Sowing Science

KQED TV This Week in Northern California Apr01
Special on Genetically Engineered Food

mindfully.org note:
this transcription of the television program is not verbatim, but the content has not been altered.
. . .please excuse the pun. 

Guests:

Bela Davis, host, KQED:

Genetically engineered plants and animals are fast becoming one of the most hotly debated issues.

This week, Britain's Labor Government said it would call for tough new rules governing its application to humans.

(On screen: tomato vine)

Ever since 1995 when the tomato appeared, genetic engineering has been increasingly used to alter our food. But opposition to it, and a momentous change is mounting as critics question its risks and benefits.

Here's a brief report.

Narrator (anon.):

(On screen: pesticide being sprayed on crops by man driving specially designed vehicle, wearing protective gear.)

Drastic change is happening in how our food is produced. Agriculture has become industrialized and global. There's been the introduction of genetically engineered organisms and terminator seeds that are patented.

(On screen: bag of Monsanto Roundup Ready Soybean seeds)

Ignacio Chapella, Microbial Ecologist, UC Berkeley:

When I think of this term, GMO, I am thinking of something, that is really without precedence in history, which is what we can do by transferring genetic material, DNA from one organism to another in a manner that would never be found in nature. George Brunning, Plant Pathologist, UC Davis

Once people realize that the result of genetic engineering is a plant just like all the others, they'll be a lot less concerned about it.

We have NO idea what this DNA is going to do. The pieces of DNA that we are putting into these GMO's are pieces of DNA, what we used to call genes, are particularly promiscuous. That means they move around a lot.

We know that if they carry the herbicide resistance or the capacity to produce an insecticide, that is going to change, alter, the functioning of the ecosystem overall.

Narrator:

A project often held up as an example of the positive aspects of genetic engineering is "golden rice." It contains a gene to provide vitamin A.

George Brunning, plant pathologist, UC Davis:

The objective here was to try to help a people whose diet consists almost entirely of rice, to have this new source of beta-carotene so that their lives could be healthier.

(beta-carotene is an isomer, of carotene found in dark green and dark yellow vegetables and fruits. A carotene is any of several orange or red crystalline hydrocarbon pigments C40H56 that occur in the chromoplasts of plants and in the fatty tissues of plant-eating animals and are convertible to vitamin A)

Anurada Mittal, co-director, Food First:

It would take about 54 bowls of [golden] rice per day. I'm talking about 9 kg, something like 18, 19 pounds per day for an average individual to make up for this [vitamin A] deficiency.

Narrator:

With worldwide scars over contaminated meat, and growing public concern and awareness growing over food safety, regulatory agencies have come under scrutiny.

George Brunning:

There could be problems, however, that's why we have an environmental protection agency. There has been extensive testing on all the released varieties. It's essential for their registration.

Ignacio Chapella:

You will read it many times in the laboratory documents that "there is no evidence that there is any difference." But, of course you don't find any evidence if you don't look. You don't find any answers if you don't ask the question. Dr. Janet Broome, Plant Pathologist, UC Davis:

We have three different agencies that regulate, the EPA, FDA, and USDA, and I think a lot of people are calling for us to have one food safety agency. Now we have three agencies and they often have conflicting and different roles to play.

Narrator:

Many scientists are questioning academic research that is funded by companies that have a vested interest in the outcome.

Ignacio Chapella:

It becomes much harder for the researcher to; A) start doing the research, start asking the questions, and B) if those questions are [answered], to start being able to say them.

Dr. Janet Broome, plant pathologist, UC Davis:

The problem is that our public funding of the University of California has gone down. It used to be 76%, now it's 25%. So, at one level, you can't fault the university for looking for these kinds of partnerships.

Narrator:

As agriculture becomes agribusiness, a worldwide movement is growing, voicing concerns about consumer safety and threats to the environment.

(On screen: StarLink corn dump at the headquarters of a regulatory agency, then biohazard-suited people chopping down genetically engineered corn in a field.)

Anurada Mittal:

The United States is one of the very rare industrialized nations that refuse to label genetically engineered crops. The US is the only country that allows bovine growth hormone in milk and milk products.

(On screen: tractor with banner on it reading "Endangered Species: Family Farmer")

Narrator:

Agriculture is at a turning point. But the new world of farming is a disaster for those families which have been feeding our nation for generations; the family farmers.

Anurada Mittal:

The American farmer is no longer an endangered species, it is extinct. [Farmer, as an occupation,] no longer exists on the census as a profession.

Bela Davis:

Greg Lyon, you've just completed a 10-part [GMO] series for KRON. Why are we so afraid of these foods? 

