Focus 580; Genetically Modified Food

In this our focus 580 we will return to a subject we've talked about before and that is genetically modified food and genetically modified crops that end up producing foods fairly recently on the show. We spoke with Bruce chassé He's the associate executive director of the UVA campus biotechnology center. And as we try to do on various issues we try to bring you different perspectives on these issues and so we'll be doing another program this morning with someone who has raises questions about this technology has been critical about this technology. And our guest is Craig Holdridge. He's director of the Nature Institute which is located in Ghent New York he was very much involved in fact in founding the institute in 1998. This is an organization that he's interested in changing the way people think about and also affect nature. He is a biologist and educator He's the author of genetics and the manipulation of life. The Forgotten factor of context published by Linda's foreign press in one thousand

ninety six. He has written articles on cloning and genetic engineering for many American and European Journals he's also lectured a good deal on biotechnology here in this country and in Europe he is primarily responsible for the nature Institute's biology programs since one thousand eighty He has also been a high school biology teacher and has taught at the Hawthorne Valley School in rural Ghent in New York since 1992. He teaches in all areas of biology including field botany and ecology. He's been involved in teacher training also for a number of years he presently teaches summer courses at New England Waldorf high school teacher training in Wilton New Hampshire. And he is joining us this morning by telephone. If you're interested by the way in finding out more about the Nature Institute they do have a website. They have some papers there some things in fact that Greg Holdridge has written. He also contributed recently to an issue of the Sierra Club magazine that looked at this

technology so that's another place that you can go to read some of his writing. And as we talk this morning you can call in questions and comments are certainly welcome all you have to do to join the conversation is pick up your telephone and dial the number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We do also have a toll free line so it would be a long distance call for you. You're listening around Illinois Indiana any place that signal travel. That number is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 0 3 3 3 W I L L and toll free 800 2 2 2 w. Iowa. Mr. Holdridge Hello. Good morning. Thanks for talking with us today. Thank you very much for having me. And you want to again say maybe a little bit more about the Nature Institute and what it's all about you know. Well the Nature Institute which you mentioned it's a young organization we just started it up three years ago out of the many concerns about developments in technology and in biological sciences

so that we well what we try to do is on the one hand to put biotechnology in regard to agriculture but also issues regarding human. It's a lot like the Human Genome Project and genetic engineering with human beings that we try to put those developments into a larger biological and ecological context. Because often they're looked at from such a narrow perspective. And it's our conviction that in order to really understand the impact of these technologies and also to be able to work with them fruitfully or not work with them if they know if they are too hazardous that one really needs to look at them in a large context. And so that's the one aspect of our work and then that's complemented by the other aspect which goes into that which basically studies the intrigue the integrity or the interconnectedness of all the processes in in any given live in a living organism each organism is a whole an

animal or a plant and each function that goes on in the northern ism is related to every other function and it's extremely complex but we try to get some kind of a picture of this complexity also in relation to the environment so that we have at least an adequate beginning understanding of what we're dealing with when we're talking about a living creature. And then we don't go from reduced sometimes very simple mechanistic models of things. And and then we think those are the reality instead of the actual complexity of. The sing itself just to stay with this idea for a moment of how it is that whatever public debate there is about this technology how that goes on. Think back to the the last program. I guess this was just last week we were talking about this with someone here from the university and a caller called in and made the observation that the mainstream She says mainstream media are not giving us the straight story about this technology and particularly the potential

health impacts of genetically modified crops and then what happens in that when they get in food products and then what happens when they get in. And the guest responded with his perception that he said Well in fact if you take a look at the kind of news coverage that's been devoted in mainstream media to genetically modified food that it's actually been very negative that it's been a lot of stories about how about the downsides of these things in is it killing butterflies and is it going to be bad for us and and I wonder thinking about it just in fact the way that most media mainstream media print and broadcast has written about this issue what you think about that. How about what the discussion has been like and indeed whether. In that what debate there is we're focusing on the wrong questions. Yeah. I mean within the I mean if one compares the situation now to how it

