I thought she would go for the idea. After all, she supported Obama and likes to read. Sadly it seems that may be all she has in common with scientists.

In their weekly recap, ScienceBlogs now reports that:

Oprah Winfrey and notorious anti-vaccination supporter Jenny McCarthy sealed a contractual deal that will enable McCarthy to spread her belief across several platforms that vaccines cause autism. These claims are vehemently opposed in the scientific community, as they remain virtually unsupported after years of rigorous scientific investigation and, if heeded as true, have lethal consequences in the form of diseases like measles, mumps and rubella. With support from Oprah, McCarthy is slated to host a syndicated talk show and maintain a blog. According to ScienceBlogger PZ Myers, this is “proof that there is no god.”

It may be time for PZ to start his own talk TV show

“Some environmentalists have compared the tactic to that once used by tobacco companies, which for decades insisted that the science linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer was uncertain. By questioning the science on global warming, these environmentalists say, groups like the Global Climate Coalition were able to sow enough doubt to blunt public concern about a consequential issue and delay government action.

George Monbiot, a British environmental activist and writer, said that by promoting doubt, industry had taken advantage of news media norms requiring neutral coverage of issues, just as the tobacco industry once had.
‘They didn’t have to win the argument to succeed,” Mr. Monbiot said, “only to cause as much confusion as possible.’ ”

Why does this sound so familiar?

The debate on GE crops has gone a similar route, although this time the concerted campaign to mislead the public on the scientific consensus about a critical environmental issue of our time has come from a coalition from the progressive left rather than the right using nearly identical tactics. As is clear from numerous scientific reports from leading scientific agencies such as the National Academy of Sciences, the broad scientific consensus is that the GE crops on the market are safe to eat and have clear environmental benefits.

Is there a philosophical conversation to be had on whether or not we want bacterial genes in our crops? Certainly.

Do we need to integrate ecologically-based farming practices into your production food system? Absolutely

Can we say that ALL GE crops in the future will be safe to eat? No.

But if we are going to move to a more sustainable agriculture, feed the growing population and protect our environment, then we’ve got to start by being honest about the science.

Steven Chu is a Nobel-prize winning physicist. Stewart Brand founded one of the most beloved “catalogs” of all time, “The Whole Earth Catalog“.

Clearly, these accomplishments reflect their creativity, perseverance and love of the natural world. But what I find most inspirational about these two men is that they have been consistently proactive, not reactive, throughout their careers. They are not against things, they are for a green future.

Both Chu and Brand advocate practical solutions to particularly difficult-to-solve problems. “The most important thing is making sure that your home is properly insulated, that your leaky doors and windows are fixed” says Chu. They clearly enjoy implementing new ideas and technology that have environmental benefits. They do not ask if a technology is good or bad, cool or not but whether or not it is appropriate for the task at hand. “The romantic nature-is-perfect approach is just horse exhaust”, says Brand, choosing his words carefully.

These are thoughtful men that we are fortunate to have as leaders of a community-based, science-based movement. They are not reluctant to engage with established institutions (for example, the government of the United States of America) to move the world’s people forward. It is through their efforts and those like them that we finally will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, make our cities more efficient and establish a more ecological way of farming.

(Full disclosure: I am associated with the Joint Bioenergy Institute, a DOE-funded Bioenergy Research Center that Secretary Chu supported when he was director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. I also have had the pleasure of meeting Stewart and reading a few advance chapters of his new book “Whole Earth Discipline”, which I highly recommend.)

“The Obamas will feed their love of Mexican food with cilantro, tomatillos and hot peppers. Lettuces will include red romaine, green oak leaf, butterhead, red leaf and galactic. There will be spinach, chard, collards and black kale. For desserts, there will be a patch of berries. And herbs will include some more unusual varieties, like anise hyssop and Thai basil”. A White House carpenter, Charlie Brandts, who is a beekeeper, will tend two hives for honey.

If we all dug up our lawns, planted 55 kinds of vegetables and tended it very carefully, the world would be a better place. That said, who has time? Certainly not the Obamas. The White House grounds crew and the kitchen staff will do most of the work.

Still, I love the symbolism of it, and though it will be costly (vegetables harvested from showcase gardens such as the Obamas’ are much more expensive than produce from an organic commercial farm), it will provide a great education tool for the fifth graders that will help tend the farm and for White House visitors.

