FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A: Umm I guess my perspective is it hasn’t really changed in one direction or another. In my experience people have made up their minds on this issue mostly without understanding any of the evidence. Whichever side they came down on most people don’t even understand what’s going on. They’ve picked sides. I don’t see too much has changed I mean you have some new companies that have started since 2005 like the one in Bellingham they put a label on food… what’s it say… [searches online] non-gmo project. Of course if you watch the video I have a visceral reaction to gmo because it’s a meaningless term. Genetically modified takes in all kinds of things that are not genetically engineered and all the controversy is around genetically engineered foods not genetically modified foods. So did you watch the video?

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Yeah so you know we create all crop varieties by hybridization mutagenesis all kinds of way that aren’t genetically engineered, but they are genetically modified. When someone says GMO they usually they mean genetically engineered. But to scientists to anyone who is literate in biology Genetically modified doesn’t mean anything. And if you notice all the legislation has to do with genetically engineered foods, it always says genetically engineered, it never says genetically modified. So if you look at initiative 522, which was a food labeling initiative in Washington state. It will be worth reading the language of that and everything is called genetically engineered they have a specific definition of what genetic engineering is. It’s legal language and so both in law and science nobody uses the term genetically modified. So anyway everytime you use that term I wince. That’s why I’m wincing. Because it just doesn’t mean anything genetically modified GMO is just a useless term.

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Q: So do you think that term should be completely replaced?

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A: Yeah I do but it’ll never happen. Right I mean it’s ingrained now in the popular lexicon. Yeah it’s I’m never gonna get my way on this one. But it’s just it’s one of those things in scientists and engineers they use precise language I mean that’s what we do. And so anytime imprecise language is used it just leads to unnecessary confusion and maybe scientists and engineers are the only people who really care about that. This morning on the news they’re saying well you know the car was going at a high rate of speed. Really? Speed is a rate, there is no rate of speed. It’s speed. So, I’m sure physicists go crazy, engineers go crazy, you know biologists definitely go crazy over terminology like that, but the fundamental, skipping the semantic issue, I mean I would say the fundamentals haven’t changed sing 2005. Which is kind of amazing. There’s a new national academy of sciences report that you might want to look at, just came out in 2016. I probably have it. I’m giving a talk at the national kidney foundation in April in Orlando. And they sent me you know, I sent them the title of my talk and they sent me back a title you know had genetically modified organism and I said yeah don’t put that in my thing. That’s wrong. You know what’s funny, in my own directory structure in my computer I have GMO, because that’s what everyone use. I never use that term, I’ve never spoken those words in reference to genetically engineered. This is the new report from the national academy of sciences and it’s the most august group in the united states. So this is no, you know this is not an industry cartel this is a bunch of academic scientists, but they wrote a report I can’t remember how many ten years before that. But the if you look at the big picture globally, you have a few countries where genetically engineered crops have huge market penetration, the US is one them Canada is another, Argentina is another one, China is another one. And then you have who areas of the globe where they’re either prohibited or so heavily regulated that no one grows them and primarily Europe but also to include countries like Brazil. Although there’s a huge bootleg of genetically engineered soybean operation in Brazil, they smuggle in seeds from Argentina. But so in all those years it hasn’t changed you know despite the fact that trade has become more globalized, and you would think there’d have to be some harmony in trade regulations about exports of food crops across international boundaries. The situation is the same as it was in 2005, it’s kind of amazing how little it’s changed. I read the other day in the wall street journal that the US exports 40% of it’s corn since corn is what you’re working on, to Mexico. If it’s 40% of our corn some huge fraction of that is genetically engineered cause ¾ or 80% or 90% of corn in the US is genetically engineered. So if you’re buying 40% of it, you can bet that a lot of it must be genetically engineered. But the restrictions on growing genetically engineered corn in Mexico are very strict. So they import it from us but they don’t grow much of it themselves.

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Q: So what contributions has genetic engineering of crops changed the crops that we consume. I mean obviously we’ve read incorporating pesticides and improving yields…

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A: So yields haven’t been improved at all, um so this is the fundamental public relations problem. I mean you could even argue that it’s a long term strategy problem for the companies that genetically engineer crops. Bt-corn that’s insect resistant, who benefits from that? Cause those are the two main traits, its either herbicide tolerance or insect resistance or both, usually both. Who benefits from that? The farmer benefits. So uh either one of you grew up on a farm? So I grew up on a farm, right so if you’re a farmer it’s like the World’s fair for you. You can go spray this very benign non-toxic herbicide to control weeds in your crops. You only have to go once or twice a year to spray in this really nasty cocktail of stuff to control all the different weeds that are in there. And then for insect control you don’t do anything, you know the plants themselves produce their own insecticide. Corn boar or armyworm or whatever it is eats your corn and it dies and problem solved. So the farmer benefits and that is why this is the most rapidly adopted agricultural technology in human history. The first genetically engineered crops were only released 20 years ago. And market penetration is 90+ percent for something like soybeans and cotton. And probably 75 or 80% at least for corn in the US. So farmers voted with their wallet, they’re paying a lot extra for the seed and it’s worth it for convenience it’s worth it for safety. So the farmer benefits and whose else benefits? The companies that design it. And those are your two main beneficiaries. And the companies, and you could say the herbicide manufacturer benefits too, but that’s the same company that’s making the seed. So there’s really only two main beneficiaries, two obvious beneficiaries you know the company that makes the seeds and the herbicide to go with it if its herbicide tolerant and the farmer who benefits. The farmer has a choice they can buy any seed they want. So the fact that they buy these very expensive seeds, tells you that it’s worth it to them. Farmers have a pretty sharp pencil. If they thought they could make more money doing it some other way, they would do it. But they don’t. So the conspicuous group that doesn’t benefit is the consumer. One way the consumer could benefit if there were higher yields, for example. Same input higher yields, prices would go down. That should be good for consumers, that hasn’t happened yet. You could engineer traits that benefits consumers directly, you know some quality traits or it tastes better, or has a longer shelf life, or it has enhanced nutrition. Something like that. Where are all those products? Yeah we don’t have those. It’s not that they haven’t been thought about or even or some of them even developed. That’s not where the commercial thrust is. The commercial thrust is to make seeds for farmers who farm on an industrial scale. So the consumer’s been left out of this. And I often tell people I don’t know about this genetically engineered food, you know it sounds risky. I say you know all the scientists who’ve looked into this don’t think its risky at all. But if you think it’s risky, do whatever you want. I said I agree you’re not benefiting, so even if you think the risk is really small, I’m going to avoid this. Cause I don’t benefit. That is true I don’t benefit. So at some point I’ve been predicting this for the last dozen years or so, it just hasn’t happened. At some point somebody’s going to produce crops that actually benefit people. And where consumers would say I prefer this for whatever reason. So in Washington state, there’s this arctic apple, which has nothing to do with corn. But the Arctic apple is genetically engineered so that when you cut it, it doesn’t turn brown. It stays white, that’s why it’s called the Arctic apple. Will that be accepted by the public, you know I kind of doubt it. For people who are really scared of genetic engineering the prospect of their apple turning brown seems less scary than eating some genetically engineered apple. So would I buy it? If it cost twice as much heck no I wouldn’t buy it. If it costs the same, I might sure.