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  • ( music playing )

  • Christophe: This is the island of Maui.

  • We're here because this place has been at the center

  • of a fierce debate about whether we should grow

  • and eat genetically modified food.

  • And that question is only getting more important.

  • At the current rate, we will have to grow more food

  • in the next 30 years than we have in all of human history.

  • Doing that without destroying the environment that we live in

  • will be one of the defining challenges of our generation.

  • And many experts argue that to do that,

  • we'll have to engineer the genes of our food.

  • But the safety of that technology has been controversial for decades.

  • So, should we be worried about genetically modified food?

  • ( music playing )

  • - Good morning. - Hey, how's it going?

  • - How is everybody today? - Fantastic.

  • Chocolate peanut butter. Chocolate peanut butter.

  • - Oh, my God. - How is it?

  • - It's really good? - I can't tell if that was good or bad.

  • It's Reese's peanut butter for breakfast.

  • - In a Cheerio. - I love it.

  • Why are we here?

  • - We are here in my home. - "We are here in my home."

  • I have brought you here.

  • I have brought you guys here to talk about GMOs.

  • I'm curious to hear how you grew up thinking about them.

  • 'Cause for me, I was-- I was definitely taught that

  • GMOs are a terrible thing.

  • In my family, it was just never something that was talked about ever.

  • I was taught that the big business around GMOs

  • is something to be, like, hated.

  • All these labels started appearing, like this one,

  • "Non-GMO project verified," which seems to signal to people

  • that there's something harmful about GMOs.

  • There's one thing at this table that does contain

  • genetically modified organisms and is labeled as such.

  • - And I'm curious if y'all can find it. - Huh.

  • - It's not the coffee. - This one says non-GMO.

  • It's the one that y'all haven't looked at yet.

  • - The fruit. No. - Mm-mm

  • "Partially produced with genetic engineering." It is the Cheerios.

  • Alex: Oh, there it is. It's at the very bottom of the box.

  • Sneaky little--

  • If you look through the ingredients, you can see whole grain oats,

  • sugar, peanut butter, dextrose, corn starch,

  • and corn syrup, and corn that was probably produced with genetic engineering.

  • In a way, it's almost like a status symbol for your foods

  • if you're able to identify that all your foods have

  • the positive label of being GMO-free.

  • Cleo: I guess my question to you, Christophe,

  • is it a good label? Like, is that something that I should be looking for?

  • Um...

  • To understand how we got here,

  • we have to talk about the first GMO.

  • This is the Flavr Savr tomato.

  • Leading up to its launch,

  • people called this the super tomato.

  • It became major news.

  • The future is now, at least in terms of the American diet.

  • Genetically altered tomatoes are a step closer to your supermarket tonight.

  • The new tomatoes will soon be on a store shelf near you.

  • When it hit shelves, it became the first commercial crop that was genetically modified.

  • It was designed to be

  • less perishable than regular tomatoes.

  • What followed was a new generation of bio-engineering initiatives

  • that promised to feed the world,

  • including things like golden rice,

  • a GMO enriched with beta keratin to combat blindness and death

  • from vitamin A deficiency.

  • Researchers believe they have found a way

  • to add critical nutrients to rice.

  • Man: Vitamin A deficiency is a pervasive and silent killer

  • of malnourished children in the third world.

  • But over the next few years, public perception of GMOs

  • went from gentle curiosity like this...

  • As long as it was-- it was healthy, you know?

  • No-- no health risks. Yeah, I'd consider it.

  • ...to bitter divisiveness like this.

  • Hell no, GMO. Hell no, GMO.

  • Other labs tried to replicate that study and found that it wasn't true.

  • - No, actually that is not true. - Yes.

  • ( speaking foreign language )

  • One side says that modifying food is totally harmless

  • and the other side says that it's a serious threat to us.

  • They take viruses and bacteria and insecticides

  • and put them into the DNA.

  • More often than not,

  • they're inserting viruses

  • or bacteria into these plants.

  • But that's not exactly how it works,

  • so let's clear things up.

  • - Cleo, you free right now? - Sure.

  • All right. So genetic engineering works by taking a tiny piece of DNA

  • from one organism and putting it inside of another organism.

  • That tiny piece of DNA is called a gene.

  • It is a set of instructions that tells the organism

  • how to express a trait.

  • You can kind of think of that like taking a recipe

  • from one cookbook and putting it inside of another one.

  • So one set of instructions here contain a really special trait,

  • and it's bookmarked.

  • - Insect killer. - Exactly. Grandma's insect killer recipe.

  • This one page tells that bacteria

  • how to create this protein that kills insects.

