Focus 580; Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and the Future of Food

Good morning this is Focus 580 our morning telephone talk show. My name is Jack Brighton sitting in for David Inge. Glad you could listen today. What do we really know about the impact of biotechnology on agriculture food safety and the environment. Well we know there have been many claims and counterclaims in the past few years. We know that so-called GMO varieties account for a large percentage of the corn and soybean acres planted in the U.S. as well as many other crops. We also know that consumers in Europe and Asia and many of us in the United States are nervous about eating the products of agricultural biotechnology. But how do we as consumers and citizens really make sense of the claims and counterclaims and make good choices as biotechnology so to speak evolves during this our focus 580 will pursue one strategy for making sense of the biotechnology mess by probing the history of its development. Our guest is a science reporter who has been covering the story for most of the past decade. Daniel Charles is a technology correspondent for National Public Radio and Washington correspondent for New Scientist during this hour we'll talk with Daniel Charles about his book. Lords of the harvest biotech big money

and the future of food recently published by Perseus in the book. He covers the big biotechnology breakthroughs in computing academic and corporate laboratories. The actors and their hopes for feeding the world and windfall profits and the detractors of biotechnology and the popular resistance they engendered from all that we may even be able to draw some reasonable conclusions about the perils and promise of biotechnology and indeed our existing commercial model of agriculture for sustaining a population of six billion and counting. As we talk with Daniel Charles I have a bunch of questions but I will defer to yours if you would like to phone us. The number around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 That's 3 3 3 w oil Will you match the letters with the numbers. We also have a toll free line. Anywhere you hear us around Illinois Indiana parts of the states are signal reaches or via the Internet anywhere in the U.S. you can use our toll free line 800. Good 2 2 2 9 4 5 5. Again around Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 the oil well toll free elsewhere. Eight hundred to

two to follow. Daniel Charles good morning. Hello. Hi. Thanks for joining us. It's good to be here. Great. Well let's begin with some basics. Biotechnology has been around for a long time one could say thousands of years I suppose. But the phase of the revolution most people mean when they use the word biotechnology really started in the early 80s. Can you talk about where and how it began. Wright Well it was in a sense the application to plant some gene splicing techniques that had perfected that had been perfected with bacteria. So in the late 70s they figured out how to. Get new foreign genes into particular bacteria and use them as factories for instance for producing pharmaceuticals drugs and a lot of people's minds raced ahead and said we can do things with plants we can make plants with strains and under strange and unusual new powers. There was kind of a wave of enthusiasm that washed across the country in 79 80 80 one and a lot of companies jumped aboard it. A lot of little

start ups. Some big ones notable among them was months Santo which forged to the front you might say through a combination of kind of personal serendipity you might say who they managed to have good contacts with. And you know corporate resolve. And in 1983 at the very beginning of 1983 the first what you might say genetically engineered plants the ones that had genes and it spliced into them using these new techniques. We're growing in laboratories but it took a very long time before they actually ended up on anybody's dinner table right there. You're right that there are three pillars of the genetic engineering of plants. Can you describe what they are as a scientific matter. Yeah they're the three pillars you might say were the ability to isolate the gene that you wanted. And second the ability to get that gene into a plant

cell which turned out to be compared to bacteria quite hard to do plant cells have this kind of hard wall around them that acts like a I don't know kind of a Berlin wall keeping keeping out any any new genes. And the third element of it it often neglected is the ability to coax that plant cell you know to into life so to speak to grow in a petri dish into into a whole plant that was those were the scientific frontiers that confronted people in the laboratories scientists in the very early 80s. And those those three problems were solved you might say almost simultaneously in different corners of the scientific world. At a laboratory at the University in St. Louis laboratory in two laboratories really that collaborated in Belgium and Germany and in the laboratories of Monsanto which kind of piggy backed onto the work that

these other scientists had been doing in the universities. They established consulting agreements in the years before this with some of these academic laboratories these academic scientists have been working on the problem for a while. You know let's say a decade Monsanto came along and within a few short years it was some very young scientists just out of university were able to kind of leapfrog the work that was being done in the academic laboratories really by by by by taking advantage of these sharing relationships and then carrying it forward. So essentially they did have very Monsanto had very good scientists but they also had these consulting agreements as you mentioned where they could swear look over the shoulders of these researchers. They absolutely looked over the shoulders of the academic researchers and you know it's an interesting thing to go back into this history because it it it has an effect on the way people see it today within Monsanto which is kind of the company that I concentrate on in my research in the book because they were there at the beginning

