(digging sounds)
(exciting music)
The survival of our species
has always depended on advances in food and agriculture.
There are 7.3 billion people on the planet.
The world's population is expected
to top nine billion in 2050.
Climate change is gonna scramble
this whole how are we gonna feed the world debate.
This is all about companies
controlling our future.
So, amongst all this conflict and confusion,
how do we make the most informed decisions
about how we feed ourselves?
We are at a pivotal time in the history of this island.
I have a bill before the council
that would restrict the use of GMOs.
The point is that we have an opportunity
to act, to do something.
We would make history on this island.
Let's make this island a model for the rest of the world.
Thank you.
(applause)
I am concerned about some of the health issues
related to GMOs on a number of different levels.
My approach was,
"Hey, we're gonna close the door on this island.
You don't come here until we have more information
of what is safe."
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There's a lot going on on this island.
This is ground zero for the entire world
in terms of experimentation of GMOs and seed production.
This is a really rare opportunity to get shots
of people spraying.
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We, as a society, do so many stupid things.
And I feel like the GMO is a thoughtless, invasive species
that is being brought in here.
If they're safe, great.
Bring your jobs.
You know, the more the merrier.
If you're helping the island.
If you're really feeding people,
then you're more than welcome.
They're not farmers.
They're mad scientists.
With this conflict
over genetically modified organisms,
Hawaii has become ground zero
of a battle for how to feed the world sustainably.
A long day of testimony on
two proposed laws prohibiting genetically modified organisms
on Hawaii Island.
Before voting, the Hawaii County Council
tried to get answers about any safety concerns
related to GMOs.
Okay, I'm calling this meeting back to order.
Have you ever heard of the rainbow papaya?
Oh, yes, I'm very aware of it.
Eating papaya that's genetically engineered
might cause you to get more colds,
more susceptibility to hepatitis or HIV.
And, again, these are completely backed
with peer-reviewed published studies.
We've actually put the population at risk.
Here in Hilo, we have Michael Shintaku
who opposes the bill.
Most of this testimony's very emotional.
Everybody's saying that GMOs are dangerous.
But they're not.
There's not a single credible study.
It's caused by people who are
intentionally making other people scared.
The biggest risks associated with
today's genetically engineered crops,
these so-called Roundup Ready crops,
is this significant increase in pesticide use.
There's remarkable correlations
between the use of glyphosate on GMOs
and the rates of autism in America.
Also of obesity and diabetes and Alzheimer's.
All of these things correlate very, very strongly.
So, I think, eventually, the only solution
that's actually going to work in the long run
is to go organic.
Thank you.
How many scientists are here in the audience?
Please raise your hand.
With degrees.
I just want facts.
True facts.
Without the fear.
Without anything else.
Facts.
And we can make the best decision when we have facts.
I'll yield.
I'm Dennis Gonsalves.
Who actually very proudly developed the rainbow papaya.
If you say you don't wanna use GMOs
because you don't believe in manipulating plants
the way that process does, I respect your beliefs.
But, now, if you say, GMOs are not safe,
I will say now show me the data.
There's absolutely no proof to a health hazard.
Absolutely no proof.
Talk is very cheap.
But we did the research.
And I stand by it.
Thank you.
�
I was a former biology major,
so I have some expertise in this area.
There is no middle ground.
You're either going to be GMO.
Allowing a GMO.
Or you're going to be organic and not allow GMO.
They cannot coexist.
Thank you very much, madam clerk,
on the motion to approve Bill 113 draft three
at second and final reading.
Aye.
No.
Aye.
No.
Aye.
You have six ayes.
Thank you.
(applause)
Bill 113 is adopted.
You know, I said you're not gonna get away with it
if I can help it.
And we stopped it.
Hawaii's ban on genetically modified organisms
and the frightening evidence presented during testimony
made headlines around the world.
It was also hailed as a rallying cry
by the global leaders in the movement against GMOs.
I think your island is truth
speaking to the world.
That GMOs are an extension of pesticides,
not a substitute or alternative.
So, don't tell me Monsanto can't be beat.
They've been beat over and over and over again.
And we can do it again.
Organic isn't the ceiling.
Organic's the floor.
And, above that, we build this new house of food.
You could get your kids sick.
But what if,
while trying to do the right thing,
the council got it wrong?
It's very frustrating to see people
who don't even know what this breeding method is
making choices to avoid it based on information
that's not supported by the scientific literature.
A GMO is an organism that's had
its genetic makeup altered by the insertion
of DNA that's from outside of its normal genetic makeup.
So, what does that really mean?
At its most basic, genetic engineering,
or, as some say, GE, is a modern form of breeding.
Which farmers have done for thousands of years
to select for the most desirable traits
and provide food for a growing population.
In fact, it's hard to call any of our food natural.
Conventional, as well as organic crops,
have all been genetically modified
through selective breeding.
The goal of genetic engineering
is to add useful traits into food.
Traits that currently help
with weed, insect, and disease control in staple crops
that are in billions of meals consumed every day.
