June 21, 2023 • 25 mins
- An old episode from the Red to Green Podcast on Food Tech & Bio Tech. Listen if you are interested in the future of food, but this isn’t Scaling Nerds.
Red to Green was a podcast that investigated how to transition the food industry from harmful to healthy, from polluting to sustainable, from Red to Green. Each season had a different topic
- Season: Cultivated Meat
- Season: Plastic Alternatives
- Season: Food History
- Season: Food Waste
- Season: Biotech in Food
- Season: Book Reviews on the future of food
In early 2012 scientists at Rothamsted Research in England started an airfield trial of genetically modified wheat ( the first in the UK for many years ). THe research was publicly funded by a plant science centre based in the south of England. The genetically engineered wheat was sown behind a high fence and protected by 24-hour security. You will find out why all this security was needed in a second.
The aim of the research was to test and check whether an added gene would repel aphids. The small sucking insects are commonly called greenflies and blackflies. The wheat would exude a pheromone that repels them. A pheromone is a chemical produced by an organism that influences other individuals of the same species. We also have pheromones, which are pretty useful for dating.
The theory was that if wheat could exude these unattractive pheromones, the insects would stop attacking it. And this way, we could save lots of pesticides. Actually, this is a great approach.
The stakes were high because a group of anti - GMO protesters had vowed to destroy the test site before the experiment could offer any results. In response, the scientists released a passionate YouTube video appeal. They talked to the media and pleaded that their effort was >actually< to reduce pesticide use.
One of the scientists, Toby Bruce, addressed the camera directly; he said: We have developed this new variety of wheat which doesn’t require treatment with an insecticide, and it uses a natural aphid repellent which already widely occurs in nature and is produced by more than 400 different plant species. We have engineered this into the wheat genome so that the wheat can do the same thing and defend itself. Are you really against this? Because it could have a lot of environmental benefits. Or is it simply you distrust it because it’s a GMO? Another Rothamsted scientist in the video was Janet Martin, who asked quite reasonably: ‘ You seem to think, even before we’ve had a chance to test the trial, that our GM wheat variety is bad. But how can you know this? ’ She paused and uttered a weary, unscripted sigh before continuing. ‘ It’s clearly not through scientific investigation because we’ve not even had a chance to do any tests yet.
Get funding for your food science research: https://en.raps-stiftung.de/foerderbereiche/lebensmittelforschung
Seeds of Science https://www.amazon.com/Seeds-Science-Why-Wrong-GMOs/dp/1472946987
Connect with the host, Marina https://www.linkedin.com/in/schmidt-marina/
Connect with the host, Frank https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankkuehne/
Please rate the podcast on Spotify and iTunes! <3
DISCLAIMER - The podcast and article represent the personal opinions and interpretations of the participants). The statements may be exaggerated for entertainment and/or comedic purposes. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information presented per the cited sources. However, the participants do not guarantee the completeness or timeliness of the information. Readers are encouraged to verify the information presented and conduct their own research independently. The participants acknowledge that Bayer Crop Science and/or other parties mentioned have the right to an alternative interpretation of matters discussed.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What we're doing today is we're trying to destroy the crop.
You're hearing a group of activists going through a GM
wheat, field by syngenta, the agrochemical company, ripping
out the crops left and right. In the UK in 2003, we're wearing
the contamination suit so that we don't contaminate the outside
(00:23):
areas. I also feel that we should be
moving towards a form of Agriculture, which is more
working in harmony with nature. What, actually have you done
with just killed one hundred percent of it syngenta's Geo we
not resistant to protesters, As we got it, the UK has been
pretty intense in the anti-gm movement and the author of the
(00:45):
book that we will talk about today called seeds, of science,
was actually part of it. He used to be an anti-gmo
activist but since then, he switched sides and is telling
people about the benefits of GMOs and indeed scientists who
want to use genetic engineering technology to actually Proof the
(01:07):
world have a really hard time roughly 10 years after this
incident scientists at rothamsted research in England
started an Airfield trial of genetically modified wheat
again. But this one was publicly
funded. The wheat was sown behind a high
fence and protected by 24 hour security necessary.
(01:29):
In this case, the aim of the research was to test whether an
added Gene could repel and fits these A small sucking insects
are commonly called Green fly orblack.
Fly the weed would exude a pheromone that a it's just don't
like a pheromone is a chemical produced by an organism that
(01:50):
influences other individuals of the same species, we humans have
pheromones and they are pretty important for figuring out with
whom We Vibe or not who we like to smell and who we don't like
the snow. The theory was that if if wheat
can exude these unattractive pheromones the insects would
(02:10):
just stop attacking it if you think about it, it's a great
approach. But the stakes were high,
because a group of anti-gmo protesters had vowed to destroy
the test side before the experiment could offer any
results in response to scientists released.
