Monster, marvel, or just misunderstood?

In this brief article, I will argue that agricultural biotechnology (agbiotech) and its current treatment by both national and devolved administrations in the UK are symptomatic of a more general lack of understanding of many important scientific issues that is sometimes coupled with an over willingness to play to the populist gallery. The latter tendency is especially apparent in some aspects of political treatment of one particular aspect of agbiotech, namely GM crops. Here, I will focus on the treatment of GM crops in Wales as an exemple of the collision of new technologies with Public concerns and political action. The aim is to bring out some wider lessons that can be learned for future science public dialogues, and especially the often problematic discourse with local politicians.