How can we hope to feed a world population that is expected to reach 10 billion or more by 2050? That’s the provocative issue addressed at a TEDx-CERN talk last week by Nina Federoff, the distinguished biologist at Penn State University. Can we feed that many with our existing resources? What role has science played in developing food and agriculture throughout human history and what solutions might it offer going forward?
Nina Fedoroff’s research interests range from the biochemistry of microRNA processing and transposition to the design of greenhouses for hot, humid environments, although she is best known for her pioneering work on plant transposons. A PhD from Rockefeller University, she is the Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University. A 2006 National Medal of Science laureate, she served as Science and Technology Adviser to the US Secretary of State and to USAID’s administrator.
Nina Federoff has no idea what she’s talking about. I’ve communicated with her many times about the urgent need to defend GMOs by going on the offensive against anti-GMO organic activists. But I might as well have been talking to a brick wall. She doesn’t have a clue, and is more interested in public relations than in defending science.
What she said was all true. So, who doesn’t know what they are talking about?
Nina Federoff is more concerned with protecting her career than in advancing genetic engineering in agriculture. That’s why she purposely avoids mentioning organic activists who stand in the way of progress in this all-important field.
Perhaps you should stop whining about Nina not doing what you demand of her (and why should she?) and do something yourself
Here’s what I’m doing: http://www.isitorganic.ca/news
Your heart is in the right place, but remember there are many roads to Rome
Thanks Steve. But the conciliatory approach taken by people like Federoff, Julie Borlaug and Hugh Grant is useless.
Give organic activists an inch and they take a mile.
Perhaps because none of his credentials contain the word ‘scientist’
Unfortunately, as much as we wish people would simply look at every problem logically, we’ll never get that. To put a public policy, practice, or paradigm in place, you need collaboration of the majority. Otherwise, you end up with civil unrest or worse. If you want to get ANY of this good technology to stick without finding ourselves on Galileo’s chopping block, we have to negotiate and sway public opinion gently. Do you want them to destroy the crops and storm the gates with pitchforks, or do you want them to accept the ideas slowly? You’re not going to sway public opinion overnight. You’re not going to educate the masses by yelling at them. I’m a biologist who believes that biotechnology is a force for good, but I also understand that people resist change. I’d rather make the change slowly instead of getting them to push back so hard that we go backwards.
Let me get this straight mijan…
You’re saying we SHOULDN’T quote the rules of organic production back to organic activists when they pretend GMO crops pose some sort of risk to organic crops?
I really appreciate someone working to communicate the nature of GMO’s and trying to prevent billions from starving to death out of senseless fear mongering.
The only way to prevent billions from starving is to go head-to-head with the organic activists who stand in the way of progress in the field of genetic engineering.
It’s simplistic to pit “GMO” and “organic” against each other. One of the aims of genetic engineering is to greatly reduce or even eliminate the need for dangerous and toxic chemical pesticide use, isn’t it?
Quite right. But it was organic activists who decided to enter into pitched battle.
President Clinton presented organic activists with a compromise: to accept certain GMO crops on a case-by-case basis and to reject others. But organic activists decided to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I was there at the time. It was a sad, sad day for the otherwise proud organic movement in America.
Frankly I hope the solution to feeding more people is more intelligent than scaling up the mass produced food system we have created. Watch Nina’s video though it’s interesting.
Throughout history we have developed new ideas through human ingenuity, and then scaled them up through human ingenuity. What could possibly be wrong with that? You have a problem with efficiency or something?
I think you’re just a stirrer.
Bottom line, there are some people who have put themselves at the top of the pro-GMO movement who are plainly and simply incapable of defending the science of genetic engineering.
Alongside Nina Federoff I’d also include Julie Borlaug, granddaughter of Norman Borlaug, father of the Green Revolution, and Hugh Grant, the Chairman of Monsanto who wants to change his company’s name(http://www.greenerideal.com/lifestyle/0915-gmo-debate-meetings-about-non-existent-food-safety-issues/).
selective breeding is different than injecting genes from other organisms into a plant/animal that would have otherwise never have been able to be introduced otherwise…
Allison, actually much of selective breeding involves introducing genes into plants that would never have been able to introduce themselves naturally. Hundreds of fruits, grains and vegetables. Plus there are more 2700 fruits, grains and vegetables created through mutagenesis, which involves soaking seeds in chemicals are radiating them to create mutations that would never show up in nature–never. They are all eligible to be called organic foods–such as a organic Ruby Red grapefruit, created over 6 years in a laboratory.