A passionate video appealing to the media and pleading that
(02:32):
their effort was actually to reduce pesticides, one of the
scientists. Toby Bruce address the camera
directly. He said and I quote the book on
page 50, we have developed This new variety of wheat which
doesn't require treatment with an insecticide, and it uses a
natural Amphitheater repellent, which already widely occurs in
(02:53):
nature and is produced by more than 400 different plant
species. We have engineered this into the
wheat genome so that the wheat can do the same thing and defend
itself. Are you really against this
because it could have a lot of environmental benefit or is it
simply you distrusted? Because it is a GMO.
Another rothamsted Add scientistin the video was Janet, Martin
(03:17):
who asked quite reasonably. You seem to think even before
we've had a chance to test the trial that our GM wheat.
Variety is bad. But how can you know this?
She paused and uttered. Aweary unscripted sigh before
continuing it's clearly not through scientific investigation
because we've not even had the chance to do any tests yet.
(03:41):
Smart cleaners describes in his book, seed of science, the video
and Associated public appeal, seemed to strike a chord.
Press coverage, was largely sympathetic to the predicament
of the scientists as striking change from a decade earlier.
When the activists seem to be leading the agenda, the
rothamsted science research had invested so much staff time
(04:03):
millions of pounds and a lot of institutional reputation in
fighting a campaign on behalf ofthe Spearmint.
And unfortunately, when the results came in the GM, we did
not repeal efforts as expected but they were not trying to bury
the bad news. The team published an Open
Access paper stating straightforward.
(04:23):
That field trials showed no reduction in am fits.
Well that's the nature of science, right and maybe it
doesn't work, that's why it's research.
But the issue here is that it's really hard to try.
It's really hard to research. Unfortunately GM has gotten such
a bad rap across the board, thatany kind of application of GM is
(04:49):
facing boycotts. Today, our discussion is based
on Markley nurses book seats of science.
It was originally published in 2018 and as I later, also
described by, it's a balance, right?
If we only look at one side of the story, we will always have
(05:09):
an mm, balanced view. So we do need to look at the
other side of the story, which seeds of Sines offers us.
We will try to find a silver lining between the murky
extremes. Looking at BT, crops use cases
for poor communities, and cases of over-regulation.
If you don't have any contacts on genetic engineering consider
(05:30):
actually checking out our two previous episodes to get a bit
more context otherwise a big thanks and a shout-out to the
adult bird wraps Foundation. Located in the south of Germany
supporting independent food, science research more in them in
a bit. Let's Jump Right In Red to Green
is the most in-depth podcast on food sustainability.
(05:54):
And in this season 7 we discuss key takeaways from books on the
food system, I'm your host Marina Schmidt and I'm joined by
my co-host, Frank Keenan? And that's the title of the book
seats of science. I thought we're talking about
like the seedlings within the science, and then we talk about
(06:15):
genetic modification. I was aware, they was actually
talking about seeds. Chris, that's what it's doing.
It's interesting that. And for example, he doesn't
touch on Precision fermentation at all, which usually requires
genetically modified organisms, or like product images from
right? Yeah, yeah.
So I always look out for Contentdensity.
(06:36):
For how much am I highlighting in a book and how much is there?
Just Superfluous blah blah. So either it should entertain me
or should educate me and with his book like the first 15% and
I know, because I was reading iton my Kindle, the first 15% of
this book. We're literally just about him.
You might like criticize the lengths.
(06:57):
He's going about it and himself his role in it, but isn't it a
crucial information? He's basically, I was non-GMO
activists and you Okay. And actually a front-runner in
that whole movement and I changemy mind about that.
I think that's kind of part of his story and you need to
understand if you're reading hisbook, what I find interesting is
that both of these and he also sees like he was very
(07:20):
radicalized in this first beliefsystem in being completely anti
GMO in any kind of way no matterwhat like whatever was GMO, per
definition is bad and now he's sort of not.
Lately, but Pro most applications, I, he served
offended Monsanto and said, actually it's not that bad
(07:43):
compared to other companies also.
And yeah. So I think it's a bit binary
would you be able to summarize his position towards a GMO crops
now? Like I'd like to make the
difference between the use of genetic modification or editing
in Science World or Total Medical or fruit system or
wherever you're going to use it and the focus he has on On
(08:06):
genetic modified crops. And do you understand his
position on that? Like the he's Pro generated
more. Yes, occasion of crops.
But is he like, asking certain limitations what?
We should put into place. Mostly let's go for it, go for
it and they are all safe and allof like these and these
(08:29):
institutions say there's a consensus on this being
absolutely safe and no need to worry about it.
Let's have Mark. Lynn has described his position
himself. Actually, he does that on page
10. I quote, I'm using the terms GM,
0, GM, and GE somewhat interchangeably in this book.
The first of these is especiallyproblematic.
(08:50):
I've used it in the title because it has the highest
International recognizability Factor.
But many scientists, I know refuse to use it on principle.
What is a genetically modified organism.
Anyway, your pet dog is genetically modified from the
the original wolf otherwise you wouldn't let it anywhere near
your kids. All our crops and domesticated
(09:11):
animals have been genetically modified from their ancestors to
be useful to humans. So are they also GMOs?