and they're they're kind of you know preeminent among the agricultural biotech companies today. You know this this initial breakthrough this scientific accomplishment in the very early 80s within the company within months and it was kind of their their creation myth. You know their their story of origin. And as it's told within the company it's one of it's an inspiring story of scientific genius really. The reality is a much more complicated one. I'm not saying you know and I will not say that months and I simply stole this you know this this knowledge what they did do is they took advantage of a tradition of kind of scientific sharing just at the time when science was changing and people were increasingly establishing private ownership over such discoveries. So months and it was very careful to try to go and patent things as soon as they invented them. And some of the academic laboratories were somewhat slower on the uptake with that in that regard.

I'm glad. You mention the patent issue. You're right the patents are the bedrock on which the biotechnology industry is built and maybe we could also you know backing up a bit. Ask you talk about a key decision made by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1980 dealing with patent rights for such organisms. Right. In one thousand eighty that the Supreme Court decided that the so-called Chakrabarty case which had been winding its way through the courts for many years and you know by the time it was decided actually the the actual scientific discovery that was being debated was no longer very relevant or very important had been superseded. But as a legal matter I mean the the the question at issue was could this bacterium that the man a man named Amanda Chakrabarty had invented when he was working for General Electric. Could this bacterium this genetically altered organism be patented. Could a company claim private ownership for a while. Or at least rights to the use of this bacterium for 17 years for itself.

And the Supreme Court decided in 1900. Yes. You know this genetically altered organism can be considered an invention a product of the human hand. You know like a new machine and. That really kind of. It was a crucial decision for the emerging biotech industry because they said OK if we make something we can claim it as our private property it's not immediately in the public domain or that anybody and everybody can use it. We can make some money on this. That was very important and that became very important for months Sandow to as it as it and all the other biotech companies as they pursued genetically altered genetically engineered plants. We're talking this morning with Daniel Charles He's a technology correspondent for National Public Radio and we're discussing his book Lords of the harvest biotech big money and the future of food. We actually have a caller waiting from San Francisco so I'll include them in our conversation in the number around Champaign-Urbana again 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free elsewhere. Eight

hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Let's talk with our listener online about 4 in San Francisco. Good morning you're in focus 580. Morning all. I don't know if you in Chicago were lucky enough to see the San Francisco Mime Troupe. They were just there about a month ago and they did a great performance piece on the G issue. And I thought I was mostly interested in the in the economics of this. Everything has its weak linchpin and certainly the economics of this is the lawsuits that are potential for damaging other crops. I understand there's a Canadian farmer that recently lost a lawsuit he alleged that the drift of spores landed on his organic farm and that Monsanto had essentially tainted his organic fields. And in fact he lost that lawsuit. But the concept

of this genetically engineered or genetically modified material that's essentially allowing Monsanto to steal farmers property if they're caught using these genetically modified. Product and they're not paying the royalties. It's actually a very interesting kind of a land grab. And but it still seems like there must be a potential economic weakness to the Monsanto position. And I'm I'm just wondering if you can give us some ideas about that. Go ahead. Yes sure. Excellent questions go ahead. You know this gets into it. You know a very involved an interesting set of issues and I think they're the heart of the whole story. You know you go on a lot of talk shows and the immediate question is well is this safe to eat.

I I actually I don't find the produce the genetically engineered things on the market scary to eat. I think I I think from all that I've been able to sort of figure out and from all that's known on this I agree with the government on this I think they are safety. What what's more interesting actually is. The story when it comes to the changing nature of the seed the changing nature of plants as a legal and commercial matter. I think the thing that is truly new and different about the seeds is not so much their biology as their legal and commercial nature. Now you also have to say there's been a lot of myth ology that's grown up around this. Let's take this case that is that the caller mentioned of the farmer in Canada named Percy Schmeiser and it's not by the way an organic farm that he runs by any means. He and the case was decided against him. There's you

know that the essential problem that was raised by that case is. Well back up a little bit I think probably many of your listeners at least who are involved in agriculture in that area they know the deal when you buy these genetically engineered seeds from Monsanto in for instance in the case of soybeans soybeans that have been engineered to tolerate sprays of a herbicide called Roundup or corn plants that have been engineered to be resistant to insects in all those cases if you buy the seed you sign a deal that says there for one time use only so to speak. I mean you you plant the round up ready soybeans and you can harvest what grows and sell it but you cannot save part of that and planted as seed for the following year. That's the contract you sign. Now if you violate that months and consume you. And if you sign the contract they have a very strong legal case because basically you knew the deal when you signed up when you bought the seed. In the case of Percy