I hope one of her assistants plants some corn and teaches them about insects and disease. She can show them how to feel the tip of a mature ear to see if it is filled out. As we described in “Tomorrow’s Table”, they may discover some ears with hollow spots created where a corn earworm has been feeding.

The insect deposits its eggs on the corn silk that trails out of each ear of corn. When the larvae hatch, they crawl down the silk into the tip of the ear and begin to feed on the kernels. The kids can open up a couple of ears and see the big, fat, healthy earworms, writhing with irritation at being disturbed from such a luscious feast. They can laugh when they learn that the black stuff in the tips of the ears is called “frass,” a euphemistic word for insect poop.

Will she teach them ways to control for this pest? The corn earworm is not a picky eater and will eat almost any crop that we rotate in such as tomatoes, beans, or lettuce, and the adult moth is a good flyer. Even conventional breeding has failed to solve this problem because scientists have not yet been able to find a corn gene that gives protection from earworm. So organic controls dont work very well for the corn earworm making it difficult to control this pest on organic farms. Most organic farmers and consumers accept this problem in exchange for the benefits of not spraying insecticides.

There is one approach that works though. Bacillus thuringiensis is a bacteria that produces a toxin (called Bt toxin) that kills a narrow range of moths and butterflies. French farmers first started using Bacillus thuringiensis in the 1920s but it wasn’t available commercially in France until 1950s, and then in the United States in the 1950s. Today Bacillus thuringiensis is cultured in industrial production facilities and sold either as liquid or a powder with some additives to make it flow and mix better. After it is combined with water and sprayed in the field, caterpillars eat the bacteria in the form of spores and toxin. The toxin destroys the gut walls of the caterpillars and spores and other gut bacteria invade its body. This approach is an example of ‘biological control,’ using live organisms to combat pests and disease. Organic farmers have been using Bt as a “natural” insecticide to control insect pests for 50 years. It doesn’t work to control earworms on sweet corn, however, because the worm is burrowed deep within the ear, where the Bt spray cannot reach.

This is why geneticists engineered corn with the Bt gene. GE sweet corn is resistant to the earworm. I hope the First Lady plants some GE sweet corn next to the conventional variety so that this summer the Obamas and the kids could see firsthand how it resists pests and that it tastes the same. There will be less frass to giggle about but more sweet corn.

Sweet Corn Infected with Corn Earworm. On the left are three ears of late-season organically grown sweet corn. On the right are three ears of GE sweet corn containing Bt (Courtesy of Fred Gould, North Carolina State University).

The problem is that the term GMO is misused and misunderstood.

Take, for example, a recent story on Voice of America about a new rice variety my laboratory and collaborators recently developed that is tolerant of flooding. The producer made a valiant effort to explain how we generated the new variety:

“The new strain is genetically improved, but not genetically modified, so is not subject to tight controls on genetically modified foods.”

Does anyone know what is he talking about? I do, so please let me explain.

Breeders have a 8000 year history of genetic modification (also called genetic improvement or conventional breeding)- that is, they have modified the genome of crop species in a number of ways. Such conventional breeding methods include hybridization (transfer of pollen from one plant variety to another to generate new seed with genes from both parents), mutagenesis (in which chemicals or irradiation are used to induce random mutations in DNA) and embryo rescue (where plant or animal embryos produced from interspecies gene transfer are placed in a tissue culture environment to complete development). Today, everything we eat has been genetically modified in some way.

Genetic engineering, in contrast, uses a direct method to introduce new genes into a crop. Because the transfer is not limited by the relatedness of the parental varieties, any gene, even a gene from another species can be introduced into a crop plant. A committee established by the National Academy of Sciences to look carefully at the GE process has concluded that the process of genetic engineering is not inherently hazardous. However, as with every other technology used for genetic modification, GE carries the potential for introducing unintended compositional changes. It depends on what gene is introduced or modified. For example, a new celery variety developed through conventional breeding that carried improved resistance to pests caused some farm workers to develop a rash on their hands when harvesting. In contrast, after 1billion acres of GE crops grown over 10 years, there has not been a single instance of harm to human health or the environment.