That's what bugs the scientist, it makes no logical sense to
single out, anything that has been altered in the lab for
special concern, or even vilification changing genes via
laboratory molecular techniques.The main subject of this book is
(09:34):
not much different from Conventional selective breeding
and quote genetic modification is a really broad term and it
includes any alteration to an organism's genetic material.
So actually GM, indeed is a unfitting term.
What we usually refer to when wesay, GMOs is a crop that has
(09:58):
been genetically, engineered. So in genetic engineering, as a
specific technique or process used to actively If I, an
organism's DNA by inserting, deleting or modifying specific
DNA sequences, these genetic engineering techniques, enable
changes that go beyond the natural process.
So let's say in molecular farming, if you make a soy plant
(10:21):
produce casein, that's a milk protein.
It's very unlikely. That even if you would have
bread, this planned hundreds of times that suddenly a soy plant
produces milk proteins, I misseda part where he basically says,
like, kind of this balanced perspective where he says there
(10:41):
are the opportunities and the positive effects that it might
have for the Society of all the environment for us in general,
and on the other side, as with all new developments, we need to
put some control it. See tutions in place, like there
needs to be a balanced approach,but I couldn't find that in this
book. There was kinda surprised zinc
for me. I thought at least that you
(11:03):
would come at one point to this.Thing we're basically say, yeah,
there's potential, but there's risk and that you need to handle
those. My main caveat with the book
because the first page starts out saying actually genetic
engineering. That's the same as traditional
plant breeding. That's his line of thought.
And that's actually what regulation in the US was based
(11:27):
on if we think back to the worldaccording to Monsanto the
thought pattern was well, it's just DNA, you know, He was like,
DNA is natural so it can cause it's just we can take it from a
different animal and inserted inthis.
It's just, you know, it was it doesn't matter.
But the thing that trips me up is and I'm not a scientist here.
(11:51):
It's so we are approaching this just from trying to apply some
common sense to it, right? That traditional plant,
breeding. And even if you would use
radiation or something on these plants, you would never have a
plan produce. Milk protein, no matter what you
do to the soy planned, except ifyou do genetic engineering, so
how can you compare it to traditional breeding?
(12:14):
How can you apply the same regulatory framework as to
traditional breeding? And that way, it seems a bit
far-fetched. Yeah, I agree.
That is from my point of understanding and what I know
now about the whole thing, it's not to say, I would clearly make
a difference between breeding and editing or engineering of
James, but I do Do thank you. Have some good points.
(12:37):
It reminded me of my sister. She her background is in science
and biology but she is very muchinto politics.
She used to tell me to get the whole picture of a situation.
She would read the English newspaper, the German newspaper,
the Russian, and the Ukrainian one, and none of them ever
stayed, the whole truth. All of them have somewhat
(12:59):
realistic points here and there,if you are know where to look
for, but when you read them, allyou can get to Picture and
that's I think the value of reading that book.
So I think just reading this book would be incomplete, just
reading the Monsanto book would be a bit incomplete, but in
combination, it gives it more nuanced perspective on it.
(13:22):
For example, I do think he brushes aside the main use of
GMOs, which is for glyphosate resistant.
Crops, but he also later in the book points out that actually
Lee didn't lead to a reduction of pesticide use because in the
end it just shifted, the world'spesticide used to glyphosate and
(13:45):
now again glyphosate-resistant weeds are coming up but he
focuses on BT crops in his book for my understanding genetic
modified crops to offer a lot more.
Let's call it fast. Then only the use of pesticides
or reducing the amount of pesticides.
Easy on the fields like a drought resistance.
(14:07):
There is, I don't know, house benefits.
Like there are other things thatyou can approach was with GM
crops in the episode of this biotech.
Season Larisa is a off. She was saying when she talks to
all these startups in the food Tech space of doing Precision,
fermentation during cellular agriculture actually, health is
(14:28):
like the last thing any of them mention because you have so many
other things to care about. Out price taste distribution
Etc. And that's I think also similar
in this case that in theory you could make crops which are so
much more healthy but where are they like pink pineapple really
(14:50):
die sad. What's up with the world?
Meaning in it? There's no money in it Marina.
How do you two know more for a lower price back to the basic?
Again, where the economics class?
Yeah, we're not in the game for healthy food, win the game for
(15:14):
me. Oh God the industry's going to
kill you. I've been an industry guy and
somehow linked to the science Community.
I'm always worried about attacking gentleman.
Oh yeah Asian ass General bad thing and missing out the
opportunities that has or that will be in that kind of
technology and it's quite young technology.
(15:35):
Okay. It's 40 years old but still
trying to understand how this this works and I think there's
going to be huge jumps over. The next two decades GM will
stick like, it will be part of our society and we rather should
have a discussion about how it can work.
Wait, a sec that's really about having a nuanced approach.
It is a socio political issue. It's it is also tied to who has
(16:00):
the patterns and that is mainly Monsanto.
