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The 2002 southern African famine marked a new phase in the long-standing trade war between the United States and the European Union over genetically modified organisms. This work will explore how the delivery of genetically modified food aid to the region concretized the ontological disparities between the two trading blocs. In addition, I argue that genetically modified crops necessitate not only new development policy, but new ways of theorizing development itself in the light of globalized systems of food production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The debate over genetically modified foods has become one of the defining environmental and social issues of the past decade. As the public naturalize biotechnology within existing cultural systems, this produces what I term ‘cultures of GM’. This paper examines how these ‘cultures’ are legitimized and sustained through an appraisal of divergent North American and European conceptions of risk and their translation into food labelling policies. It is argued that the dialectical relationship between risk perception and its cultural context offers an instructive vantage point for critical reflection by geographers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]