The method that we used to develop flood tolerant rice is called precision breeding, which is a sort of hybrid between genetic engineering and conventional genetic modification. Precision breeding (also called marker assisted selection) uses DNA technology to detect the inheritance of a desired gene to a seedling resulting from a genetic cross between two parent varieties. The result is the precise introduction of one to several novel genes from closely related species. For example, our flood tolerant rice was developed from a cross of a low-yielding rice variety that carried a rare gene for tolerance with modern, locally adapted modern varieties. The resulting seedlings were screened using precision breeding to develop new varieties with the taste and yield favored by consumers with the flood tolerant trait. The rice is now being grown by farmers in Bangladesh and India, where 4 million tons of rice are lost each year to flooding, enough to feed 30 million people.

Many anti-GE activists reject GE but do accept precision breeding (even though both processes can introduce novel genes that have not previously been tested in modern varieties). Thus, varieties developed through precision breeding are subject only to standard seed certification and not to the strict regulatory approval process required for GE crops.

We need to look at the broader goals of sustainability and food security before ruling out a particular process of crop modification. Each new variety needs to be looked at on a case-by case basis.

To restart the dialog, lets start using the term “GE crops” rather than “GMO” so the consumer will have some idea of what the debate is all about.

This year’s editor Jennifer Rohn put together a collection of fifty-two selected blog posts showcasing the quality and diversity of science writing on blogs in 2008. You can see the background story on how the book came about, here.

Agricultural scientists (26) from corn producing states have sent a letter to the EPA criticizing GE seed companies for limiting access to seeds for scientific research.  (Pollack, Andrew, NYT, 2/20/09)
All of the scientists have been active participants of the Regional Research Projects NCCC-46 “Development, Optimization, and Delivery of Management Strategies for Corn Rootworms and Other Below-ground Insect Pests of Maize” and/or related projects with corn insect pests.  The comment appears as follows:

“Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good, unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited.”

It appears that the leaders at these seed companies have not yet embraced the idea that the acceptance of GE crops is dependent upon peer-reviewed, scientific research that evaluates effectiveness, safety, or impact on non-target species.  Without access and transparency and evaluation by independent scientists, it becomes impossible to determine the suitability of GE crops for agriculture.  Hopefully, in the light of these comments to the EPA, the companies will develop methods to facilitate access by university researchers who are a necessary part of our system of scientific checks and balances.

In this specific case, the evaluation of effectiveness of BT corn for rootworm control is critical in helping farmers determine if the extra cost of the GE seed is justified by increased yield due to presence of the BT toxin gene. One reason that BT corn has been adapted at a lower rate (@35%) than herbicide tolerant soybeans (@90%), is that in some regions of the U.S. the pests (European Corn Borer or corn root worm) do not attack corn in sufficiently high numbers to reach the economic threshold that justifies the expense of BT corn.  Research done by land grant university scientists has been essential in determining the economic thresholds for these pests.  This work helps reduce farmer expenses and increases economic return, an important goal of a sustainable ag system.

Science based information is critical to Sustainable Agriculture.

Agricultural scientists (26) from corn producing states have sent a letter to the EPA criticizing GE seed companies for limiting access to seeds for scientific research.  (Pollack, Andrew, NYT, 2/20/09)
All of the scientists have been active participants of the Regional Research Projects NCCC-46 “Development, Optimization, and Delivery of Management Strategies for Corn Rootworms and Other Below-ground Insect Pests of Maize” and/or related projects with corn insect pests.  The comment appears as follows:

“Technology/stewardship agreements required for the purchase of genetically modified seed explicitly prohibit research. These agreements inhibit public scientists from pursuing their mandated role on behalf of the public good, unless the research is approved by industry. As a result of restricted access, no truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions regarding the technology, its performance, its management implications, IRM, and its interactions with insect biology. Consequently, data flowing to an EPA Scientific Advisory Panel from the public sector is unduly limited.”

It appears that the leaders at these seed companies have not yet embraced the idea that the acceptance of GE crops is dependent upon peer-reviewed, scientific research that evaluates effectiveness, safety, or impact on non-target species.  Without access and transparency and evaluation by independent scientists, it becomes impossible to determine the suitability of GE crops for agriculture.  Hopefully, in the light of these comments to the EPA, the companies will develop methods to facilitate access by university researchers who are a necessary part of our system of scientific checks and balances.