In fact, genetic engineering has been
part of our lives for longer than most are aware.
Probably the most familiar is insulin.
Genetically engineered insulin.
It's been very important for
a patient suffering from diabetes.
Biotechnology is kind of used in
almost all cheese making now.
So, if you eat cheese,
you're eating a product of biotechnology.
Scientists are also working
to genetically engineer seeds that
aid humanitarian causes.
Such as vitamin enrichment in crops like golden rice.
Golden rice is rice engineered to have
high levels of beta carotene,
which gets turned into vitamin A.
And it's been proposed, many years ago,
as a solution for vitamin A deficiency
in the developing world.
In addition to helping
millions of children stave off
potentially fatal vitamin deficiencies,
scientists are also developing crops
with a tolerance for drought.
Such as rice, corn, and wheat.
Which could prove essential in the face of climate change.
And disease resistance to save crops
like the Hawaiian papaya from being completely wiped out.
In fact, the farmers who grow this rainbow papaya
convinced the Hawaii council to amend their ban on GMOs.
Papaya industry farmers
flooded the council chamber.
To insinuate GMO is somehow unhealthy is just not true.
Those of us who live on the big island
should be well aware that
agricultural biotechnology has saved the papaya industry
on this island.
It's been reported that
Councilwoman Willie plans to amend the bill further.
And that approach is the way I've done it.
Which is basically to grandfather in,
number one, the papaya as an industry.
It's impractical to just say no at this point.
20 years ago, the big island papaya industry
had been thriving.
Growers were shipping 60 million pounds of papayas a year.
But then insects began spreading
a devastating virus called ringspot
to nearly every papaya tree on the island.
In about three years, the trees were dead.
The industry literally wiped out.
Nothing stopped the spread.
Not physical barriers.
Not pesticides.
No methods, conventional nor organic,
could halt the virus.
As a scientist, when nothing seems to be working,
you have to think of alternative solutions.
And I had this idea.
The idea of vaccinating a plant through genetic engineering.
What we did is we took the hypothesis.
We isolated a gene from the pathogen.
We cloned the gene using recombinant DNA technology.
We used a gene gun to introduce our clone genes
into the cells of the papaya.
And it doesn't work the first two or three times.
So, you have to repeat these experiments.
And it took us seven years of research.
We continue until we're satisfied that
we have the correct sequence.
Now, this is the scientific method.
And you have to verify your results.
Years later, our results were dramatic.
The non-genetic engineered papaya's not growing.
The genetically engineered papaya is growing.
So, we concluded that this genetically engineered papaya
that we had was resistant.
We released seeds to the growers for free.
Essentially, we saved the papaya industry.
That's it.
Today, the industry is thriving.
Exporting rainbow papaya to countries all over the world.
But, as more and more people enjoy
this genetically engineered fruit,
a vocal movement began to rise up
against the very process that saved it.
Here they come.
Genetically engineered tomatoes.
We're creating a whole new species.
One that's never existed on Earth before.
So, some would say you've created a monster.
A frankenfood.
These foods can create new allergens.
They can make a nontoxic food toxic.
They can lower immune response.
They do lower nutrition.
The gap between the public and science
on the safety of GMOs is the largest gap
of any politicized scientific topic.
I have always been careful not to say
this is dangerous food.
And I don't believe the fear mongering has helped.
After 30 years of testing
every GMO product currently on the market
and based on the results of nearly 2,000 experiments,
the foremost scientific institutions in the United States
and around the world have concluded
all criticisms against GMOs can be largely rejected
on strictly scientific criteria.
No adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering
have been documented in the human population.
I looked closely at health.
And then I went into environmental effects.
And I've just kind of ran out of things to worry about.
While each new product
should continue to be assessed on a case by case basis,
scientific consensus tells us
the current GMOs on the market are safe to eat
and safe for the environment.
There's absolutely no proof to a health hazard.
We did the research and I stand by it.
We gotta congratulate Margaret Willie.
We were absolutely outmaneuvered.
Snookered.
Because all the time was given to Jeffrey Smith
and he ranted and raved.
Eating papaya that's genetically engineered
might cause you to get more colds,
more susceptibility to hepatitis or HIV.
Do you consider yourself a scientist?
I'm not a scientist.
Are you a doctor?
I'm not a doctor.
People refer to me as doctor all the time
because they get it wrong.
I don't call myself a doctor.
I don't call myself a scientist.
And I use my non-scientist to an advantage.
Because I get to ask a lot of dumb questions
and hear more and more people's assumptions.
And then I can record them.
The general nature of these people.
They probably all vote Democrat like me.
They're kind of left leaning like me.
They probably think global warming's a problem
we should take care of like me.
They probably agree with me on most things.
And that is another reason
why this battle over GMOs is so complicated and confusing.
Both sides seem to be fighting
for the same worthwhile goals.
Safe, abundant, nutritious food for all.
Three generations against GMO.
Excellent.