I have no problem with plant genes being put into other plants (adding to that plant’s hardiness or to develop new variegates of fruit, enhancing vitamin content etc)…maybe I’ve watched too much Sci Fi but I’m talking about genes like those of cold water fish (resistant to very low temperatures due to certain “anti freeze” genes they possess) being introduced into plants to make them more cold hardy…that sort of thing (I have an imagination LOL and I don’t even know if this is being done or not), not the creation of new varieties of fruit.
What are you some sort of Gene racist,,,LOL. <
The simple fact is that all life on this planet is related, animals and plants share a vast amount of genes already. so switching them up here and there is no real big deal.
« …mutations that would never
show up in nature–never »?
This is not true. Any artificial
mutation can occur in nature. The next question is of course whether
you can spot it and select it.
Your first sentence is largely correct
(…actually much of selective breeding involves introducing genes
into plants that would never have been able to introduce themselves
naturally). Although this is not done on a routine basis, the upshot
is that modern plant varieties of many crops, certainly of the most
important ones, carry genes – some selected for their contribution
to the crop’s performance, others, unknown or hardly known, carried
along with the former in the breeding process – that would never
have gotten naturally into the crop. Our tinkering with e.g. wheat,
potato or tomato has been far greater, and with far greater risks,
with « conventional » breeding methods than with genetic
engineering.
If the idea is to conduct thoughtful discussion based on factual input, why then does nobody mention that much more than 90% of GMO use involves more and more Round-up? As long as Monsanto’s champion product – one proven to cause numerous health problems -is conveniently removed from the balance sheet, there is no honest dialogue.
Harper, all the mainstream science concludes glyphosate is one of the safest herbicides in use, safer than most organic herbicides, check latest study from European Union–they just RELAXED their limits. No serious health problems–not even mild ones–are associated with residues in food. Find another bogeyman.
Jon, although some feel that there is debate on glyphosate, there seems little question that the Orwellian named ‘Inert’ ingredient cocktail of which Round-up is made contains many dangerous components. Inert sounds so much better than polyethoxylated tallowamine for example. That said, from my personal experience, there is no question that Round-up ready plants that are able to withstand the poison are nonetheless considerably less healthy than true varieties, even in competition with the weeds that would be killed under the mono-crop system. This requires that they receive active chemical enhancements that they would otherwise receive naturally in a symbiotic poly-crop system. When you drastically reduce diversity and basic plant vigor, the decrease in the rhizomal exudates that are essential to a healthy soil food-web is real and has serious consequences. There are many prices to pay when you use Monsanto’s Round-up ready seed beyond how you feel about Glyphosate. I feel that much of the discussion is being intentionally ignored.
Glyphosate is long off-patent, so this isn’t really a Monsanto issue at all, and there are other formulations available. I’ve seen testimonies that buying RoundUp-ready seed does not require use of the RoundUp brand, specifically. Do you have a solid reference to back up the “much more than 90% of GMO use involves more and more RoundUp”?
FWIW, the RoundUp formulation has been studied and certified in addition to the study and certification of the glyphosate active ingredient, so there is some science data there which needs to be convincingly overturned for this argument to be taken seriously. I find it interesting that there has been a recent shift to blame surfacants and such for the apparently horrible but curiously data-evading evils of RoundUp — did it finally become too hard to argue against the bulk of solidly unexciting safety data on glyphosate itself?
This is a vicious circle argument.
Current GM crops are essentially
herbicide (RoundUp) resistant? So they are bad…
There are other GMs in the starting
blocks, particularly ones that provide a direct benefit to consumers.
But GMs are bad, so activists won’t allow them to come on the
market…
So we are left with HT GMs… which are
bad…
And by the way, where are the proven
health problems, otherwise than in the wild imagination of e.g.
Seneff?