  • Okay, so how does this gene

  • get from the bacteria to the corn?

  • You can use kind of this bacterium that naturally goes into the other plant

  • and, like, dumps the DNA off

  • or you can use something called a gene gun.

  • The gene gun literally shoots gold particles that are covered in DNA...

  • - Dope. - ...into cells of the corn.

  • This corn plant will then produce those same insecticide proteins.

  • And what that means is that farmers now would not have to spray

  • those corn plants with insecticide.

  • So it's not as though GMOs

  • are using a small part of a bacteria

  • and putting it into corn or something else.

  • It's more like they're taking a small instruction

  • that a bacteria has

  • and allowing corn to also have that instruction.

  • - Is that right? - Exactly.

  • So what do we know about how safe it is

  • - to eat something like this? - Mm, let me show you.

  • In the past 20 years that we've been eating these crops,

  • there have been no negative health impacts on consumers.

  • - That's great. - Yeah. I learned all of this from Pamela Ronald.

  • She is a geneticist at UC Davis.

  • We've been genetically engineering

  • many different types of plants

  • and genetically engineering medicines for over 40 years,

  • and there hasn't been a single instance of harm

  • to human health or the environment.

  • Christophe: We know that from thousands of studies,

  • but they're probably best summarized in this one

  • from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

  • So this is like a meta study of thousands of reports.

  • Can I get a highlighter? Great.

  • Cleo: There's some evidence that GE insect-resistant crops

  • have had benefits to human health by reducing insecticide poisoning.

  • The research, blah, blah, blah, blah,

  • of GE foods reveals no differences

  • that would implicate a higher risk to human health

  • from eating GE foods

  • than from eating their non-GE counterparts.

  • - That's the money line. - That's it.

  • This seems so certain,

  • but it-- it also seems like this is such a big controversy.

  • It is. So the 2015 Pew Research poll

  • found the majority of Americans

  • believe that it's not safe

  • to eat genetically modified food,

  • but almost 90% of scientists say that they're safe.

  • And this gap is the biggest

  • of any politicized scientific issue.

  • So that means bigger than climate change, bigger than vaccines.

  • It makes me feel like there must be some other issue

  • with GMO products or GMO companies

  • that people are really struggling with.

  • - That's what I want to figure out, yeah. - Like, it can't be this.

  • So the thing is, as much as people might worry

  • about GMO fruits and vegetables,

  • you're not really likely to find them in produce.

  • They're in cheap processed foods made from GMO corn and soy.

  • And the vast majority of GMO crops don't actually even wind up in food.

  • You know, for the most part,

  • they are turned into biofuels or into feed.

  • In the U.S., where over 90% of corn is genetically modified,

  • just 10% is turned into things that people actually consume.

  • So all that genetic engineering allowed us to do

  • was to grow crops like that

  • on a bigger scale than ever before.

  • Could it have more to do with how the business of GMOs

  • is actually implemented?

  • There's one place that I think

  • can help us answer that question,

  • and it's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

  • ( music playing )

  • Hawaii is ground zero

  • for developing new genetically engineered crops.

  • In the 1990s, the entire papaya industry in Hawaii

  • was basically on the verge of collapse.

  • Plants started to be infected by papaya ringspot virus.

  • This problem persisted for decades,

  • and then came something called the rainbow papaya.

  • This was a transgenic variety

  • that was designed to resist the virus.

  • Until 2017, this was the only GMO fruit

  • that was sold in the U.S.

  • This fruit was proof that genetic engineering

  • could really benefit both consumers and farmers.

  • But it also kicked off a long debate about what genetic engineering

  • means for the state of Hawaii.

  • It's hosted more open air experimental field tests

  • than any other state in the country.

  • And the U.S. grows more GMOs

  • than any other country in the world.

  • And all of these companies are here because

  • Hawaii's tropical climate

  • allows for three to four plantings of seeds per year,

  • as opposed to just one

  • on most parts of the mainland U.S.

  • It kind of creates this ultimate outside laboratory

  • for seed companies.

  • We're gonna go visit one of these test fields

  • that's owned by Bayer with members of the SHAKA movement.

  • So tell me what SHAKA is.

  • The SHAKA movement is

  • the Sustainable Hawaiian Agriculture

  • for the Keiki and the 'Aina.

  • Okay, we're here in Kihei,

  • and these are the Hale Piilani homes,

  • and they are next to

  • the Monsanto test field here in Kihei.

  • Now these people are right on top of the problem.

  • What they're doing in the test field

  • is they're trying to see how much herbicide

  • the plant and the seed can take.