was a few years back at least one can say there is more media coverage so that this has even become a theme. I mean part of the problem as I see it is that people are just not aware that there is a problem that there is a question that still one can read of polls where people you know don't really have any idea what genetic code what it means to say genetically engineered food or that it that it exists or that you know 70 percent of the products that are out there that contain you know corn and soybeans that they come from genetically engineered engineered organisms and that so that there is a there is a very broad ignorance which does speak for the. The fact that something's not getting out there that's the one side. On the other hand I can say you know I read the New York Times personally and there are articles that are that are critical to genetic engineering. There are articles that are you know very positive so that I think there are you know both sides come out and I wouldn't say that nothing is coming out in the

media it's just that I don't think there is a great enough awareness altogether of the questions that are there we're really confronted with so that that in that sense it's not enough. Well it certainly is to just underscore what you said that people now are consuming foods that have GI components and I don't know that. Right. And of course in that I see is one of the major problems that that we're in a society that we're basically the consumer has to take what he or she gets and then we don't really have our rights are not being recognized to say well I would like to be able to chew and that we don't we aren't even given that right. You know to go into a store and to know that something has been produced in a particular produced in a particular manner you can go into the. Refrigeration part of a supermarket and tell whether you're getting orange juice that's made of it.

It's fresh or for air it gets pasteurized and fresh where that's come from concentrate right that always is on the label but you can't go in to your crackers part of the supermarket and find whether you're eating crackers that have soya and that is come come from genetically engineered soybeans so that we have a real problem there I see it as a consumer now and not so much now looking at it from a scientific point of view but as a consumer that that there is a lot that needs to be done in the way of having product information that people are have a certain right to know where their food comes from. Even though that's our you know scientists will argue against that that regulatory agencies will say well they don't have a right but I I mean we do. Well this is it may indeed be a separate question maybe something for another show. But it is something that has been discussed has been debated and. Do you. I guess I wonder whether you think

whether eventually it may indeed be something that they're much. There would have to be enough public demand for it before it would happen but that eventually that kind of labeling will be on products and then I guess we can see what people think about it. Yeah I mean I would I would hope that would be the case that I'm not. I can't say I'm optimistic. You know many of the things that have happened if kind of been forced on us from Europe. It's not that the Europeans have their European consumer is is more critical than the American consumer altogether. In my perception and that you know because of the uproar in Europe that kind of the backwash came then to see more from a business perspective of exports you know and not having the possibility to export things if they were genetically engineered so that if. I mean that's the one pathway that might lead to some change and the other is more awareness on the part of the consumer and then more activism in the sense of making our government aware of what we want.

Well our guest this morning in this part of focus 580 Craig Holdridge. He is the director of the Nature Institute a relatively young organization as he said in Ghent New York interested in changing the way that people think about and perceive and affect nature. They do have a website with information on the organization that you can look for. It's at its nature I think its nature Institute orgy. That's right Aaron OK so it's relatively simple to be able to find and there are various information there are papers some of them that Mr. Aldrich has written so if you have internet access and you can get it some information about the organization and of course your questions are welcome. Three three three. W I L L toll free 800 1:58 AWOL. Something that I think probably we always talk about every time we discuss this topic and again it's one of those things that depending on who you ask you're going to get a very different answer. And that is this. Human beings have been modifying plants and animals to the extent that their technology would allow them to do it for air. As

far as we know for thousands of years beginning with when they domesticated plants and animals and then when they realized that that by doing selective breeding you can perhaps end up with individuals plants and animals that have certain qualities that you want or maybe you get rid of certain qualities that you don't and some people would make the argument that the kind of thing that we're doing now with genetic manipulation is really no different. Right. That it is just part of a long continuum of people have have done the things. They could do. And so there again they would say that oh what's what's really the difference between a soybean plant that we've produced. But are you doing some genetic manipulation and the plating plants that we produce just by doing the kind of cross breeding that we could do in the past. Right. Yeah. You know I have kind of a two part answer I guess to that to that question are concerned. One is

that I mean through traditional breeding One can also bring forth animals and plants that are not healthy. I mean that that is true there. One of my you know favorite examples of something that goes a little bit in the direction of being grotesque is is Belgian beef. A breed of brief that that was bred to be as muscular as possible for beef and. These animals grow so large as fetuses that they cannot be naturally born and they then are brought into the world through C-section and exceedingly muscular overly muscular animals. And I would say you know that's going a bit beyond a certain balladry because natural birth is no longer possible and that was done through selection breeding techniques. I don't know the details of it but I know it was not genetically engineered. So we can create organisms that are unhealthy through traditional breeding. And if genetic engineering is