Now buyer. And he also admits that for
example, BT. Crops which are genetically
engineered to be resistant to certain insects all of the BT
patterns are now with buyer. So he talks about this case in
(16:21):
Africa and Tanzania where there's a science institution,
which got an exemption. So they don't need to pay
Monsanto royalties because the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation funded This research for, I think BT Maize in Africa,
but then he says, oh, Yo, what'skeeping this from being adopted
(16:43):
is mostly activists and if activists wouldn't be against
GMOs, then the benefits for small poor communities, would
already be way more apparent andway more popular.
Indeed BT crops are actually quite interesting to look into
so this bacterial insecticide isa bio pesticide.
(17:06):
So it comes from an actual soil bacterium and already in the 60s
we knew that it is non toxic to mammals and fish but also to
other beneficial or non-target insects.
You can spray the BT biopesticide.
But the issue is it has drawbacks as soon as describes
(17:26):
on page 9. Eight of his book.
I quote, it could not get to Insects feeding within the plans
tissues nor down in the roots and it quickly degraded when
exposed to open air in the fieldeven.
So, it was effective enough to be in widespread commercial use
in the 1970s and 1980s. And as a bio pesticide, that was
(17:46):
particularly popular among organic farmers who were
required to avoid the use of synthetic chemicals, a bit
later. He describes genetic Engineers
made even better. Better use of BT by splicing,
the bacterial gene into the plant genome, thereby making
crops Express and produce this insecticidal protein directly
(18:08):
inside and Mark Lunas has a really interesting point here,
that he says, Monsanto pretty much had a choice, they could
have led with BT, corn or with Roundup, Ready soy?
And they decided to focus on theherbicide-resistant Roundup,
Ready? Soy the earliest beat, T.
Corn product was only released ayear later in 2097 and that was
(18:33):
probably a huge mistake because as Mark Lunas rights I quote, so
the first GMO food product launched.
Kicked off a decades-long controversy about herbicide
tolerance and whether Monsanto was simply trying to sell more
chemicals. While the subsequent insecticide
reducing BT seeds, simply got lost in the noise.
(18:54):
The question which came into my mind when reading the book was
there's those two topics that she's not really separating them
properly, but I think it's crucial to do that the system.
We are now in which is driven bycompanies like Monsanto and I
think is the other one and you pour the down Depot, they play
the big scale patent profit oriented game within GMO in.
(19:19):
General it, with example, you just made means smaller pore
refining. Farmer actually can't afford.
That course they don't have the assets.
The money to buy the more expensive things.
Are they going to get into your liability towards these big
companies? Which then again brings up each
whole other basket of issues, but that's the one topic or the
one area and the other side, I think that's what he's trying to
(19:40):
say. In the book is in general GMO
could offer solutions for poorerFarmers.
If they were put into place to actually use it, don't be
dependent on a lot of money to use it and so on.
Yeah. But I think it's important to
consider that the possibilities,like the use case of a
technology is very much dependent on that.
(20:02):
So if you argue for, we should completely deregulate GMOs and
just make it super easy for new and humo plans to be developed.
He was talking about, think it was Thailand, which had 40
different genetically modified crops work in progress and then
activists Arif, jumped in and destroyed.
(20:24):
It any seedlings and there's a lot of activists action and
destroying the actual crops in and destroying the fields.
And I think it's just really important to look at it Case by
case. If it's a university.
If it's a government-funded social project which is actually
(20:44):
focused on. How can we really improve
drought resistance of crops? How can we there's no better
solution like there. You cannot do it with
computational breathe. You cannot do it with something
less invasive. And there are no existing crops
that could just be better for this area if that's the
situation and maybe it makes sense to do that and to go down
(21:06):
that route. But yeah, it seems to me like
the case-by-case Judgment of it.You say it's a technology,
right? Like it's just the way you go
about things and unless you say that it is morally apprehensive
to in any way genetically Engineer anything in this world
(21:27):
then it makes sense to say whether you use it to increase,
herbicide, tolerance, or whetheryou actually decrease herbicide,
use by making it directly resistant to insects or whether
you want to make a drought resistant.
Those are three very different cases.
It's very dangerous to try to come to some kind of conclusion
(21:52):
based on these two books. Maybe we can just go and look at
like how would you try to make up your mind, right?
Because to really make up one's mind about this.
I think it would require an entire red to Green season just
on the topic of GMOs for please comment, if you want to have a
season on that. I'm gonna yeah, any research
(22:16):
organization. Yeah, sure.
Monsanto would probably find me.It's a supporting.
You on that love relationship, huh.
What I find tricky is that my background is in science and
technology history and unfortunately the scientific
system and I am absolutely pro-science right?
But the scientific system can beflawed and it can be flawed by
(22:39):
corporate influence. If you consider that when Santos
main business has been the combination of Roundup plus GM,
0 and GMOs are super important for their main pesticide round
up in this Case, then anybody who is going against the main
core part of their business? Of course, they want to
discredit them. Of course, they want to take
(23:02):
them down and then you have industry-funded studies loads of
them or industry influence studies and something called
AstroTurf ink. I love with term certificate.