In this specific case, the evaluation of effectiveness of BT corn for rootworm control is critical in helping farmers determine if the extra cost of the GE seed is justified by increased yield due to presence of the BT toxin gene. One reason that BT corn has been adapted at a lower rate (@35%) than herbicide tolerant soybeans (@90%), is that in some regions of the U.S. the pests (European Corn Borer or corn root worm) do not attack corn in sufficiently high numbers to reach the economic threshold that justifies the expense of BT corn.  Research done by land grant university scientists has been essential in determining the economic thresholds for these pests.  This work helps reduce farmer expenses and increases economic return, an important goal of a sustainable ag system.

Raoul Adamchak is co-author of Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics and the Future of Food”. He has grown organic crops for twenty years, part of the time as a partner in Full Belly Farm, a private 150-acre organic vegetable farm that provided weekly produce boxes to over five hundred subscribers. Raoul has sold produce at three high-volume farmers’ markets, and to wholesalers and retailers in the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento. He has also spent many hours discussing organic certification issues as a member and president of California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) and Board of Directors and inspected over one hundred organic farms for CCOF. He received a bachelor’s degree in economics from Clark University and also received a master of science degree in International Agricultural Development from the University of California, Davis, where he also studied entomology. He now works at the University of California, Davis Student Farm, where he teaches organic production practices and manages a five-acre market garden.

To meet the growing need to feed the world’s population in an environmentally friendly way will require combining the technologies of genetic engineering and organic farming.

To successfully marry these two technologies we will need to overcome long held animosity between scientists, supporters of organic farming and conventional farmers. We will also need to address the antagonism some feel toward the idea of genetic engineering.

The recent debate on the Big Island over genetically engineered crops pitted organic coffee farmers against researchers and the biotech industry, with some organic farmers voicing concern that genetically engineered crops threaten their livelihood and agricultural philosophy.

However, it appears their concerns about food safety are driven more by technological anxiety than by science. Today, the majority of all processed foods in the United States have at least one ingredient from genetically engineered crops and all scientific panels that have studied this matter have concluded that the GE crops currently grown in the United States are safe to eat.

The National Academy of Sciences and the United Kingdom Genetically Modified Science Review Panel have both concluded that the process of adding genes to our food by genetic engineering is just as safe as conventional plant breeding.

Organic farming techniques have proven results in reducing the use of insecticides, and doing so benefits humans and the environment. The question is whether the technology of organic agriculture is robust enough to meet the growing demand for food around the world.

One way to enhance yields is to develop new varieties of crops that can survive harsh conditions such as drought, cold, heat, salt, and flooding. Many of the world’s poorest people farm in areas that are far from ideal. They face tremendous obstacles with soil quality, access to water, pests, and periodic flooding. Organic farming techniques can offer some solutions, but they still have their limits.

It is estimated that pests and disease can reduce agricultural productivity worldwide by 40 percent. If we reduce this loss it would be equivalent to creating more land and more water. However, current pesticide use is a health and environmental hazard.

One logical approach would have to be combining the techniques of organic farming and genetic engineering. Genetic engineering can be used to develop plants with enhanced resistance to pests and disease; organic farming can manage the overall spectrum of pests more effectively.

Genetically engineered crops have already been proven against pests. For example, in central and southern India, where small-scale farmers typically suffer large losses because of pests, average yields of genetically engineered crops exceeded those of conventional crops by 80 percent.

In Hawaii, the 1998 introduction of an engineered papaya plant that could resist the papaya ringspot virus has long been credited with saving the industry. The availability of GE papaya brought struggling growers back into the papaya business and by 2003, production in the region had rebounded. There was no other technology then, including organic farming techniques, to protect the papaya from this devastating disease, nor is there today.

Genetic engineering also helps achieve other goals of the organic farming movement. By reducing the use of pesticides and by reducing pest and disease, it can make farming more affordable and thus keep family farmers in business. It can also assure local food security, an issue of growing concern here in Hawaii.

Worldwide demand by farmers for improved hybrid corn has also made Hawaii’s expanding seed industry the number one agricultural commodity in the state. According to an economic analysis commissioned by the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, the Hawaii seed industry contributes approximately $144 million of economic activity to Hawaii’s economy. This translates to $7 million in annual taxes to the state, $53 million in annual labor income, and more than 2,000 jobs.

There seems to be a communication gap between organic and conventional farmers, as well as between consumers and scientists. It is time to close that gap. Dialogue is needed if we are to advance along the road to an ecologically balanced, biologically based system of farming.

Science and good farming alone will not be sufficient to provide food security to the healthy, or to the poor and malnourished, or to solve all our current environmental problems. However, without science and good farming we cannot even begin to dream about maintaining such a secure future.

