“Cities are green. Nuclear energy is Green. Genetic engineering is Green” is unavoidable clarity from the new Martin Luther. So look out for them when they arrive in a Penguin paperback edition, due in March, my local bookstore tells me.
The wasps in the video below are most likely from the family Braconidae. These wasps make their living as parasitoids, growing within other animals and eventually eating them from the inside out. Their life starts as an egg which is laid in the caterpillar by a female. This egg may divide into many, many larvae which feed on the caterpillar from the inside by either eating the caterpillar’s fat body, it’s muscles or by drinking it’s hemolymph (which functions as blood). After they’ve completed their development, they simply exit the caterpillar by burrowing out of it and then pupate. A few weeks later, adult wasps emerge to fly away and look for other hosts.
So what makes Braconid (and Ichneumonid!) wasps so strange, and why am I writing about them on Biofortified?
Visitors to Biofortified may notice some seemingly conflicting messages in our posts. The authors of this blog are generally proponents* of biotechnology. We are also often proponents of low-input high-genetic diversity farming, and proponents of local or regional food systems. How can that be? Well, we don’t think these ideas are conflicting at all. We think biotech** goes hand in hand with sustainability. We’d like to someday see vendors at farmer’s markets proudly displaying the traits they use in their produce to benefit the environment and consumers.
There are many ways that biotech traits can help farmers reduce inputs and have more biodiversity on their farms, and ways to help food be more local. Two great examples are apples and tomatoes. Both of these are extremely popular fruits, are a healthy addition to any diet, and are eaten fresh as well as processed. Both can be grown in a variety of climates, but have a short growing season in most places, meaning that they are often shipped long distances before they get to consumers. There are a lot of specific traits that could be put into locally adapted varieties of apples and tomatoes to help make it easier to grow in a wider variety of places for a longer season, decrease pesticide use, and increase profit margins.
A few weeks ago I talked to Matthew Herper from Forbes Magazine, he was writing a story about Monsanto and was looking for some outside perspectives, and had already talked to Pam Ronald. I ended up talking ad nauseum about the blog and what we hope to do with it. Shortly thereafter, the story went up, called The Planet versus Monsanto, and after reading it, I thought, aw, no plug! It’s a good story,
I just received word* that a special webcast will be happening tomorrow, Friday the 12th, called Now Serving 9 Billion: Global Dialogue on Meeting Food Needs for the Next Generation. The webcast will occur from 10 am-12 pm U.S. Eastern Standard Time (-5 GMT), which will be 9-11 am in the U.S. Central time zone where I am. Here are the panelists that will be appearing in the webcast:
Dr. Nina V. Fedoroff; Science and Technology Advisor to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and to the Administrator of USAID Rajiv Shah. Author of “Mendel In The Kitchen” Bio here.
Dr. Robert Paarlberg, Wellesley College. He is the Betty Freyhof Johnson Class of 1944 Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Author of: Starved for Science: How Biotechnology is Being Kept Out Of Africa. Bio here.
Dr. Calestous Juma, Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Professor of the Practice of International Development. Director, Science, Technology, Globalization Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Bio here.
Mark Cantley, former Advisory in the Directorate for Biotechnology, Agriculture and Food, of the Directorate-General for Research of the European Commission, and formerly head of the OECD’s Biotechnology Unit. Bio here.
Frank Sesno, moderator, Director of the School of Media and Public Affairs at The George Washington University, Emmy-award winning journalist, and host and creator of Planet Forward, a ground-breaking web-to-television show seen on PBS. Bio here.
Dr. Gale Buchanan, CAST report lead author; College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, The University of Georgia, Tifton Campus; former USDA Under-Secretary for Research, Education and Economics. Bio here.
Biofortified's volunteer authors are devoted to providing factual information and fostering discussion about agriculture, especially plant genetics and genetic engineering. The site is written by grad students, professors, and guest experts. Meet our authors on the Authors page.
Environmentalism gets its own Martin Luther.
“Cities are green. Nuclear energy is Green. Genetic engineering is Green” is unavoidable clarity from the new Martin Luther. So look out for them when they arrive in a Penguin paperback edition, due in March, my local bookstore tells me.
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