Yeah, the industry is These Grassroots movements that sounds
(23:28):
like organizations made by like individual people, or by
scientists that come together, but actually, it's just a
lobbying organization that is pretending like these are just
people who know and care about this cause who want to promote
science. These are just a few of the
(23:49):
reasons why it's so so hard to look through it.
Because like, oh, so this institution Is it safe but to
get then you need to research. I spend like three hours.
Just digging trying to find the funding sources of Institutions
to get down. And then you need to look at the
funding sources of the funding sources and then you maybe get
20 by our surprise. Yeah, that's true.
(24:15):
That's really too. Yeah, and then the question is,
what are the Alternatives, right.
So, could you get the same result may be with Other
approaches that are possibly less risky.
To keep this episode bite-sized and easy to digest.
It will keep going next week so make sure to subscribe to stay
up to date. Now think about one person that
(24:37):
may appreciate learning about this topic and seeing different
perspectives. The best thing that you can do
to support red to Green is to share this episode with that one
person. It will just take 30 seconds and
it will actually support us greatly to keep doing this
research and bringing it out to you for free Frank.
And I would also love to hear from you.
So, go ahead. Reach out to us, tell us your
(24:59):
opinion, share your viewpoints, ask your questions, you can find
the link to our profiles in the show notes or writers by looking
us up, Frank Alexander cunha andme Marina Schmid as so, often a
big special, thank you to our senior audio editor, Celeste
Gupta, until next time, let's move the food industry from
harmful to healthy from polluting to sustainable from
(25:21):
red to Green.
What we're doing today is we're trying to destroy the crop.
You're hearing a group of activists going through a GM
wheat, field by syngenta, the agrochemical company, ripping
out the crops left and right. In the UK in 2003, we're wearing
the contamination suit so that we don't contaminate the outside
(00:23):
areas. I also feel that we should be
moving towards a form of Agriculture, which is more
working in harmony with nature. What, actually have you done
with just killed one hundred percent of it syngenta's Geo we
not resistant to protesters, As we got it, the UK has been
pretty intense in the anti-gm movement and the author of the
(00:45):
book that we will talk about today called seeds, of science,
was actually part of it. He used to be an anti-gmo
activist but since then, he switched sides and is telling
people about the benefits of GMOs and indeed scientists who
want to use genetic engineering technology to actually Proof the
(01:07):
world have a really hard time roughly 10 years after this
incident scientists at rothamsted research in England
started an Airfield trial of genetically modified wheat
again. But this one was publicly
funded. The wheat was sown behind a high
fence and protected by 24 hour security necessary.
(01:29):
In this case, the aim of the research was to test whether an
added Gene could repel and fits these A small sucking insects
are commonly called Green fly orblack.
Fly the weed would exude a pheromone that a it's just don't
like a pheromone is a chemical produced by an organism that
(01:50):
influences other individuals of the same species, we humans have
pheromones and they are pretty important for figuring out with
whom We Vibe or not who we like to smell and who we don't like
the snow. The theory was that if if wheat
can exude these unattractive pheromones the insects would
(02:10):
just stop attacking it if you think about it, it's a great
approach. But the stakes were high,
because a group of anti-gmo protesters had vowed to destroy
the test side before the experiment could offer any
results in response to scientists released.
A passionate video appealing to the media and pleading that
(02:32):
their effort was actually to reduce pesticides, one of the
scientists. Toby Bruce address the camera
directly. He said and I quote the book on
page 50, we have developed This new variety of wheat which
doesn't require treatment with an insecticide, and it uses a
natural Amphitheater repellent, which already widely occurs in
(02:53):
nature and is produced by more than 400 different plant
species. We have engineered this into the
wheat genome so that the wheat can do the same thing and defend
itself. Are you really against this
because it could have a lot of environmental benefit or is it
simply you distrusted? Because it is a GMO.
Another rothamsted Add scientistin the video was Janet, Martin
(03:17):
who asked quite reasonably. You seem to think even before
we've had a chance to test the trial that our GM wheat.
Variety is bad. But how can you know this?
She paused and uttered. Aweary unscripted sigh before
continuing it's clearly not through scientific investigation
because we've not even had the chance to do any tests yet.
(03:41):
Smart cleaners describes in his book, seed of science, the video
and Associated public appeal, seemed to strike a chord.
Press coverage, was largely sympathetic to the predicament
of the scientists as striking change from a decade earlier.
When the activists seem to be leading the agenda, the
rothamsted science research had invested so much staff time
(04:03):
millions of pounds and a lot of institutional reputation in
fighting a campaign on behalf ofthe Spearmint.
And unfortunately, when the results came in the GM, we did
not repeal efforts as expected but they were not trying to bury
the bad news. The team published an Open
Access paper stating straightforward.
(04:23):
That field trials showed no reduction in am fits.
Well that's the nature of science, right and maybe it
doesn't work, that's why it's research.
But the issue here is that it's really hard to try.