doing the same in that way then I'd say it's the same we can do and we can have a one sided images of animal animals and what try to drive them in a one sided direction through traditional breeding and we can do the same through genetic engineering but perhaps in a more effective manner. So in that regard I'd say it's more of the same but it's not the same we want. It's not something we want. Where the difference though I think lies is that one has to realize that in selective breeding. One was nonetheless even if you're looking for a particular trait of stability in a plant or muscularity in an animal or something like that nature brings that forth. You don't bring that forth and breeding. And then you watch and you select out out of your judgement of the health of the whole organism what which which one you want to take then to breed with another animal in order to combine combine traits for example and you're dealing then

any given characteristic that arises in the animal arises within the context of the whole biology physiology anatomy of that organism. And when we're doing genetic engineering we're selecting for one particular trait so that for example when the first tranche Janick pigs were created that. When was hoping to get them to grow larger and faster by inserting the gene for both for growth hormone. It was actually bovine cowboy growth hormone. The gene for that into pigs so that they would get larger and grow faster. And this was done and the results were different than what one expected they did not grow larger. But they did grow faster. And then this was an unexpected side effect. They had less carcass that the pork was leaner. So this was actually you know great for the pork industry researchers who were doing this work. But very soon they

realized this was not going to be a technology that's going to be easy to work with because the animals had all sorts of other unexpected so-called side effects so that they were more susceptible to stress. They were lethargic they suffered from lameness gastric ulcers. They had renal disease their own growth hormone production was pretty suppressed so that a whole array of unintended consequences were there by selecting and manipulating one part the whole organism was changed in a way that one had no idea would be the case. And this is. Actually very typical for genetic engineering experiments that you go with the idea of we would like to change this in order to have that. But what you do end up changing through manipulating is the whole organism in one way or another in and in unexpected ways. And so sometimes so subtle or in areas that when one doesn't even look right because you can't test for things you don't

look for. So that in in doing breeding through genetic engineering you are taking apart some particular trait that you want and then influencing the whole organism by putting it in there but this putting it in and that I need to mention at this point of putting it in an organism is not a delicate and controlled procedure. It's quite hit everything that's done in the laboratory is very precise and highly scientific technological. And then those methods are well are used to to make the gene construct the different DNA that comes together to go into the organism and then it's either for example little pellets coated with DNA or shot into plant embryos or DNA is injected into the egg. Have a cow or a pig and then nobody knows what happens. What do you have to do is to wait and

see whether you get results and you usually get results in about 1 percent of the cases. The reason you get results in all cases but the results you want in 1 percent of the cases and those are often then you know such made more complex complicated by the side effects I was just talking about. So that's how the DNA is incorporated into the cell how the organism deals with that. That is all left up to the organism so to speak and one cannot really say what's going to happen so that it is a must more. I would say a drastic way of manipulating the organisms which one does not do in traditional breeding. And that's not even speaking about the fact that you know here I was giving you an example of treating some are bringing something from a cow into a into a pig We're not talking men about bringing you know flounder genes into strawberries or something

which then going beyond the boundaries of the kingdoms of not only species and families but of of the kingdom that of course that was never done in traditional breeding. And that's not that's not just. When you're making up as a hypothetical which the Flounder flounder genes and the does not have to be in order for it I did with the idea of having strawberries be resistant to frost. We have several callers who we'd be happy to get as many people here in the conversation as possible. We have someone on the cell phone so we're going to get there first online to tell us how you guys are doing as a soybean farmer I'm sure that they you know we have a lot of people there and GMO soybeans and you know the point that I want to make is here is basically this. You know you want biotech soybeans. Or do you want. You know me using herbicides you know granted that we use herbicide on

bio soybeans but you know it's a contact and it's not soil and has no residual in the soil. So the question I put to you is what do you want do you want the herbicide in the soil because white beans are not going to be grown without either herbicides are the Roundup Ready technology and you know I you know we've gone round and round about this for many years and as a community you know you know I was chastised for using herbicides and now we're trying to get away from some of this. You know what you tell me what the answer is. Yeah I think it's a good point. Mr. Holder would you could you know give what a response you because I think farmers sort of feel that they're they're damned they're do that and they're damned if they don't no matter what they get around from the herbage by getting out the one way or the other I mean when you're raising a thousand acres of soybeans you know you're not going to go out there and we do by hand or do organic. That's not going to happen. And it's never going to happen you know. So you're going to have to decide

