GMOs - from 'Frankenfoods' to Superfoods?
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 2 August 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Since they first appeared in the nineties, GMOs have remained wildly unpopular with consumers, who see them as potentially sinister tools of big agricultural companies. Ivana Davidovic explores if the new scientific developments might make them shed their bad image.
She visits Norwich in the east of England where professor Cathie Martin has been developing genetically modified tomatoes for decades. One purple variety - unusually high in antioxidants - has shown high cancer-fighting properties in mice and is expected to be approved for sale directly to consumers in the US later this year.
Alex Smith's Alara Wholefoods based in London was licensed by the Soil Association back in 1988 to produce the first Organic certified cereal in the world. He explains why he changed from anti-GMO campaigner to someone who believes this technology could help with the worst effects of climate change.
Rose Gidado, the Assistant Director at the National Biotechnology Development Agency in Nigeria, explains why the country approved the world's first GM cowpea - also known as black-eyed pea - and why gene editing and genetically modifying staple crops could help combat malnutrition.
Marta Messa from the Slow Food movement is particularly concerned about the implications of intellectual property rights behind some of the genetically engineered produce.
And professor Fred Gould, who chaired a large study into safety of GMOs for the National Academy of Sciences in the US, warns that this technology is not a silver bullet for solving all of our environmental and health problems.
PHOTO: Genetically modified tomato created by professor Cathie Martin at the John Innes Centre/Ivana Davidovic/BBC
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily with me, Ivana Davidovich. |
| 0:04.8 | In today's program, we'll look at the scientific progress made in the world of genetically modified organisms or GMOs. |
| 0:11.8 | Once derided as Franken Foods, are they becoming the new superfoods? |
| 0:15.8 | This one's a special tomato because in this one, we've engineered the production of L-Dopa, a chemical which is converted in our bodies to dopamine. |
| 0:25.1 | And it's a deficiency of dopamine that underpins Parkinson's disease. |
| 0:29.9 | Since they first appeared in the 90s, GMOs have remained wildly unpopular with consumers who see them as potentially sinister tools of big agricultural companies. |
| 0:39.4 | But can the coronavirus pandemic actually help these food staff become more accepted? |
| 0:43.9 | The vaccines that have been developed are using very similar sorts of technologies. |
| 0:49.5 | Linking that to food development is certainly one way that this technology could seek to gain greater |
| 0:57.1 | acceptance. That's all coming up in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:05.8 | Hello, hi. Are you Kathy? Oh, very nice to meet you. How are you? |
| 1:10.6 | Okay, cheers. I will do that. |
| 1:12.6 | We have a cat. I've travelled to the city of Norwich in England to meet with plant biologist and university professor Cathy Martin at the John Innis Center where she works. |
| 1:21.9 | I've also had the pleasure of meeting the office pet. |
| 1:24.6 | Is it here, are she? I imagine he's not very impressed with tomatoes. |
| 1:28.3 | Not at all. |
| 1:29.3 | Kathy spent decades researching how fortifying crops can improve diet and fight diseases globally. |
| 1:35.3 | After 13 years, she's at the cusp of getting her genetically modified purple tomato approved in the US for sale directly to consumers, |
| 1:43.3 | which would make them one of only a handful of fruits and vegetables to achieve that status. |
| 1:48.3 | So we're here in a greenhouse, full of very special tomatoes. |
| 1:53.2 | Here we have what we call purple tomatoes, and these were the first ones that we produced. |
| 1:59.8 | Very dark. They're almost kind of purple brown, really. |
... |
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