Science, food, and risk: ecological disasters and social inequality under the GMO regime

The study aims to uncover a critical nexus between the "establishment of science," food regimes, and social and ecological risk, focusing on the bio-tech regime of the global agro-food system that gave rise to the development of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). While risk and disasters are largely treated as natural hazards caused by the "forces of nature," I argue that the scientific establishment also causes a bulk of risk and disasters today that negatively affect ecological landscapes and cause social inequality. Examining the emergence of agro-biotechnology that allows the targeted manipulation of genes in living organisms and patenting of seeds, the paper highlights the current structure of the global food production system, which is dominated largely by transnational corporations (TNCs), and analyzes the implications of the massive adoption of agro-biotechnology in social and environmental landscapes, which poses, along with some benefits, a potential risk and disaster for the future of food. This paper also discusses how science and various actors in the food production chain can effect a change in food governance to avert disaster and push food production in the direction of sustainability and social equity