years without paying for it.

Patent rules vary in individual countries. In Europe a so-called "farmer's privilege" applies, which means that the farmer can plant genetically modified seed he has grown himself. But the seed can only be used on his own land.

The companies can also secure an income from their genetically modified plants by using so-called terminator technology. Here, the plants are genetically modified so that their seeds are sterile. This means that the genetically modified plant cannot propagate further. But, this also means that the farmers are forced to buy new seed every year.

The sceptics might ask:

• Is it fair that companies can take out patents on genetically modified plants and secure rights over them?
• Is it acceptable that companies can to an increasing degree control both genes, processes and chemicals? For example, it is possible for a company to develop both a crop spray and a genetically modified crop that can resist this crop spray.
• Isn't the biological wealth of the earth the inheritance and property of all mankind?
• Is it fair that terminator-technology can force poor farmers to purchase new seed every year, when they could grow their own completely free?
• Is it fair that large companies have control and power over our food chain from the soil to the table?
• Won't the multinational companies just play a part in increasing the difference between the rich in the west and the poor in the underdeveloped countries?

The supporters might ask:

• Who says company patents are to be feared? If the price is too high for poor farmers, the large companies simply won't be able to sell their seeds.
• Is it fair to deny technology, which can give us new and valuable discoveries?
• Isn't it reasonable for companies to cover the development costs involved in genetic modification with patent rights?
• Will we risk companies not investing money in developing better and cheaper genetically modified foods?
• Isn't it reasonable to use terminator technology to prevent the spread of genetically modified plants to neighbouring fields and to nature?
• Does it matter who produces the foods just so long as they are cheaper and better?

Can the richer countries refuse to save the poor from dying of hunger?
Most research into genetically modified foods takes place in richer countries. But some of the products are developed to advantage poor, underdeveloped countries.

Genetically modified rice with extra Vitamin A can help many of the poor who would otherwise become blind or die of vitamin deficiency. Genetically modified corn can be grown in desert areas, which can give poor farmers greater security with a harvest that doesn't fail.

The sceptics might ask:

• Is it fair for the west to develop products, which underdeveloped countries can become dependent on?
• Wouldn't a fairer distribution of the world's existing foods and a more varied diet in the underdeveloped countries be a better solution?
• Are the promises of saving the world's starving populations just a smart trick from the biotechnology companies? A trick aimed to convince the sceptics that there are advantages to gene-technology.

The supporters might ask:

• Is it fair that we in the western world distance ourselves from a technology, which might save poor people in underdeveloped countries from starvation?
• Can we allow ourselves to say no to genetically modified crops, if they help poor farmers to a better yield? For example with crops that can withstand periods of drought.
• Shouldn't we be grateful for products such as genetically modified rice with extra nutrition, that can prevent sickness and blindness?
• Can we in the western world permit ourselves to say no on the poor's behalf?

Are we playing Russian roulette with the environment when modifying?
Genetic modification can provide us with plants and animals with many different qualities.

For example a genetically modified sweet corn has been developed, which can produce insecticide. These characteristics mean that the farmer is free from having to spray insecticide, affecting the surrounding environment. By avoiding the use of pesticides the farmer avoids contaminating the environment.

But the sweet corn plant's poison can also affect other animals apart from the harmful ones. In this way harmless animals or beautiful butterflies risk losing their food, or even risk extinction.

The sceptics might ask:

• Can we accept the risk that transferred characteristics can spread to wild plants?
• Can we live with not knowing the consequences of these characteristics being spread throughout nature?
• What if a genetically modified plant breeds as the rabbits did when they were brought to Australia? The rabbits caused huge changes in the food chain. Just like the giant bear-claw from the Caucasus that spread wildly in Europe suffocating other plant species.
• Isn't the development going in the wrong direction when we produce genetically modified plants that can withstand crop spraying? Would it not be better trying to work toward removing the poisons completely?

The supporters ask:

• Can we permit ourselves to say no to genetically modified plants, which can reduce the use of spray poisons?
• With our strained environment shouldn't we be grateful for a technology, which makes it possible to protect it?