  • We know tests-- the pesticide drifts,

  • especially with this wind,

  • and it would bring it right into these homes,

  • straight into these homes.

  • This was one of the reasons for the moratorium

  • was the proximity of these test fields

  • to these homes we're standing next to.

  • In 2014, Maui County passed a moratorium

  • on the research and development and production of GMOs.

  • Man: Hawaii is the center of a fight

  • between the companies who make crop seeds here

  • and residents who say they are being poisoned.

  • Hawaii's Maui County passed one of the strongest

  • anti-GMO measures ever.

  • A battle over the Maui County GMO moratorium

  • is headed to court.

  • Eventually, that moratorium

  • was overruled in a federal court.

  • We were just asking to slow down, take a breath, stop,

  • and let's see what's going on in terms of experimentation

  • with these open fields putting all these people in danger, right?

  • It was easy for the industry to turn around and go, "Oh, you're anti-GMO."

  • Are you anti-science when you're being openly tested on?

  • And the fact that they're going,

  • "We're experimenting with this corn and we're gonna see

  • how much pesticide it can handle before it dies."

  • Look where you're doing it.

  • You're doing it where people live.

  • Okay, let me clarify what they're talking about.

  • One of the most popular kinds of genetically engineered traits

  • is something called herbicide tolerance.

  • By giving a plant a gene that makes it resistant

  • to one specific kind of chemical,

  • farmers can spray herbicide on their plants to kill weeds

  • without having to worry about harming their crops.

  • So even though the other most common

  • kind of genetically engineered trait

  • successfully reduced the need for insecticide,

  • this particular GMO trait

  • actually encourages the use of more herbicides.

  • Since 1996, when the biotech company Monsanto

  • first introduced crops tolerant to glyphosate,

  • that's the active ingredient in the herbicide Roundup,

  • the use of that chemical has skyrocketed.

  • Now, glyphosate has traditionally been considered

  • a relatively safe herbicide, but in 2015,

  • the World Health Organization concluded

  • that it likely causes cancer to humans who are exposed to it.

  • Now there are thousands of lawsuits against Bayer,

  • which acquired Monsanto,

  • for failing to warn consumers of those risks.

  • We reached out to Bayer for comment,

  • but at this time, they haven't provided a statement.

  • ( music playing )

  • I can count three chickens from where I stand.

  • But there are more everywhere. Oop!

  • Lorrin: My name is Lorrin Pang.

  • I was born and raised in Hawaii.

  • I got involved in this issue of GM growing.

  • Walk me through what the concerns that people here have

  • - about those kinds of crops in particular. - Yeah.

  • The Maui community was quite upset about corporate agriculture

  • in Hawaii and on Maui.

  • Our concern are the pesticides, okay?

  • You're using too many pesticides.

  • When the stuff you put is blowing on the wind,

  • and you haven't told anybody downwind

  • who got drifted about informed consent,

  • and they never got to respond,

  • that's unethical.

  • This is the framework of human experimentation.

  • I will give them the benefit of the doubt

  • that they want to feed the world and use less pesticides.

  • I will give them that.

  • That does seem to be something that we hear a lot

  • - on this topic is this idea... - What? Feed the world?

  • ...that GMOs are a necessary technology to feed the world.

  • Corporations and scientists have shown that's the goals.

  • "What do you want?" "Feed the world."

  • I'll give that to you. Maybe we're trying to feed the world.

  • But the process that we get there

  • seems to trample on certain people's rights.

  • ( music playing )

  • We're about to go talk to Dr. Harold Keyser.

  • He's going to explain to us what genetically engineered crops

  • look like here in Hawaii.

  • And we're climbing up a hill.

  • ( music playing )

  • That's Harold. He found a chameleon.

  • - ( indistinct chatter ) - ( squeals )

  • - They have a very long tongue. - ( gasps )

  • Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

  • ( squeals ) It's on the camera.

  • It's so hard to separate the technology from its context of big AG.

  • - Mm-hmm. - Do you feel like that is

  • going to make this argument endure for a long time?

  • Like, when are we going to stop talking about this?

  • Genetic engineering is safe as any other form of plant breeding.

  • Regulation is so expensive,

  • you know, to get it through

  • all the stages at EPA

  • and Food and Drug Administration,

  • to get a new product out.

  • And, I mean, I think that's also part of

  • why the focus has been on the major crops.

  • Because they spent all this money and then that's where they're gonna, you know,

  • they're gonna go after the big payoffs first.

  • Corn, soybean, alfalfa, cotton,

  • things that are on, you know, big acreages.

  • You know, there's been consolidation.