Hsu miser he never signed a contract. He got his seed somehow. And but he did not buy it from Monsanto or any Monsanto dealer. Now Percy surmised that the heart of his case and that where I think he stands stood on strongest ground was to say I never signed a contract. So months and I shouldn't have any legal leverage over me. Now he also came up with a theory which the judge did not buy. And I think based on the evidence is not true about how the the Roundup Ready canola in his case grew in his field because the wind blew the pollen in. That story does really does not stand up. But that even for to in my mind that's not crucial. The question in months and asserted that no matter where you got the seed in months and I believe that person got it from a neighbor if you got the seed and it contains our patented genes you've got to pay it. You've got to pay us because you are

intentionally planting this and we somehow own that seed because we've got rights to it because of these patents. Montana won that case but it's on appeal and I think it's sort of a shaky decision. For you know a number of reasons. You know that that basically it should be an illegal thing to plant a seed that contains months and has patented genes even if you don't spray round up and take advantage of that new gene I don't know it's a quirky kind of case. In any case I hope that illuminates some of the issues. Well what I was interested in was I mean it it does to a degree but when I was more interested in is that it's kind of like a you know as giants get bigger their knees get weaker so the idea is that for example looking at this is a land grab that person's minds are essentially spent so much money that he's going to have to lose some of his land to pay off the legal debts. And if you look at this in terms of mega

giant corporation that was interested more in taking more and more possession of land across America or the United or the world for that matter that if farmers are going to be forced to pay outrageous legal expenses for every tiny infraction and that the larger the corporation gets the more they're going to have the ability to write off any problems on the taxpayer. And that the farmers will never be able to compete against these corporations that are eventually going to usurp all of the land. There has to be some economic weakness to this that will allow commonsense to get small farmers back in production and mega giant corporations out of the control of the food sources. So I'm just wondering if there was some economic linchpin that your you can spot in this that will help farmers get some real control of their lives back.

Well I have to say I disagree a little bit with the premise of that question because I don't. I think the thing that Munson was working against here. Their real weakness is they're basically going against biology. They're trying to assert control over something that naturally reproduces out there in the field. That's you know that's a battle that they have taken on. They have decided that they're going to try to make seed a a product like any other product like like a car as opposed to something that yes you can you can help create but it escapes your control the way seed normally does which is you know I've kind of been the bane of the seed industry since its bee since its beginning. You know you sell a seed and it by its very nature reproduce. And beyond your control. That's that's the battle that Monsanto is taking on and that's why you end up with situations where they you know try to employ a legal there their the their legal

arsenal in order to keep biology under control so to speak to keep farmers like whoever sold person buys or the seed from doing that. So I think that's the basic weakness that they're up against and you see it. For instance they cannot charge large amounts of money for round up ready soybeans anywhere else in the world except North America. Well probably they could in Europe if they were selling it in Europe but for instance in Argentina they can make money on the herbicide in by selling roundup in Argentina but they cannot charge large amounts for the seed because in Argentina they haven't been able to convince the government that seed saving should be illegal. So that's that's the reality I think. If you're looking for a weakness and economic weakness on the part of of months and oh that's it. OK I just crosses my mind on that one aspect of it is that since most humans most citizens of the country this country and perhaps getting into the world are not involved in agriculture anymore

there and they're going to be asked to serve on juries in some cases. That the economic prize premised that they're going by that seeds are not the product of nature or God but the but that they are the product of scientists and corporations that the education of the public in this. So that when they get to series they're going to be able to to look at it from from a more logical viewpoint as opposed to an economic skewed viewpoint. Well let me just for the sake of the argument let me then sort of spin out the argument in months and it would make to that jury if you if you'll permit me for the month an argument would be listen these are useful things these traits that we've created. Round up ready soybeans may not cut the use of pesticides that much. It may not even

