Survey and flyer

We wondered what the man in the street thinks and knows about synthetic biology and some aspects of our project. Therefore, we went on the street and approached people with a few questions. Our ‘field of action’ was the Gentse Feesten by day. The Gentse Feesten are a 10 day long free music festival in the centre of Ghent which attracts a very various public of every age. Many people were willing to help us and were very interested in the extra information we gave them about iGEM, synthetic biology and our project. We also gave them flyers they could read at home.

After some general questions (age, sex and occupation), we wanted to know three more things:

• Do you worry about increasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria?
• Do you think bacteria can be useful for man?
• What is the first thing you think about when you hear ‘genetically modified organisms’?

Our general conclusion is that the bigger part of people worries about increasing antibiotic resistance and that almost everyone thinks bacteria can be useful for us. The last question, however, had a much more varying response. We were surprised about how often we got the answer ‘nothing’. Other popular answers were about corn, soy and other food.

When you take a look at the word cloud we made based on these answers, other answers that come to the foreground is ‘potatoes’ and ‘potato field’. This is because of a test field of Ghent University not far away from Ghent where genetically modified potatoes were tested. This got a lot of media attention, especially because of the protest action of the so called Field Liberation Movement.

Read more about the potato test field

In 2010, Ghent University , ILVO (Insitute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research), VIB (Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology) and HoGent (University College Ghent) announced a collaborative project about durable, genetically modified potatoes resistant against Phytophthora, an oomycete which causes potato blight, resulting in huge losses for potato farmers. The project involved a two year long test on the ILVO fields, where different genetically modified Phytophtora resistant potatoes would be tested, mostly originating from a collaboration with Wageingen University & Research.
Source and more information (only in Dutch): www.aardappelziekte.be

This announcement was the beginning of a huge protest wave that is still going on. The Field Liberation Movement, introducing themselves as “a loose collective of concerned citizens from Brussels, Flanders and Wallonia, that wants to keep their country free from GMO crops in open fields”, announced the Big Potato Swap at 29th of May 2011. This was planned to be a ludic demonstration and nonviolent action, in which an alternative would be planted: potatoes who achieved resistance by cross breeding instead of by synthetic biology. In order to prevent activists from entering the field, many police officers were present that day, and eventually the action turned out in a violent confrontation between police and activists. Many people were arrested and their prosecution has not yet come to a conclusion. To see a video about the event that was aired on the national news, click here (Dutch).

Source: www.schamper.ugent.be/afbeelding/bestorming-aardappelveld

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