Rather than indulge in speculation and mistrust, let us focus our attention on the facts and to where it matters: the need to support farming methods that are good for the environment and for our children.

The Sub1 rice yielded about 3 fold more in these field trials. In farmers fields in bangladesh, yields are even higher- up to 5 fold. For more information, please see the recent CNN story.

I received quite a few heartwarming emails in response to the CNN story. Here are a couple (names removed to protect privacy):

Dear Prof. Ronald,

I just read the article on “Fighting hunger with flood-tolerant rice” in CNN. I am immensely touched with what you and your students have been working on, and the breakthrough in your research. I am a native of India (born in Calcutta) and I know very well the implication of this research to millions of farmers in SouthEast Asia and more than billion people, whose staple food is rice. Both Bangladesh and India is devasted with monsoon floods, pretty much every other year, many of the farmers only survival is their rice (which not only sustain as their food but also as a cash crop). I am praying that you continue to work in this area; as food scarcity is a global security problem and survival of a civilization. There are too many hungry children in the world, it is for them.

Thank you and wish you more success.

Hello Pam,

I read about your discovery of flood sustaining rice and I must admit, this is the most happiest news I read in my recent memory. There are lots of people dying of starvation every day, and I have read and seen farmers whose families are ruined because of floods. I am very happy today that there are still some scientists in this world, who did not forget the fundamental needs of humans and who actually works for the benefit of mankind, in the true sense of its meaning, and remind the rest of the world what’s being humane. I am not denying progress we make in inventing xbox systems, unmanned bomber aircraft, and missions to mars, but unfortunately, we are forgetting that, we first need to fill stomachs of millions of people and give them shelter. The calamities of flooding they are facing is because of greenhouse effects that we make.

I am an engineer working in Canada for last 9 years, and since I moved to this country from India when I was 23,  I could never understand why some people are starving to death in some parts of the world, and at same time, people in other parts of the world are just ignoring it when they can help. But, today, I am extremely happy, to read this news. You shall remain my inspiration. God bless you and your family with peace and long life.

I am a label reader. If there is an excess of added sugar or too many ingredients with names that I don’t recognize then I don’t buy the product. Not all information, however, is useful.

A few months ago our local food coop began posting red “consumer alert” signs that say, “Conventional foods that contain corn, soy, or canola may be genetically engineered.” I find these signs more annoying than helpful. It is a little bit like the warnings posted on science textbooks in some states that say, “This textbook discusses evolution, a controversial theory which some scientists present as scientific explanation for the origin of living things, such as plants and humans. No one was present when life first appeared on Earth. Therefore, any statement about life’s origins should be considered as theory, not fact”.

Neither statement says anything informative about the state of our food nor the creation of our universe. With no specific hazards associated with GE foods or evolution, how can a consumer use these statements to make a more informed choice about the risk to their health or to their faith in God?

The National Research Council Committee states that attempts to assess food safety based solely on the process are scientifically unjustified. Rather than adding a general label about the process with which a plant variety was developed, it would make more sense to label food so that consumers are informed about what is actually in or on the food. But this, too, is not necessarily helpful. For some people it may be informative to read a label that says, “may contain traces of carbamate pesticides, which at high concentrations are known to cause death of animals” or “may contain trace amounts of purified Bacillus thuringiensis protein, which kill Leptidoptera (a class of insects).” But is it helpful to most consumers who are not familiar with the science?

Here is another example. If we carry forward with labeling the product, then organic produce treated with rotenone, a “natural” pesticide favored by some organic farmers, would need to be labeled with the following, “may contain trace amounts of rotenone–chronic exposure can cause damage to liver and kidney” (Occupational Safety and Health Administration 1998). Organic super sweet corn would require this label: “Carries a genetic mutation induced by radiation mutagenesis, resulting in the presence of a mutant protein.” Organically grown papaya would need to be marked: “may contain vast amounts of papaya ringspot viral RNA and protein”.

These labels are so ominous that it is not likely that many people would feel comfortable eating these organic fruits and vegetables. Still, there is no evidence that any of these food products are hazardous. After all, we have been eating sweet corn and organic papaya safely for years.

It seems to me that if the labeling statement does not help with safety interventions or inform consumer choice, it does not serve the purpose. It only confuses and unnecessarily alarms people.

This is a repost from Tomorrow’s Table.