It's really hard to research. Unfortunately GM has gotten such
a bad rap across the board, thatany kind of application of GM is
(04:49):
facing boycotts. Today, our discussion is based
on Markley nurses book seats of science.
It was originally published in 2018 and as I later, also
described by, it's a balance, right?
If we only look at one side of the story, we will always have
(05:09):
an mm, balanced view. So we do need to look at the
other side of the story, which seeds of Sines offers us.
We will try to find a silver lining between the murky
extremes. Looking at BT, crops use cases
for poor communities, and cases of over-regulation.
If you don't have any contacts on genetic engineering consider
(05:30):
actually checking out our two previous episodes to get a bit
more context otherwise a big thanks and a shout-out to the
adult bird wraps Foundation. Located in the south of Germany
supporting independent food, science research more in them in
a bit. Let's Jump Right In Red to Green
is the most in-depth podcast on food sustainability.
(05:54):
And in this season 7 we discuss key takeaways from books on the
food system, I'm your host Marina Schmidt and I'm joined by
my co-host, Frank Keenan? And that's the title of the book
seats of science. I thought we're talking about
like the seedlings within the science, and then we talk about
(06:15):
genetic modification. I was aware, they was actually
talking about seeds. Chris, that's what it's doing.
It's interesting that. And for example, he doesn't
touch on Precision fermentation at all, which usually requires
genetically modified organisms, or like product images from
right? Yeah, yeah.
So I always look out for Contentdensity.
(06:36):
For how much am I highlighting in a book and how much is there?
Just Superfluous blah blah. So either it should entertain me
or should educate me and with his book like the first 15% and
I know, because I was reading iton my Kindle, the first 15% of
this book. We're literally just about him.
You might like criticize the lengths.
(06:57):
He's going about it and himself his role in it, but isn't it a
crucial information? He's basically, I was non-GMO
activists and you Okay. And actually a front-runner in
that whole movement and I changemy mind about that.
I think that's kind of part of his story and you need to
understand if you're reading hisbook, what I find interesting is
that both of these and he also sees like he was very
(07:20):
radicalized in this first beliefsystem in being completely anti
GMO in any kind of way no matterwhat like whatever was GMO, per
definition is bad and now he's sort of not.
Lately, but Pro most applications, I, he served
offended Monsanto and said, actually it's not that bad
(07:43):
compared to other companies also.
And yeah. So I think it's a bit binary
would you be able to summarize his position towards a GMO crops
now? Like I'd like to make the
difference between the use of genetic modification or editing
in Science World or Total Medical or fruit system or
wherever you're going to use it and the focus he has on On
(08:06):
genetic modified crops. And do you understand his
position on that? Like the he's Pro generated
more. Yes, occasion of crops.
But is he like, asking certain limitations what?
We should put into place. Mostly let's go for it, go for
it and they are all safe and allof like these and these
(08:29):
institutions say there's a consensus on this being
absolutely safe and no need to worry about it.
Let's have Mark. Lynn has described his position
himself. Actually, he does that on page
10. I quote, I'm using the terms GM,
0, GM, and GE somewhat interchangeably in this book.
The first of these is especiallyproblematic.
(08:50):
I've used it in the title because it has the highest
International recognizability Factor.
But many scientists, I know refuse to use it on principle.
What is a genetically modified organism.
Anyway, your pet dog is genetically modified from the
the original wolf otherwise you wouldn't let it anywhere near
your kids. All our crops and domesticated
(09:11):
animals have been genetically modified from their ancestors to
be useful to humans. So are they also GMOs?
That's what bugs the scientist, it makes no logical sense to
single out, anything that has been altered in the lab for
special concern, or even vilification changing genes via
laboratory molecular techniques.The main subject of this book is
(09:34):
not much different from Conventional selective breeding
and quote genetic modification is a really broad term and it
includes any alteration to an organism's genetic material.
So actually GM, indeed is a unfitting term.
What we usually refer to when wesay, GMOs is a crop that has
(09:58):
been genetically, engineered. So in genetic engineering, as a
specific technique or process used to actively If I, an
organism's DNA by inserting, deleting or modifying specific
DNA sequences, these genetic engineering techniques, enable
changes that go beyond the natural process.
So let's say in molecular farming, if you make a soy plant
(10:21):
produce casein, that's a milk protein.
It's very unlikely. That even if you would have
bread, this planned hundreds of times that suddenly a soy plant
produces milk proteins, I misseda part where he basically says,
like, kind of this balanced perspective where he says there
(10:41):
are the opportunities and the positive effects that it might
have for the Society of all the environment for us in general,
and on the other side, as with all new developments, we need to
put some control it. See tutions in place, like there
needs to be a balanced approach,but I couldn't find that in this
book. There was kinda surprised zinc
for me. I thought at least that you
(11:03):
would come at one point to this.Thing we're basically say, yeah,
there's potential, but there's risk and that you need to handle
those. My main caveat with the book
because the first page starts out saying actually genetic
engineering. That's the same as traditional
plant breeding. That's his line of thought.