which technology you want to go to. Yeah can I just as the caller just for a second are how much of this you have soybeans this year and how much of them are around operating 75 percent OK and are you using less herbicide than before or more herbicide before or than it was when I was using and I use conventional soybeans that went in and I put a soiled applied herbicide to get the grass OK and then the next application was a secondary. The kill the we you know the broadly fleas that were coming up and that was usually probably you know a combination of contact and soil apply herbicide So you had to soil applied. Herbicides. They're going in the ground into the soil into the drinking. OK and then I'm going to end with Roundup ready and I'm sprightly just the contact just to kill the weeds and granted it goes into the soil a little bit but probably the manufacturer says you know biodegrade and all that stuff. So I mean to me it's a no brainer. I'm doing better

protecting the ground and the ground water and. And then I'm getting chastised all over the world for trying to do this right. Well let's let's get a response from from the guests Mr. Eldridge because that's again it's a point that's that seems to be raised often when when we talk about environmental impact. If we can reduce herbicide use for example is not a good thing right. Yeah I mean I just to say this is right at the beginning I'm always very sympathetic with the problems that the farmers have I always feel like. You know farmers are in between a rock and a hard place. And in in terms of the industry on the one side public opinion on the other the government on the other side and what do we do. And all of us you know are our lives are dependent upon what the farmers do for us. So I mean just to put that you know at the very beginning. But nonetheless I would I think there are questions to be asked about the you know the Roundup ready at the moment I mean I can I can understand your point of view and say I see I see what you're saying

and then I've read some studies recently and just you know would like to bring that as additional information that there has been actually in you know an over the board these were studies that were done in various states including you know Iowa and in the meanwhile Midwestern states where most of the Roundup Ready soy beans are grown that that there has been an increase in the use of herbicide not a decrease. And one also has to realize that the course the plants themselves do and because the plants themselves have become a herbicide right there they contain the herbicide. That they do actually secretes amounts of this small amounts of this into the soil. And there have been some soil scientists studying this and seeing that the soil quality has been changed through not just through the contact and then what comes in seeps into the soil from above ground but from below ground also through the roots of the plant. And that in from these two directions There's also been a weakening of the root in some soybean.

And yet the Roundup Ready soy beans and so you know it's not a it's not broad yet evidently but there has been some weakening of the bacteria it's mainly the bacteria that are in the nitrogen fixing nodules which are very important for soybean growth that they have been shown to be affected by the excess amount of the roundup that's now in the soil through the spring and also through the plant. You're to me that there's a residual roundup in the soil. Written in them I'm not going to say they're in the fall. I can't see how these have been studied the studies that have been done have not been gone have not been out have not been field studies I haven't found any field studies that have gone through from the summer into into a next season. You know for the from the spring into the next season or from the fall into the spring. But these are over a not a period of months in any case you have the round up binding to the soil particles in a way that

makes it then I am sorry that the that the the root was confusing that with another example at the moment that the round up ready soybeans have had weaker root systems and therefore that's part of the yield drag I don't know if you've heard about that and whether you've experienced any of that yourself in various areas there's been a yield dragon. You know 5 to 10 percent with a roundup ready in the markets. Scientists have thought well that's obvious because. The route amounts to because of the routing I guess is debatable because when you have environmental conditions whether they are rain or not rain or oil horse that's it I mean it's most susceptible in drought conditions. That's where they were mainly comes about when if you if you have a moist environment and you have a good year from that point of view then there have been shown much many less problems I want to make one point then I'll let you go because I know you got a lot of people to the point of it is that the more that is is going anti

biotech soybeans what happens is that when the grain elevators get some kind of like the starling thing where there's no negative impact of negative impact that the elevators don't have to take the seeds they don't have to take. Thank off they have to do is put a sign up at the grain elevator and say we're not going to raise this. You know we're not going to take this right as a commercial farmer then what do you do with a crop you know I'm going to take that the huge financial debt that you know you're going to question the whole industry is that if I want to come back and question you I'm going to you know bust in the whole industry. And you know you're going to you're going to do more damage to you know agricultural production by you know making you know your fault lines or our clients that are you know balance you know and is it that you're not the hurt that the companies you're going to hurt because it's an individual producer. Yeah but I think the first hit.