save the farmers that much money. It does substitute a less toxic chemical for more toxic chemicals that farmers have been using. It certainly makes the farmer's job easier it's certainly been popular. How are we supposed to bring these useful things to the market if we can't charge for them. How are we supposed to do that. So that's why we absolutely need to take the steps that we've taken that will be Monsanto's argument and you know I have to say both sides hold some holds some validity for me. I hope to get to the caller's question I have been a listener I'll get to in just a minute. Let me just ask you since we're almost in our midpoint I want to sort of establish some of the themes in the book and then we'll take some more callers. I want to ask you talk about Monsanto as the site of much of the research and development what was the culture like. What did the scientists there believe they were doing in for what purpose. Well this is yeah. I mean that the group that was established within months and in the early 80s the biotech group they kind of felt themselves to be the

green revolutionaries within the company. It's an interesting sort of thing and it and they they were this small group felt like you know they were the the biology people within a company dominated by by chemical people. They also and you can argue whether this is a rationalization after the fact kind of a cynical justification for themselves or whether they you know had reason to believe this but the fact is they did believe it that they were going to do great things for the world. Monsanto as a company you'll have you know other people within the industry often describe Monsanto as arrogant. And that also kind of has its own reason has its own story associated and to some extent with the phenomenal success of this chemical they sell called ground up which was kind of dismissed early on but Monsanto persuaded the world that and

Roundup was a useful and good and product and became to this world beater the so and then it in the course of the years the biology people kind of took over the company. So that by the mid 90s a new CEO came to the to the to the top of the company who kind of got the biotech religion and became this is the CEO named Robert Shapiro believed in this very deeply believed for whatever reasons that this was a terrific and wonderful thing for the world for the environment of the world and then the company became quite messianic about the the power and the usefulness of their technology. You know the thing is there's no one more self-righteous I guess or more death to criticism than someone who believes that the people who believe that they are on the the moral right side.

And perhaps that also sort of fed a dismissal of the critics on the part of months and that was my next question how did they react when they were they start to be attacked by the environmental activists and the people concerned about you know food safety and so forth. They would say particularly in the early days they were quite dismissive. And they didn't take it seriously. No. Well they say you know that's a complicated thing because there are there are many different personalities within the company. You know in the mid 90s in the late 90s there were some within the company some friends in the Washington office of the company who felt like these these criticisms were potentially quite powerful and quite damaging to the company and recommended a much more sort of proactive and gauging and even compromising stance. But what ultimately carried the day in the company headquarters in St. Louis was an attitude that we know that this produced products are safe. We

know we've got government approval for them. We know from our history with some earlier products we brought on the market in earlier years notably a growth hormone in dairy cattle cattle that there will be some very vocal opponents who will be against us because they don't like us. But the public these people at Monsanto thought won't care that much. So we're just going to kind of power on through. That carried the day and Monsanto up until kind of the roof fell and I suppose in late midnight you know. We'll talk more about that in a minute let me just to first of all reintroduce our guest during this hour focused 580 We're talking with Daniel Charles He's a technology correspondent for National Public Radio and he's the author of the book we're discussing lords of the harvest biotech big money and the future of food. Recently published by Perseus publishing we do have a caller waiting and welcome others in the time remaining the number around Champaign-Urbana. Three three three W I L L toll free anywhere you heard this eight hundred two to two.

Well let's include a listener in Eureka. Next on line number one. Good morning you're in focus 580. Hello. Yes. I want to inquire about a nutrition terminology. Now they sometimes use a Group designation and that sort of thing like well they'll say GMO and that people know now what that is referring to and all but there was a recent nutrition meeting down in St. Louis and after that meeting someone reporting talked about pro Bio Foods and I wonder and you know there are some things that are called phytochemicals that you know that's kind of a group designation. Sure. And Mike you ever known or heard of it. What is this pro bio. Is has to do with food and nutrition. Does it have to do with genetic engineering. I don't know the pro bio I have to say it's a new term for me. I

mean I honestly don't know. I mean if you're talking about nutrition. Everybody's kind of waiting in the field of genetic engineering for the genetically engineered products that you can or you can sell to the consumer with the process with the promise of benefits to their health. There hasn't been a product really on the market available for sale yet that kind of fits that criteria there. The industry is waiting anxiously for the product that will kind of change the perception of of GMO ZX of genetically engineered food in the in the public's mind to be something in you know instead of something that the farmers like to plant to be something that consumers want to buy because it. Oh I don't know. You know reduces blood pressure or or has other nutritional benefits. Sure lower fat or higher protein or whatever. For instance Yeah. Yeah. OK well maybe we can talk more about the future. Or of