Greg Lyon:

Because, when you take genetically modified organisms, your creating things that haven't existed ever before, at least in that form. And the fear, I think, is people don't know what's going to happen. Now, for the most of the time that genetically modified organisms have been around, they've been around in the pharmaceuticals industry. And most of us in the general public, didn't seem to care too much whether our insulin was being made in the pancreas of a calf or some other way. But when agribusiness started pushing for genetically altered foods, all of a sudden your touching something that's very close to all of us -- our food supply.  

Bela Davis:

It's frightening to think that GMOs could permanently alter something we've known for centuries and centuries; the food supply.

Greg Lyon:

The initial concept of genetic engineering was to make the farmer's work easier. Monsanto's original concept was not to feed a hungry world. It was to create a product that didn't exist before on which one could have a substantial market share. It was a product like any other. It was a product like an automobile, but it dealt with food. This is where the controversy comes from - people don't want their food treated like any other product.

Monsanto didn't aim at making a product that would benefit anyone else but Monsanto. Golden rice was intended to be a product that common people could understand. So far, that effort has fallen flat on its face. They've not succeeded because the rice doesn't contain enough vitamin A for an average person.

If they had created tomatoes that actually tasted like tomatoes, maybe the public would have been more receptive. Those FlavrSavr tomatoes tasted like cardboard.

Claire Cummings, food and agricultural editor, KPFA FM radio:

Tech products are expensive. They require a lot of pesticides and herbicides to grow. Poor farmers don't grow like that and can't afford the tech. So it really isn't a solution to the world's farmer, or even American farmers. We haven't seen draught-resistant or salt tolerant plant products yet.

Mad cow disease and hoof and mouth disease have many people worried. The real protection against these two diseases, which are wide spread in Europe is two things; the Atlantic and the Pacific. The core problem is the globalization of agriculture. There has been a large increase in vegetarianism in the world but not because of Mad Cow Disease and Foot in Mouth Disease.

The way we produce food has changed dramatically in the last 30 years. And the growth of industrial agriculture has fundamentally altered the relationship of the farmer to the land.

How are farmers all over the world surviving with all the new technology?

Ali Bay, Capital Press Ag Weekly:

There's a huge problem across the US where farmers are struggling with low commodity prices on top of foreign competition and the energy crisis. This is with small farmers, and all farmers. In California, there's a big difference between the small and large farmers and how they've been able to cope and survive.

Small farmers, in particular, in California haven't generally embraced the newer technologies and GMOs. What is more prevalent among them is organic and sustainable farming methods. And they are seen protesting along with consumers about GMOs. They're concerned about GMO contamination and getting into their crops. It's a challenging time for farmers.

It isn't known, at this time, what the energy crisis will do to the farmers. But some food processors may not even process the crops because of high energy prices. Small farmers can't heat their greenhouses because of the high energy cost.

American farmers are worried also about foods coming into this country that don't meet the same requirements for pesticides that our food does. This is from both a safety and an economic point of view.

They've been asking for country of origin labeling so that consumers can make a choice. [FTAA will certainly disallow labeling.] If people saw that it came from Latin America they would think twice about buying it. The randomized testing that is done shows, by and large, that imports have higher pesticide residues. Less than 1% of the imports are actually tested. [The importers are able to select the samples to be tested so that they can have the crops with lower residues used for the test.]

California farmers, more than farmers in any other state, are facing a dire crisis. Farmers rolled their tractors up in front of the capital [in Sacramento] last week, asking for relief from the "tractor tax," the tax on agricultural equipment. California is unique, in that we have a lot of specialty crops. There are two large commodity crops that California has; rice and cotton. But a lot of the small, diversified farmers don't get much help from the USDA.

Bela Davis:

Here is Claire in a brief report on how to find out what's in the food you buy.

(on location at a supermarket)

Claire Cummings:

Meat consumption is way up in the United States. And meat is very much in the news with Mad Cow Disease and Hoof in Mouth Disease. Europe is really struggling with its meat industry. The USDA says that these diseases are not in this country yet. But they should be concerned because of the industrialized food supply. We import more meat than we export in the US.

What are you really buying when you buy a box of Wheaties? What's not on the label is the genetically engineered ingredients that we find in most of our processed foods. (Claire holds up a box of Wheaties and reads..) It has corn syrup and soy bean oil. Corn and soy beans are the two places where you can find the most genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.

At this store, the Wheaties cost $3.89. Right across the aisle we find organic granola for about $2.50 per pound. It's nice that this store gives us a real choice.

 

To send us your comments, questions, and suggestions click here
The home page of this website is www.mindfully.org
Please see our Fair Use Notice