The fallout over this week's programme in RTE's Big Science television series has increased, with the Irish biotechnology industry and a leading research agency supporting claims by the biotechnology company Monsanto that it was unfair and inaccurate.
The US multinational has asked RTE to outline how it intends to repair damage to the company caused by the programme entitled Safe Harvest which focused on crop production and genetically modified (GM) foods. The complaint to RTE's director general, Mr Bob Collins, has been supported by the Irish Bioindustry Association.
BioResearch Ireland, which has research units in five universities, has also submitted its objections to the State agency Forfas, which advises on science and technology policy and financially supported the Big Science series.
A Monsanto spokesman said it was awaiting a reply from RTE. If this was not satisfactory, a complaint would be made to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. The programme's makers have defended its contents, insisting it was not an attempt to denigrate Monsanto or biotechnology.
Monsanto's main objection, said its Irish business manager, Dr Patrick O'Reilly, was the absence of representatives of the biotechnology industry or regulatory authorities charged with monitoring and approving this technology from a human and environmental health point of view. "It also paints a picture of organic farming as a provider of food for the developing world which is dangerously misleading."
IBIA director Mr Matt Moran said he was "shocked to see a programme purporting to promote science being so totally imbalanced". But Green Party TD Mr Trevor Sargent accused Monsanto of "throwing their weight around, just as they have done in agriculture", as it was dissatisfied with reliance on agriculturalists' views.
Safe Harvest producer-director Ms Moira Sweeney said it was making "a passionate case for biodiversity" and highlighting the role of farmers, who may be overlooked in a race towards using this new technology. It looked at other technologies and different forms of harvesting, and interviewed farmers using Monsanto technology.
It was not, she said, an endorsement of organic farming. Even the most radical voice, Dr Vandana Shiva, accepted there was a place for considered application of biotechnology with a democratic input. But given their objections, they now accepted there was a case for including the views of biotechnologists and a Monsanto representative.
