Copyright © 2005 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. Cleveland, D. A., and Soleri, D. 2005. Rethinking the risk management process for genetically engineered crop varieties in small-scale, traditionally based agriculture. Ecology and Society 10(1): 9. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol10/iss1/art9/ Synthesis Rethinking the Risk Management Process for Genetically Engineered Crop Varieties in Small-scale, Traditionally Based Agriculture David A. Cleveland 1 and Daniela Soleri 1 ABSTRACT. Proponents of genetically engineered (GE) crops often assume that the risk management used in the industrial world is appropriate for small-scale, traditionally based agriculture in the Third World. Opponents of GE crops often assume that risk management is inappropriate for the Third World, because it is inherently biased in favor of the industrial world. We examine both of these assumptions, by rethinking risk management for GE crops and transgenes, using the example of maize transgene flow from the U.S. to Mexico. Risk management for the Third World is a necessary first step of a broader benefit–cost analysis of GE crops, which would include comparisons with existing varieties and with alternative varieties such as transgenic farmer varieties and organic varieties. Our goal is to use existing information on GE crops and on the social and biological characteristics of Third World agriculture to identify key processes that need to be considered in risk management, and the additional research required to adequately understand them. The four main steps in risk management are hazard identification, risk analysis (exposure x harm), risk evaluation, and risk treatment. We use informal event trees to identify possible exposure to GE crops and transgenes, and resulting biological and social harm; give examples of farmers’ ability to evaluate social harm; and discuss the possibilities for risk treatment. We conclude that risk management is relevant for Third World agriculture, but needs to be based on the unique biological and social characteristics of small-scale, traditionally based agriculture, including the knowledge and values of Third World farmers and consumers. Key Words: agricultural biotechnology; biological diversity; biological invasion; crop genetic resources; farmer participation in risk evaluation; gene flow; genetic engineering; risk analysis; risk management process; traditionally based agricultural systems compared with industrial agriculture systems; transgenes; transgenic crop varieties INTRODUCTION There is heated global debate over whether genetically engineered (GE) crop varieties (also known as “genetically modified” crops) will be good or bad for the environment and society. Reports of the presence of transgenes from GE maize in farmers’ traditional crop varieties (FVs, also referred to as “landraces”) in Oaxaca, Mexico in the fall of 2001 (Dalton 2001, Quist and Chapela 2001) resulted in a “maize scandal” (Mann 2002a) that further intensified and polarized the debate over GE crops, and focused world attention on the effects of GE crops and transgene flow on small-scale, traditionally based farmers in the Third World (hereafter “farmers” or “Third World farmers”), especially in areas of crop origins and diversity like Oaxaca. Dramatically contradictory statements about these effects raise questions about the roles of science and values in the risk management process (hereafter “risk management”) for GE crops. Positions on both sides of the debate conflate statements about the way things are, based on objective scientific observation and measurement, with statements about the way things ought to be, based on subjective values (Levidow 2003), a 1 University of California, Santa Barbara Page 1