technology a bit. We do have a couple callers waiting in someone in a car for only number four Let's talk with them next. Good morning you're in focus 580. Hello hello. Yes that's you. I am my own. Yes you are. This is a State Representative Dale Graham in Indiana I'm a farmer and we have this past station. I carried a couple of pieces of legislation and look to carry again this station wanted to make a few points that may be a Daniel could comment on. OK first of all that my one of my main concerns is seat purity cannot be guaranteed anymore. And under current court interpretations any farmer out here could be liable for position of the gene. Even though this seed which may have been in his mind non GMO contained the genetic material so I'm very concerned about that. Another point is the cost of the litigation. Part of the package that we put together says that if the farms ultimately found that not to be liable that he

made a hole in the process of whatever court costs he has spent. Another provision requires a third party independent sampling when tests are taken in the countryside to see if the GMO is present. Another point I would like to make that concerns the Cheka Bharti case it's my opinion that that is not a clear case in relation to what we're discussing today and has been patent office extension of legislative intent which I believe was quite clear and an actionable level when the an amendment to add sexually reproducing genes to the statue for protection was defeated in the US House of Representatives so probably as helpful I'll go off line into my radio back on. OK thanks the call. Well nice nice to hear from the state representative. Let me start with the last thing first. He's absolutely right about the Chakrabarty case not that that the patent office went well beyond the checkerboard case over the years in allowing

patents on various things not just plant genes and plants. And I've tried to figure out what my own position is on where the line ought to be drawn. And I've I've eventually come to the position and I could be persuaded otherwise probably because these are these are complicated issues that people can disagree about but I've come to the position that. Particular kinds of genes that have been so altered so much in the laboratory that they really are not any more kind of products of nature that we simply kind of got our hands on and used but that for instance this the gene that's put into corn or the roundup resistance gene that that's put into soybeans particularly the BT Gene just use that the one that makes corn. Poisonous to insects. That thing is has been completely rewritten in order to make it work in plants. It's a it's had new signals you know a new sort of bits of DNA attached to it

to make it turn on and function within plants took many years of work to do this and the that gene does not exist in nature. It is the product of the human hand and I actually believe that that a patent on such a thing is a perfectly reasonable thing. What I. But on the other hand there's actually a Supreme Court court case going on right now about this. I don't think that plants in their totality ought to be patentable because they're you know if it's applied widely by seed companies it has the effect of kind of locking up the whole gene pool. Plant Breeders cannot use you know another company's variety as an element in a breeding program to make a new and better plant. I think that has a bad effect so I'm against patents on plants as such but I'm willing to agree that patents on some genes may be a fine thing. Now this issue about seed purity and liability to Monsanto again. You know I wouldn't

necessarily be against the law of such such a such a law but I don't think it's necessarily needed because you know the fact of the matter is Monsanto is not going after farmers because they through no fault of their own have some contamination in their fields. That is simply not the case. And you know if this is inspired again by this Canadian case of persecution miser Yes there should be third party tests. There should be much more clarity on exactly what for instance was planted in Percy's misers field but you know the evidence seemed to indicate he had perfect. He had practically pure Roundup Ready canola growing in his field and there are different stories for how he got that. But you know this is not a case where he got some contamination and suddenly Monsanto came in and sued him just because of that. Yeah just a quick follow up on that Monsanto. Perhaps partially earned its reputation for arrogance in you know essentially advertising for neighbors to turn their neighbors in if they suspected they were

replanting round the ready seed right. Yeah no I mean the Montana may be respected for its accomplishments but in this you know this very ambitious attempt to change the rules of the game in the seed business. They offend an awful lot of people. I mean I grew up on a farm my father was a farmer my brother still runs the farm. I showed my brother some of the things that I'd come across he hadn't actually seen them in his home area which is in Pennsylvania it's not a huge soybean area you know but he kind of shook his head chuckled and said well that's not exactly promoting neighborliness is it. Yeah I mean it's rubs people the wrong way. We're going to call a talk with let's include them in our conversation this is a listener. On line number one. Good morning you're in focus on Haiti. Your guest has like to talk about the economics of the situation but if he means by that really going