And that's actually what regulation in the US was based
(11:27):
on if we think back to the worldaccording to Monsanto the
thought pattern was well, it's just DNA, you know, He was like,
DNA is natural so it can cause it's just we can take it from a
different animal and inserted inthis.
It's just, you know, it was it doesn't matter.
But the thing that trips me up is and I'm not a scientist here.
(11:51):
It's so we are approaching this just from trying to apply some
common sense to it, right? That traditional plant,
breeding. And even if you would use
radiation or something on these plants, you would never have a
plan produce. Milk protein, no matter what you
do to the soy planned, except ifyou do genetic engineering, so
how can you compare it to traditional breeding?
(12:14):
How can you apply the same regulatory framework as to
traditional breeding? And that way, it seems a bit
far-fetched. Yeah, I agree.
That is from my point of understanding and what I know
now about the whole thing, it's not to say, I would clearly make
a difference between breeding and editing or engineering of
James, but I do Do thank you. Have some good points.
(12:37):
It reminded me of my sister. She her background is in science
and biology but she is very muchinto politics.
She used to tell me to get the whole picture of a situation.
She would read the English newspaper, the German newspaper,
the Russian, and the Ukrainian one, and none of them ever
stayed, the whole truth. All of them have somewhat
(12:59):
realistic points here and there,if you are know where to look
for, but when you read them, allyou can get to Picture and
that's I think the value of reading that book.
So I think just reading this book would be incomplete, just
reading the Monsanto book would be a bit incomplete, but in
combination, it gives it more nuanced perspective on it.
(13:22):
For example, I do think he brushes aside the main use of
GMOs, which is for glyphosate resistant.
Crops, but he also later in the book points out that actually
Lee didn't lead to a reduction of pesticide use because in the
end it just shifted, the world'spesticide used to glyphosate and
(13:45):
now again glyphosate-resistant weeds are coming up but he
focuses on BT crops in his book for my understanding genetic
modified crops to offer a lot more.
Let's call it fast. Then only the use of pesticides
or reducing the amount of pesticides.
Easy on the fields like a drought resistance.
(14:07):
There is, I don't know, house benefits.
Like there are other things thatyou can approach was with GM
crops in the episode of this biotech.
Season Larisa is a off. She was saying when she talks to
all these startups in the food Tech space of doing Precision,
fermentation during cellular agriculture actually, health is
(14:28):
like the last thing any of them mention because you have so many
other things to care about. Out price taste distribution
Etc. And that's I think also similar
in this case that in theory you could make crops which are so
much more healthy but where are they like pink pineapple really
(14:50):
die sad. What's up with the world?
Meaning in it? There's no money in it Marina.
How do you two know more for a lower price back to the basic?
Again, where the economics class?
Yeah, we're not in the game for healthy food, win the game for
(15:14):
me. Oh God the industry's going to
kill you. I've been an industry guy and
somehow linked to the science Community.
I'm always worried about attacking gentleman.
Oh yeah Asian ass General bad thing and missing out the
opportunities that has or that will be in that kind of
technology and it's quite young technology.
(15:35):
Okay. It's 40 years old but still
trying to understand how this this works and I think there's
going to be huge jumps over. The next two decades GM will
stick like, it will be part of our society and we rather should
have a discussion about how it can work.
Wait, a sec that's really about having a nuanced approach.
It is a socio political issue. It's it is also tied to who has
(16:00):
the patterns and that is mainly Monsanto.
Now buyer. And he also admits that for
example, BT. Crops which are genetically
engineered to be resistant to certain insects all of the BT
patterns are now with buyer. So he talks about this case in
(16:21):
Africa and Tanzania where there's a science institution,
which got an exemption. So they don't need to pay
Monsanto royalties because the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation funded This research for, I think BT Maize in Africa,
but then he says, oh, Yo, what'skeeping this from being adopted
(16:43):
is mostly activists and if activists wouldn't be against
GMOs, then the benefits for small poor communities, would
already be way more apparent andway more popular.
Indeed BT crops are actually quite interesting to look into
so this bacterial insecticide isa bio pesticide.
(17:06):
So it comes from an actual soil bacterium and already in the 60s
we knew that it is non toxic to mammals and fish but also to
other beneficial or non-target insects.
You can spray the BT biopesticide.
But the issue is it has drawbacks as soon as describes
(17:26):
on page 9. Eight of his book.
I quote, it could not get to Insects feeding within the plans
tissues nor down in the roots and it quickly degraded when
exposed to open air in the fieldeven.
So, it was effective enough to be in widespread commercial use
in the 1970s and 1980s. And as a bio pesticide, that was
(17:46):
particularly popular among organic farmers who were
required to avoid the use of synthetic chemicals, a bit
later. He describes genetic Engineers
made even better. Better use of BT by splicing,
the bacterial gene into the plant genome, thereby making
crops Express and produce this insecticidal protein directly
(18:08):
inside and Mark Lunas has a really interesting point here,
that he says, Monsanto pretty much had a choice, they could
have led with BT, corn or with Roundup, Ready soy?
