by Amy L. Fletcher
ABSTRACT
In 1999, following a Foresight Project, the New Zealand Government released an investment portfolio for research and development. Concurrently, the Green Party initiated a Royal Commission on Genetic Modification to consider the ethical, social and scientific issues associated with agricultural biotechnology. This study evaluates the discourse used by stakeholders to debate the use of genetic modification in food production. It concludes that though these two formal methods of public consultation failed to achieve a unifying social and political consensus around genetic modification in agriculture, the exercises advanced the broader goal of iterative stakeholder foresight and innovation.