for the bottom line I mean that's it's a very shallow way of looking at our economy. There are places and there is a place for institutions to. To impose moral ethical. The big picture kind of you point on the companies and it's just isn't a sufficient argument to really say you know well if we begin to bring these gene genetically engineered things to the market if we don't get special profit for it which kind of brings me to my question I have to ask didn't hang up. OK. Then Ella Meadows from Dartmouth wrote the scientists who are doing the work many of whom I know and respect just that scientists engrossed by the technical challenge is

oblivious to the evolutionary ecological economic or social consequences unquote. So a couple of things are definite. Imply at least that you know differently. And I'd like him to to argue or point out some incidents where he found that the technicians the technical scientists were actually thinking about the social consequences of the evolutionary and if they had any kind of ecological impacts and they had any kind of expertise in that. Ok thank. QUESTION The. I'm not exactly sure what the caller was referring to and various things that things that I said that implied that they had deep knowledge of all those things. No I would agree that the scientists working on these things tend to know a lot about the specific thing they're working on. And I have great

pride of authorship in that that accomplishment and believe they believe that it technical accomplishment also meant something something good for the world and also valuable to their company in many cases I think they were mistaken in that. I would also say though that in the process of of this development some of these companies were in fact forced to take account of of some of the other asses some of the other aspects of the implications of their work. An example of that would be when they came up with BT crops the crops that that are essentially poisonous to a particular class of insects. This this came on the horizon in the mid 80s by the late 80s. Every time these companies went out and talked to any public any public gathering you know there would be somebody who would stand up and say Yeah but the insects will evolve.

You'll have resistant right insects on your hands and and not be your tool will be defeated and also you will have ruined the effectiveness of Eventually a gift of God. You know this suspect here iam that that gave us the gene that has this effect because it will now be ineffective and you can argue about whether the companies went far enough. I think particularly in the case of cotton they have not been forced to go far enough but the companies were forced to put in place some kind of plan to try to to to reduce the chances that that resistance would would it would emerge. An interesting way. This is the case in a genetically engineered product. But it is not the case in any other insect resistant crop that comes on the scene that's created by plant breeders. It's not the case when for instance a new chemical comes on the market that insects can also become resistant to. So in a sense you know these genetically engineer products have come on the

market have been subjected to a higher standard of kind of ecological consciousness. And I think that's a good thing I think that ought to be applied to other technologies that come on the market whether that's an insect resistant plant that's created by the plant breeders as opposed to the genetic engineers. And also new chemicals that are applied there ought to be restrictions to delay if not prevent the emergence of resistance. We have just about 10 minutes left with our guest Daniel Charles author of the book Lords of the harvest biotech big money in the future of food we have one caller waiting I'll get right to. Others are welcome in the time remaining 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 around Champaign-Urbana elsewhere 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We'll get to our next caller really quickly but I did want to ask you one question that sort of gets to this heart of you know the clash between corporate. If it's in public welfare in the discussion of developing biotech agricultural products you know there's a lot there has been a lot of sort of talk of feeding the

world and this is something for the public good not just private profit but you make the point I think is an important one that the vast majority of the world's farmers live beyond the limits of commercially viable seed trade. And so what what does that mean what are the implications of that. Well you know I think that at a very minimum the implications are let's say twofold. One is many of the claims made on behalf of this technology you have to say that they're made you know for public relations purposes. This technology has been pushed forward primarily by private companies. And it is it remains and it's been pushed into the marketplace on a massive scale for in the crops that promise the greatest economic return and in the countries where the profits the profit potential is greatest. That is corn and soybeans in North America and Argentina.

So the vast mage you know all these need to to start an advertising campaign saying you know genetic engineering is is going to be a wonderful thing for the poor farmers of the world. You know I mean you got to say that that's really just public relations. You know it's an attempt to improve the image of this technology. Now at the same time I actually think that genetic engineering could be a useful tool in some cases. And this leads to the second implication of you know the the reality of the world and that is that it's important if you really want to make this too available for farmers it can't pay for it basically. You've got to just you know donate the technology to the people for the for the most part nonprofit and government funded researchers around the world whose job it is have kind of taken on the task of delivering tools better crop

varieties and so forth to those poor farmers. So some of that is actually happening the companies have donated a fair amount of tools that you know happening in fits and starts and as you would expect you know without them the marketing and distribution power of the companies behind it. It's proceeded rather slowly. But you know that's unfortunately I think that's the reality of the only way it's going to reach those farmers if the if the tools turn out to be useful is going to be through this publicly funded under funded research and distribution system. It's an important point just to sort of underline that all by promise not to write to the callers. But we had a chance to talk with him a Swaminathan recently about this very issue and the sort of you know his point was look you know we're trying to develop varieties through traditional methods and you know increasing looking at biotechnology to you know deal with rice to solve all these other crops that you know poor farmers around the world depend on