  • And that basically crowds out everyone except for the large ones and incentivizes--

  • Oh, yeah. Somebody with the really deep-- probably deep pockets.

  • Christophe: So how did these companies become so powerful?

  • Well, at the same time that GMO technology was taking off,

  • the seed industry was also undergoing major changes.

  • Let me show you how.

  • Each of these seeds represents an individual seed company back in 1996.

  • By 2018, all of these were fully or partially owned by Monsanto,

  • which made it the biggest seed company in the world.

  • The pharmaceutical company Bayer bought Monsanto for $63 billion.

  • But it's not just Bayer. Dow and DuPont merged to become Corteva,

  • and ChemChina acquired Syngenta.

  • Today these four companies

  • control over 60% of the world's seed sales.

  • Those companies patent the genetics of their seeds,

  • which means that farmers can't harvest their own seeds.

  • They have to buy them every year.

  • And because these seeds work hand in hand with the chemicals

  • produced by the same companies,

  • you can't really have one without the other.

  • So for some, adopting GMOs means buying into a system where,

  • for the first time in the history of agriculture,

  • farmers are not fully controlling

  • and owning their seeds.

  • But even though there's immense pressure to do so,

  • not every farmer is buying into that system.

  • ( dog barking )

  • - ( indistinct chatter ) - Hey, how's it going?

  • ( muttering )

  • - How's it going? Nice to see you. - All right. How you doing?

  • This is, like, in full operation.

  • We just put this extension in.

  • You can see this is where the door used to be.

  • We took that shade house down, poured the slab,

  • and then did all this.

  • The system comes on.

  • - And do you hear that sounds? - Uh-huh.

  • That's the sound of money.

  • We produce about five to 600 pounds of greens a week

  • and we do it on 2,500 square feet

  • on a 9,000 square-foot lot.

  • So you could say I'm probably

  • one of the largest smallest farmers here in Hawaii.

  • This conversation about genetic engineering in food

  • has gotten so much attention as kind of a focal point

  • for how this conversation is happening all across the world.

  • Yeah, because the corporate takeover of agriculture, so to speak,

  • has been consolidation. I mean, it's happening today.

  • Has been a big issue. The farmers are going back to these companies going,

  • "Hey, man, we got bugs attacking our plants."

  • "Well, here." And they start giving them

  • petrochemical pesticides and herbicides.

  • And it didn't take long before that just spiraled out of control.

  • Well, the farmers are just trying to find ways to make ends meet.

  • That created-- that whole attack on the plant created a dysfunction,

  • and that's when genetic engineering came in.

  • So I feel it was a dysfunction on top of a dysfunction,

  • which creates dysfunction squared.

  • Am I against GMO?

  • Um, I just don't support it.

  • You know, as a farmer, I want to grow food for people

  • without using that kind of technology.

  • And, um, so that's my main interest.

  • Little did I realize that I could actually make a living

  • on a postage stamp with agriculture.

  • This is where we grow what I call the chocolate cake.

  • - You can take it-- - It went straight through.

  • This is like black gold.

  • We're here in paradise on Earth. We can grow a lot of food.

  • - Here I am on Maui. I mean, what more can I ask? - Here we are.

  • - Yeah. Seriously. - Yeah.

  • The idea of genetically modified food

  • is so often sold to us based off of future promises--

  • crops that can resist a changing climate,

  • or with better yield,

  • or with improved nutrients to feed the world.

  • More efficient water use,

  • bigger root systems, nutrient uptake.

  • There's definitely potential.

  • Christophe: But GMOs today don't live up to that potential.

  • Right now, most aren't even turned into food.

  • The real reason to worry about GMOs

  • isn't that they're unsafe to eat.

  • It's how they're being used today.

  • Barbara: It's the pesticides and the herbicides we worry about.

  • This is in no way farming to feed people.

  • Christophe: And right now the agricultural practices

  • that some GMOs encourage have demonized a technology

  • that objectively could help a lot of people.

  • That's part of why in 2013,

  • anti-GMO activists in the Philippines

  • destroyed a test field for golden rice,

  • setting public sector research back by months.

  • Vincent: It's collapsing under its own weight.

  • The technology is not producing

  • the promise that it said it's going to feed the world and all that stuff.

  • Christophe: The biggest tragedy of all would be if the GMOs

  • that could help people the most fail because of concerns

  • that don't have anything to do with the technology itself.

  • That's what we should be worried about when we worry about GMOs.

  • Thank you so much for watching.

  • For more episodes of "Glad You Asked,"

  • you can click the link to the right.

  • And for more amazing learning content on YouTube,

  • go ahead and click the link on the bottom right.

  • Thanks again.

( music playing )

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