Yeah but if you come in there as I see it is that we've had with the whole biotech industry they've been running the government regulations. I mean Dan Glickman who was the agriculture secretary under. Under Clinton recently said our regulators were cheerleaders for the biotech industry. I mean you think about that for a moment. Government being the cheerleaders for the biotech industry instead of the regulating and that that lack of regulation where the biotech industry makes up its own regulations and then the government's always running behind. And then it comes. Finally you know to the grain elevator there is no there are no regulations there are no laws there are no. There is no pathway so that then the farmer gets it I agree with you I mean that's a lousy situation but I don't think that the cause of that is in the Critique of biotech I think it's in that and the fact that the problems that are definitely present in biotech have not been adequately taken hold of our by our regulatory agencies they just haven't been doing their job they've been run around basically

by them. We're past already past our midpoint and I have several other callers holding out I appreciate the comments of last caller I just want to go on to give some other folks a chance. Let me also just say again we're talking with Craig Holdridge. He's director of the Nature Institute in Ghent New York and this is part of a continuing Everard that we've been making on this show over probably a few years now to talk about these issues from perspectives of people both who support the technology and people who raised. Sions about it and I'm sure will continue to do that this will not be the last you know on the subject I'm sure questions are certainly welcome 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Next up is someone in Oakwood on line 1. Hello hello you can answer more Carl is going to ask but I'm more into manic now and just sort of old and I was wondering about the crowd when they put these jeans and then my understanding of genes was that you were a wonder how discreet a piece is can they get now my

understanding of changes or other genes that turn them on from that term are often right and if you and I don't know if they're necessarily close together whether you know you can be sure you get all of these things and like you start or stop it. They accepted the offer of the term and by knowing all the things that are there that are connected with it. I wonder how exacting to pick up these things are there talking when they talk about resumes or talking about a whole bunch of genes that work together or are they really talking about a group of three to do something with. Well what they're what they're talking about. I mean usually when you know when when when just read they put in the in a gene for you know let's take the round up ready that we were just talking about that's a gene for a particular protein that then allows the plant to be resistant to the herbicide

that when women speak then of that that protein gene but that's not all that goes into the plant. There is you know there's always a group of genes or you know a set it's often called a genetic set of different DNAs of different sources. That then argues that are put into the organism now and knows the reason for that is because you need then DNA that will help help it get into the right place in the genome of the host organism. Then DNA that will help turn on the gene DNA that helps turn it off and then you have the vector DNA or the vector organism. Or if it's a bacterial genes or viral genes with a vector that helps you get it into the place into the organism itself and then into the place within the genome. And so you usually have you know. Well and then there is one else

one and one other implants which is important then you have the markers so that people that the researchers can distinguish what has gotten in and when or whether it's gotten in or not and those are usually antibiotic resistant gene. So you're talking about you know genes of a of at least four four to five types depending that are drugs that are hooked together by a chemically so to speak. And then that as a totality is put into. Into the organism a shot into the organism and then one doesn't know that one doesn't know whether that's going to be cut up it should stay the same that's what one would like one would like to stay the same and stay together and incorporate into a place and place in the DNA strand of DNA that's already existed of course. Then the DNA has to make room for what happens to that space. Sometimes other genes that get turned on for a gene gets broken in half where it's been inserted so that these are where these unintended consequences come from because one is never sure exactly what is going on there and for example

I just read in The New York Times yesterday that that there were round up ready soybeans and that they had that they discovered that some scientists have discovered there's a sequence of DNA in there that isn't in conventional soybeans and the question is well where did it come from. Is it a mixed up sequence coming from the own organism or where they come from. But they don't know. And and that after you know now that it's been five years since it's been on the market I think and now one discovered there's that there's a little bit of DNA in there that one doesn't know what it is. So that's where there is you know there is a lot that one just doesn't know. One manipulating into a high grid. Complex city with kind of with a quite primitive methods if you will and and therefore win. Well what I always say is we should expect the unexpected. OK thank you very much.