Fewer toxic chemicals used
on farms around the world.
And a more sustainable food system.
These are the victors.
In 100 years, when they look back and say,
"How did we save the planet?"
There you go.
(applause)
But there are real world consequences
to acting against scientific consensus
that can be felt far beyond the shores of Hawaii.
The fears and decisions about GMOs in Hawaii
reach all the way to Uganda in East Africa.
Where bananas, similar to the Hawaiian papaya,
are threatened to be wiped out by a terrible disease.
Most bananas in this region are now faced
with the worst bacterial disease so far.
Known as bananas xanthomonas wilt.
The disease has had
a devastating impact on banana cultivation.
Forcing some farmers to abandon their crop.
Currently, nearly half
of all banana plants in Uganda
have been wiped out by banana wilt.
Threatening the food security of 14 million Ugandans.
More than a third of the population.
My name is Emma Naluyima Mugerwa.
I practice integrated organic farming.
I also teach farmers how to do the same.
Right now, banana wilt is not affecting me.
But it has affected many people.
Banana bacterial wilt can spread
from one farm to another at any time.
That's why I teach these farmers.
My idea you have to get against it.
Don't let people come into your garden.
Don't share tools.
Like, you see, that is a tool rack.
All the tools that we use in this garden,
we never use them anywhere else.
If you must, you disinfect.
All these are preventative measures.
They're not really curative measures.
She could not get food for herself or for her family.
So, she's devastated.
Once someone has seen you have to just
cut down banana and wait for maybe six months to a year
for it to get out of the garden.
I call it the Ebola of the banana.
It comes and wipes away the whole plantation.
To fight the devastation of banana wilt,
scientists in Uganda and Kenya
are working on a genetically engineered fix
similar to what was done in Hawaii with papaya.
Except their work is done behind a locked gate
and is currently prohibited
from being released to the public.
Hi, I'm Leena Tripathi.
I'm leading the transgenic research in IITA.
And my focus is on disease and pest resistance.
So, we find out that there are
some resistant genes in sweet pepper.
These are the genes we are using
to transfer resistance from sweet pepper to banana.
This message is brought to you by Action Aid Uganda.
Did you know that genetically modified organisms
pose health risks such as cancer, infertility, et cetera?
I read about risks getting cancer due to GMOs.
Definitely did scare me.
Even in Africa, fear of GMOs is being fueled
by a discredited study on tumor-prone rats.
Here's a picture of some of these rats.
So, Jeffrey, how can it be
this information is being ignored?
They've got bad science down to a science.
How many people have seen pictures of the rats?
It's not enough.
You've got to see these tumors.
A study by Gilles-Eric Seralini showing rats fed GMOs.
Enormous effects on people.
This one image was really responsible
for the GM import ban here in Kenya.
Make reference to the Seralini report.
The Seralini, the infamous Seralini study.
So, this is study where a scientist.
So, I have rats that have cancer.
Yeah, he had a press conference.
But he demanded that no scientist be there
to question his results.
If you look closely at the study,
Seralini used a strain of rat that
are prone to develop tumors no matter what they eat.
The conclusions that were drawn
could not be warranted by the data that was obtained.
From everything I've read,
there are serious issues with the Seralini study.
I've talked to people I respect
who look at the science and say,
statistically, this actually doesn't hold up.
And the paper was retracted.
Every scientist around the world who looked at it
said that the data was inadequate.
Even though Seralini's paper was retracted,
the effect of publishing that original paper
still lingers and lingers and lingers.
And it's gonna take a long time to go away.
From oil companies denying climate change,
tobacco scientists saying cigarettes are safe,
to the pharmaceutical industry
sometimes overcharging us for drugs we don't need,
corporate greed and bias have broken the public's trust.
People won't take what scientists say on trust.
What governments say on trust.
We all think that there's some kind of corporate influence.
That the Monsantos are the ones
who are really running the show.
And there's good reasons why
people don't trust corporations to run things.
♪ Monsanto is the devil ♪
♪ And pretends he's a scientist ♪
Monsanto's the devil.
♪ And past we need for this predator ♪
♪ Evolution with a kiss ♪
♪ Monsanto is the devil ♪
♪ And the devil must be slain ♪
♪ Devil Monsanto listen up ♪
Monsanto is one of
the most hated companies in the world.
How did that happen?
In their early history as a chemical company,
they manufactured several products that
turned out to have unintended health
and environmental consequences.
To combat malaria-transmitting mosquitoes
during World War II,
Monsanto and other companies manufactured DDT,
which helped save millions of lives.
But, as environmental author Rachel Carson pointed out
in her landmark book Silent Spring,
there were hidden dangers with the toxicity
and overuse of DDT and other chemicals.
Monsanto was also one of nine companies
commissioned by the US military
to make Agent Orange to help clear away the jungle
during the Vietnam War.
But it contaminated soil and water
and was linked to a variety of birth defects.
With the public rightly questioning
the overuse of toxic chemicals in farming,