Your Food Transformed: GMOs

Dr. Ignacio Chapela on KPOO 89.5 FM San Francisco, CA
17 Feb 2005

[Order a CD of the show]

Dr. Ignacio Chapela was the guest of co-hosts Paul Goettlich [Mindfully.org] and Julie Matthews [Healthful Living] on "Reality Sandwich," KPOO 89.5 FM, San Francisco on Thursday, 17 February, 2005.  He has been very outspoken on academic freedom and against corporate funding of research at UC Berkeley. He and his graduate student found that the maize in the highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico is contaminated with genetically engineered gene's from Monsanto. He gave some words of encouragement in the struggle that we all face against the powers that be in present day USA. It was a compelling show on GMOs and U.S. Food Policy. 

Ignacio Chapela is Assistant Professor of Microbial Ecology at the Dept. of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley. He is the founder of The Mycological Facility, Oaxaca, a facility dealing with questions of natural resources and indigenous rights, based in and run by indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico. Dr. Chapela is deeply engaged in the current debate over the role of biotechnology in our society, environment and economy.

He has worked in close collaboration with indigenous communities in Mexico, Costa Rica and Ecuador on questions of access, ownership and stewardship of genetic resources and has also served as advisor to various Latin American Countries, as well as multilateral institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank and the International Organization for Chemical Sciences in Development. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Environmental Impact of Commercialization of Transgenic Crops.

Dr. Chapela has worked for the pharmaceutical/agrochemical industry as a scientific researcher, as well as with the Agricultural Research Service of the USDA. He is a board member of at more than one organization that I know of. As if that's not enough, he was recently featured in a great new documentary called "The Future Of Food."

• More background information on Dr. Chapela
• For future shows streaming on the web: http://www.kpoo.com/stream.html   Hint: Click on the radio on that page