PR 101 for Biotech: Don't Call Your Opponents "Looney"

Does this headline strike you as a good idea?

From the UK-based publication, Meat Trade News Daily: Australia - Looney Activists out in force

Anti-GM activists have protested outside the opening of a genetically modified technology conference in Melbourne.

They bought along about 10 bags of what they say was GM canola found along roadsides.

They also had a bouquet of GM canola, which was to be presented to Victorian Agriculture Minister Joe Helper.

"GM co-existence is a con and is impossible. Segregation doesn't work. We collected this canola from the road side and it proves out point," says one of the protesters, Catherine Moore.

Of course, it might simply be true that these particular protestors were looney. But probably not. More likely they just have a view the writer of this article disagrees with. It might even be a poorly-thought-out or undersupported point of view. But still. "Looney?" That's hardly first-rate stakeholder relations. And at this particular point in time, the food industry does not need to be seen looking (more) like jerks.

Biotech in Bangladesh: A View from Inside

There's plenty of debate over whether or how biotechnology will help developing nations. Some people see hope in biotech's promise to increase crop yields, to make vaccines that don't need refrigeration, and to offer new methods of bioremediation. Others suspect that the world's poorest people will essentially see the biotech revolution and its expensive technologies pass them by.

Here's a view of biotech from inside one of the world's poorest nations, Bangladesh:

From the Financial Express of Bangladesh: Biotechnology in Bangladesh

...Use of modern biotechnology (recombinant DNA) is at its infancy in Bangladesh. It is mainly confined to development, standardisation, and vitro culture and micro-propagation of cereals, vegetables and horticultural crops. But embryo rescue and somaclonal variation culture are at the lower spectrum of the biotechnological gradients. The fisheries and livestock sectors have achieved insignificant progress.
Biotechnological development in Bangladesh is at its primary stage.
Lack of infrastructure and shortage of funds and skilled manpower are hindering the progress in biotechnological research. Again, it cannot be used due to lack of interest among entrepreneurs....

(That quotation is from the middle; it's worth reading the whole short article.)