and need to grow more of because the populations are growing obviously but our research budget is minuscule compared to Monsanto and some of these other corporations right. So you know I think that that's absolutely right so you know if you're if you're interested in you know the plight of the poor around the world and an awful lot of those poor who live in rural areas you can't kind of consider them to farmers in the North American sense they have to have some land and the thing that they can do with it is grow something. Then you know it's only the publicly funded institutions that really you know have a have an incentive really to do to reach that population. Let's talk some more listeners next someone south of our coal on line number four. Good morning you're on focus 580. Hi thanks for taking my call. I am a farmer and I've read Daniel Charles book and I encourage people.

He's an excellent storyteller and one of the things I learned is the dynamics behind the scene that if I change my choices when I buy chemicals today and so I encourage people pages for all ages that's carrying the book. Several weeks ago and if they're out now I'm sure they'd be happy to buy some more but this is a very readable book for those of us who are laypeople and he's a great storyteller. But one of the things I learned that explain what's happened to my life as a farmer is the reshaping of the seed in chemical industries. It has at least been precipitated by Monsanto's role in biotech. When they saw the cash stream coming from the tech fees on Roundup Ready products they went on a buying spree and started buying seed companies and other companies which resulted in the kind of defensive move consolidation among other seed companies and chemical

companies so that the familiar companies we used to deal with and in some cases for generations and generations are now alone by multinationals or have totally disappeared. And it seems to me what I want as a farmer is more choices. But what I have today is fewer choices and with the consolidation down the line another generation will have even fewer choices and companies I want to deal with and products that I want to buy. And then the other issue I mean as a farmer one of the things that you know we do worry about is the price we get for our commodities and our major AG organizations are all boosters on biotech and I've raised in the past I don't have a problem in principle with it but it does seem to me that at this point it's hard to argue that farmers have made any money off of this technology. The loss in confidence whether it's justified or not by the export market and just a year ago with it wasn't really Monsanto related but a product that was

released that wasn't approved for human consumption at StarLink has taken a huge hit in the worldwide confidence the American food supply and I think our food supply is safe but as a farmer I'm going to raise for my market and if my market has some mistaken ideas about from my perspective of what they want to eat I'm still going to raise for the market. So I I think it's hard to argue that farmers have benefited financially from biotech. There has been some convenience. In the case of Roundup Ready soybean products but I think we're going to pay a big price for that as time goes on. OK. Thanks for the call. It's a delight to hear from a reader. No this issue of impact on for instance on the seed industry I think this is a serious one and this is one of the big reasons why I'm against patents on plant varieties because

one effect of that is it makes it much harder for somebody to basically start a small seed company and be able to compete because increasingly the big seed companies are can use patents to basically lock up the gene pool as I mentioned and prevent a plant breeder from kind of you know getting access to the starting point. You know the varieties that you need to breed out of in order to create more choices really for for farmers. No on this issue of effect on markets downstream. Yeah I think this has become a huge part of the story and it's the story is not ended by any means because the European Union is in the process of trying to put in place some new some new rules which I may consider them unjustified and even silly. Because they they require the labeling of an ingredient in a food.

If that ingredient was derived from genetically engineered for instance soybeans even if there is nothing genetically engineered left in the processed food I mean the specific case here is soy oil. Even if all the protein and all the DNA has been refined out of that oil. So there's nothing left that is genetically engineered. The label will still have to go on any food that uses that oil as an ingredient. And if that goes into effect and if the food food retailers in Europe decide that they just don't want to have that label on the food they're going to be looking for much larger quantities of non genetically engineered soy in the food supply. You know American farmers and put on the hook for this and we'll see how it all plays out. Well that's probably a good point to end it on because the story continues. And I would suggest for folks if you'd like to learn more certainly look for this book because it's a very deep look at

what's going on in this arena. The title is lords of the harvest biotech big money and the future of food. Recently published by Perseus publishing and the author has been our guest Daniel Charles. And to to you. Thanks so much for talking with me very interesting. It was a pleasure. Thanks. All right thank you.