Let's go to next. Lie number three in Urbana. Yeah and you're very good about explaining all that and I'll lose my train of thought just having to listen so carefully. Sorry about that answer but yeah I guess I got two questions One is I don't know whether you get into economics or not but I don't know a lot Meadows who's from the sustainability and yet suit quoted C.S. Lewis. One sentence it's what we call man's power over nature turns out to be of power exercised by some men over other men with nature as its instrument. That's a quite a fitting quote me and I was kind of wondering if you you know explore the economic meeting of what's going on a bit and then I also was wondering if

what the state of knowledge as to the transference of things like insect resistance to the weed population. And I guess that could be looked at from an economic point of view to you know one of those right. Yeah. Well from the economic perspective I mean it's one again that's a that's a huge question and one can look at it from them from various sides but on the one hand one can say what that economics or what structure what is driving this. I mean if the the the companies who make incredibly large investments in research to you know to to make a new product like the Roundup ready or are the BT corn or whatever it may be. And and and Monsanto came up with this idea of the Roundup Ready as a if you're thinking in terms of the economics of if a particular company then that was a great idea they have Roundup herbicide

but now to have plants that are resistant to that so that this can be used even more in the sales of ground up of course skyrocketed so that they're not only making money through them. These they won't have to pay to buy the seeds and use the seeds. But also because the farmers are using then more of the round up. It's a very ingenious strategy to you know make more money for the company whether it's an ingenious strategy for farming and for the health of our ecosystems and our overall economy. You know long term that's that's a whole another question. But this with the research is largely economic driven and that's why it's very hard to to feel like there's a lot there's much in objectivity or where to find objectivity it's very hard because a lot of the as I said before the government the industry and then the universities are all you know holding hands basically and there's

There used to be more distinctions I think than there are now so it's very hard to know what you're dealing with in the way. When you when you're getting information on these things that's the one thing and. I like to mention something I read. Recently in a in a scientific journal that the use of BT corn BT corn is corn that and makes its own pesticide and insecticide pesticides and the interesting thing about that is is that the farmers before they were before they were using this did not spray very much of the pesticides against this particular pest which is the European corn borer. It's the larva. And then they can. They were not using much better decide now the Prez has decided insecticide is built into the plant and on about 20 to 30 or 40 percent of all the corn. And so

that you have pesticides going into the plants into the environment. In much greater amounts than they were before this pest with When did not spray nearly as much before as one does not want to spray when have the plants do it. So that one's actually doing something that you could prove you could justifiably call overkill. That in that what's the reason for that. Do we need that. Evidently not but somebody needs it. The companies who produce the products. And that's where you can say this The egotism driven egotism driven market aspect of the market economy. You have a real problem. It's a real problem and we have less than 10 minutes in this part of focus and again I hope the caller forgive me for going on. Cause we have some other folks here. Let me introduce once again our guest We're speaking with Craig Holdridge. He is the director of the Nature Institute. He was involved in founding this in 1998 he's biologist an educator of the institute is

located in Ghent New York and they do have a website if you're interested in looking at that and more information about their issues and how they approach them some papers that he and other people have written at Nature Institute or R.G. on the web. Up next we have a caller in Aurora. This will be a line for Hello. Yes. Thanks again. WIO well bringing a program like this that it's just really a needful program in the past for mating. I too wanted to know about the economics of this because that's the root of most of this and but the other thing I wanted to ask was where does the FDA stand in this. Well I mean it's a very complicated with the regulatory agencies. You have the USDA the Department of Agriculture you have the EPA right for the environmental the Environmental Protection Agency and

then you have the FDA and the FDA has basically said that genetic and genetically engineered foods are substantially equivalent to the other you know food and therefore do not need to be regulated. And they they they are already safe. And so there has been sounding little testing and this is what I was saying before as a base to some of the companies they were they did their own testing because they knew they'd better do it otherwise they might blow up in their face because they don't want to have a product that gets a recall to you know or something like that of the horrible plague publice it is so that the companies end up doing that research in a fairly deregulated environment and. So that there has there is. I mean you will hear the regulars think it's safe it's safe it's safe if you look into the details. There has been almost no testing done on it. I mean there's been some testing done on rats and this and that there has been testing I want to say there hasn't been any at all. But it's not from the FDA. The