And they decided to focus on theherbicide-resistant Roundup,
Ready? Soy the earliest beat, T.
Corn product was only released ayear later in 2097 and that was
(18:33):
probably a huge mistake because as Mark Lunas rights I quote, so
the first GMO food product launched.
Kicked off a decades-long controversy about herbicide
tolerance and whether Monsanto was simply trying to sell more
chemicals. While the subsequent insecticide
reducing BT seeds, simply got lost in the noise.
(18:54):
The question which came into my mind when reading the book was
there's those two topics that she's not really separating them
properly, but I think it's crucial to do that the system.
We are now in which is driven bycompanies like Monsanto and I
think is the other one and you pour the down Depot, they play
the big scale patent profit oriented game within GMO in.
(19:19):
General it, with example, you just made means smaller pore
refining. Farmer actually can't afford.
That course they don't have the assets.
The money to buy the more expensive things.
Are they going to get into your liability towards these big
companies? Which then again brings up each
whole other basket of issues, but that's the one topic or the
one area and the other side, I think that's what he's trying to
(19:40):
say. In the book is in general GMO
could offer solutions for poorerFarmers.
If they were put into place to actually use it, don't be
dependent on a lot of money to use it and so on.
Yeah. But I think it's important to
consider that the possibilities,like the use case of a
technology is very much dependent on that.
(20:02):
So if you argue for, we should completely deregulate GMOs and
just make it super easy for new and humo plans to be developed.
He was talking about, think it was Thailand, which had 40
different genetically modified crops work in progress and then
activists Arif, jumped in and destroyed.
(20:24):
It any seedlings and there's a lot of activists action and
destroying the actual crops in and destroying the fields.
And I think it's just really important to look at it Case by
case. If it's a university.
If it's a government-funded social project which is actually
(20:44):
focused on. How can we really improve
drought resistance of crops? How can we there's no better
solution like there. You cannot do it with
computational breathe. You cannot do it with something
less invasive. And there are no existing crops
that could just be better for this area if that's the
situation and maybe it makes sense to do that and to go down
(21:06):
that route. But yeah, it seems to me like
the case-by-case Judgment of it.You say it's a technology,
right? Like it's just the way you go
about things and unless you say that it is morally apprehensive
to in any way genetically Engineer anything in this world
(21:27):
then it makes sense to say whether you use it to increase,
herbicide, tolerance, or whetheryou actually decrease herbicide,
use by making it directly resistant to insects or whether
you want to make a drought resistant.
Those are three very different cases.
It's very dangerous to try to come to some kind of conclusion
(21:52):
based on these two books. Maybe we can just go and look at
like how would you try to make up your mind, right?
Because to really make up one's mind about this.
I think it would require an entire red to Green season just
on the topic of GMOs for please comment, if you want to have a
season on that. I'm gonna yeah, any research
(22:16):
organization. Yeah, sure.
Monsanto would probably find me.It's a supporting.
You on that love relationship, huh.
What I find tricky is that my background is in science and
technology history and unfortunately the scientific
system and I am absolutely pro-science right?
But the scientific system can beflawed and it can be flawed by
(22:39):
corporate influence. If you consider that when Santos
main business has been the combination of Roundup plus GM,
0 and GMOs are super important for their main pesticide round
up in this Case, then anybody who is going against the main
core part of their business? Of course, they want to
discredit them. Of course, they want to take
(23:02):
them down and then you have industry-funded studies loads of
them or industry influence studies and something called
AstroTurf ink. I love with term certificate.
Yeah, the industry is These Grassroots movements that sounds
(23:28):
like organizations made by like individual people, or by
scientists that come together, but actually, it's just a
lobbying organization that is pretending like these are just
people who know and care about this cause who want to promote
science. These are just a few of the
(23:49):
reasons why it's so so hard to look through it.
Because like, oh, so this institution Is it safe but to
get then you need to research. I spend like three hours.
Just digging trying to find the funding sources of Institutions
to get down. And then you need to look at the
funding sources of the funding sources and then you maybe get
20 by our surprise. Yeah, that's true.
(24:15):
That's really too. Yeah, and then the question is,
what are the Alternatives, right.
So, could you get the same result may be with Other
approaches that are possibly less risky.
To keep this episode bite-sized and easy to digest.
It will keep going next week so make sure to subscribe to stay
up to date. Now think about one person that
(24:37):
may appreciate learning about this topic and seeing different
perspectives. The best thing that you can do
to support red to Green is to share this episode with that one
person. It will just take 30 seconds and
it will actually support us greatly to keep doing this
research and bringing it out to you for free Frank.
And I would also love to hear from you.
So, go ahead. Reach out to us, tell us your
(24:59):
opinion, share your viewpoints, ask your questions, you can find
the link to our profiles in the show notes or writers by looking
us up, Frank Alexander cunha andme Marina Schmid as so, often a
big special, thank you to our senior audio editor, Celeste
Gupta, until next time, let's move the food industry from
harmful to healthy from polluting to sustainable from
(25:21):
red to Green.
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