research comes from the company. Thank you. All right thanks. I guess let's stay with us for a second because again it's and going to be a point of controversy because I think that some people who would be more supportive of the technology would would take issue with what you said. I would say that in fact the safety of these products has been tested. There have been state and studies show that for example if you feed feed this corn and soybeans to animals that they do just fine you can't tell any difference between them and animals fed on non GM corn and soybeans and is that as far as humans are concerned that we don't have any reason to think that there are any problem if we have been there in so many products now. Think if there was going to be a problem we would have noticed that and even even in the case of StarLink it which way there was a lot of controversy about Starling because it wasn't supposed to be in food that people were going to eat and that it did get in there for I think an even now. From what I understand you can correct me if I'm wrong. That test has been done and they found even startling that there's no problem if people you know taco shells that have Starlink

corn in them that we have there's nothing so far. That would lead us to believe that there are that anybody's going to get sick because they're eating this stuff. Well I mean you know that that's any judgment one can make in this regard is loaded. I mean I think when you just honestly have to say that it comes. It depends on what studies you take whether you say two studies on rats and this and that are evidence enough for me to say. Right. That something is safe or not. What why and what is regarded as safe. And so you you know I mean I create see it's a it's a difficult question and I cannot I will not pass judgment on it and say that. These things are definitely not safe. It's just for my looking into that. The way it's been handled almost more in a regulatory way it's not going to handled in a professional manner in this much is at the companies have been driving the print the procedure and not some third party who is looking at it critically from the outside of course now that things have been looked at

I'm not going to say the USDA and the FDA have done nothing. But there were there was also research that was basically suppressed within the FDA where people were very critical within the FDA saying this should be tested more. When they came out with the with the non testing decree. And so there was clearly what Glickman was saying you know serving that the industry is what the regulatory agencies were doing so that there I think there is just an objective problem of looking at the things carefully. The question of safety you know is I would still say open and I think you also a lot of the critique. Genetic Engineering does not only come from. Will this give me an allergy. Or will this disturb this or that. It's also it is a reaction against the whole question in relation to the whole question of what kind of an agriculture do we want. What kind of a relation to our products do we want that we want products that we can freely choose or do we want the government telling us what is healthy and safe for us. Unhealthy

is different from say. I mean I think that's a distinction I'd like to make that when safe is one thing healthy is it really. Is it something that it's going to be really nourishing and you can imagine how controversial that they mean how many perspectives there are in that and then the question of even the broad the most broad context what kind of agriculture is it what kind of economic context for also include including the farmers I think of the first caller. You know that is healthy for them because they are really in a squeeze down. And but I still don't think and I wouldn't agree with the caller that. The biotech agriculture is the way to do it. And that may be one have to see that by coming back to other forms of crop rotation perhaps smaller fields more diversity there have been interesting experiment experiments a large field experiments done in the last few years that that show you can get. You can reduce the amount of pesticides and herbicides used a lot by knowing what kind of crops to grow with each other and

you know integrated pest management there's been a lot of work done there but it's remained small because the money's been put somewhere else. We only have about two minutes and I have three callers and I'm sorry I can't get them all when they try to do just a little bit of one go to champagne here line too. You have to be brief but please go ahead. OK well I wanted to talk about the question a risk everyone keeps talking right there is a lot of risk with genetic manipulation. However what about the risk of not using it. I mean we were going to have to seed a large population. The population is going to double is it 20 25. And what if we don't have the tools to deal with that. You know and what if somebody says well there are there are risks in this technology. So we should stop it right there. Yeah unfortunately you might get quite at school and it's quite powerful. I agree that yes we need to regulate it we need to look at it but we certainly have. Can't deny the potential that it.

I give you about 30 seconds Mr. Holder. Well I'd simply to say I think there's an awful lot of hype in this. The Genetic engineering will feed the world. If you have access to the Internet if you could look under where you could look at our website that also the website met the future dot org and then that future issue number one hundred eight. My colleague and I have to have written an article on the theme of golden rice which is supposed to feed and save for the hungry and Asia. And I've looked into that in great detail. And it turns out to be very problematic and questionable solution to a very complex problem. And and I'm really sorry we're going to have to stop because we are at the end of the time and I'm sure we could continue but with that we'll have to stop with the promise that I'm certain again on other shows and other days we'll continue to talk about this but for the moment we want to say Mr. Aldridge thanks very much. Well thank you for having me. Our guests are Greg Holdridge is director of the Nature Institute in get New York and they get in they do have a website with information about what they do their

perspectives on this issue at the Nature Institute dot o r g so you can check that out.