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Mythbusting the Food Industry | UK Column Interviews · UK Column Radio

0:08
Speaker 1: Hello.
0:08
Speaker 2: I'm Charles Mannett with the UK Column Interview and today
0:11
Speaker 2: I have with me Pat Thomas, who is the director
0:13
Speaker 2: of Beyond GM. Now, Pat, you came and joined us
0:17
Speaker 2: on the UK Column news program recently. Welcome back to
0:21
Speaker 2: UK Column. Thanks for joining me, Thank.
0:22
Speaker 3: You for having me. It's great to be here.
0:25
Speaker 1: Not at all now.
0:25
Speaker 2: The reason, as I say, that you came on the
0:27
Speaker 2: news was to talk about a successful action you'd taken
0:30
Speaker 2: to the High Court, and that is something that we
0:33
Speaker 2: will absolutely discuss. But before we get there, just tell
0:37
Speaker 2: me tell the audience a bit about Beyond GM. What
0:40
Speaker 2: is beyond GM and why does it matter.
0:44
Speaker 3: We are a very small civil society organization who've been
0:48
Speaker 3: working now for about twelve years on ensuring that public
0:53
Speaker 3: views around genetic modification in food and farming and the
0:58
Speaker 3: wider environment are heard and legitimized by the government. And
1:03
Speaker 3: that's a pretty big ask at the moment. I think
1:06
Speaker 3: most environmental campaigners will tell you that what people think
1:09
Speaker 3: doesn't actually really matter anymore in terms of the government
1:12
Speaker 3: trajectory for food and farming. So and we took on
1:16
Speaker 3: this fight, I suppose because we felt very strongly that
1:20
Speaker 3: the regulatory direction was being based on unreliable data, lack
1:27
Speaker 3: of meaningful public consultation, no regard for sound regulatory practice,
1:34
Speaker 3: and without an adequate inquiry into the economic impacts of
1:39
Speaker 3: a really profound legislative change that effectively hides genetically modified,
1:45
Speaker 3: precision bred organisms within the food system.
1:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's actually a critical point.
1:50
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't mean seem every cynical, but your
1:53
Speaker 2: description there could really have applied to so many things
1:56
Speaker 2: that government does all indeed perhaps doesn't deal Just on
2:01
Speaker 2: a personal note, how is it you yourself have become
2:04
Speaker 2: involved with this?
2:05
Speaker 1: What drove you this way?
2:08
Speaker 3: So I have an experiences as an investigative journalist in
2:13
Speaker 3: the sort of nexus of health and environment and food,
2:19
Speaker 3: and eventually that led me to an interest in this
2:22
Speaker 3: discussion around genetic technologies because contained within that discussion are
2:27
Speaker 3: a lot of other really important discussions about our relationship
2:31
Speaker 3: with the land, for instance, you know how that's changing
2:34
Speaker 3: as we begin to see technological solutions as the only
2:38
Speaker 3: inevitable solutions to our problems. And it's also a discussion
2:43
Speaker 3: that's relevant to the way government is looking at other
2:46
Speaker 3: types of technologies at the moment. It's a way of understanding,
2:49
Speaker 3: for instance, AI and digital platforms and facial recognition software
2:55
Speaker 3: and all the things that seem to be coming on
2:57
Speaker 3: stream very quickly without any real underst standing of what
3:00
Speaker 3: the public thinks about them.
3:03
Speaker 2: Okay, And I think that's critical. I think there is
3:05
Speaker 2: a danger with so many of these things to dismiss
3:08
Speaker 2: at a stroke the entire enterprise in so far as
3:12
Speaker 2: any technological improvement or supposed improvement progress change is concerned.
3:18
Speaker 2: And I would like to get into that a little bit.
3:21
Speaker 2: But in order to do so, let's just go back
3:24
Speaker 2: to whichever point you consider necessary and so far as
3:29
Speaker 2: presenting a case for there being a supposed necessity to
3:33
Speaker 2: go down the gene editing genetic qualification route.
3:38
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I think in order to understand how we
3:41
Speaker 3: got here, you've got to go further back than most
3:45
Speaker 3: conversations ever do about it, not just to what's happening
3:48
Speaker 3: into the lab, but to the land and to the
3:51
Speaker 3: way our relationship to the land and all the life
3:54
Speaker 3: that that support has changed. We've had decades of industrializedation
4:00
Speaker 3: and chemicalization which have left our soil depleted, our biodiversity collapsing,
4:07
Speaker 3: Our ecosystems are running on artificial inputs to such a
4:11
Speaker 3: degree now that they can no longer support themselves. And
4:14
Speaker 3: what should really, I think be troubling us is that
4:17
Speaker 3: the damage caused by this industrial system is now being
4:20
Speaker 3: used as a unique selling point for what's being called
4:24
Speaker 3: the fourth Industrial Revolution. We have broken the ecological system
4:29
Speaker 3: really badly enough that gene editing, genetic engineering, whatever you
4:33
Speaker 3: choose to call it, we can talk about the names
4:35
Speaker 3: in a bit, which is a really controversial industrial technology
4:40
Speaker 3: can be sold as a necessity and an inevitability rather
4:44
Speaker 3: than a choice.
4:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, that's a cristical point. I think.
4:48
Speaker 2: The other thing, just to push it a bit further,
4:50
Speaker 2: because the trouble is that there has been a great
4:54
Speaker 2: hijacking of the language around environmentalism, and everything has been
5:00
Speaker 2: pushed into a category labeled climate change, and people have
5:05
Speaker 2: been completely forbidden really from examining not just what has
5:11
Speaker 2: happened in the way that you describe it, the chemicalization
5:13
Speaker 2: and the industrialization, but also people have not really been
5:17
Speaker 2: permitted to examine the consequences for themselves. It's all very
5:20
Speaker 2: well saying oh, the land is damage. For most people,
5:22
Speaker 2: that doesn't really mean anything. They're not seeing how that
5:24
Speaker 2: directly affects them and their health. And I think that's
5:28
Speaker 2: another critical part that's missing from this is that, well,
5:31
Speaker 2: actually really talking about is the food or so called
5:34
Speaker 2: food that we're eating now, what I mean, just tell
5:37
Speaker 2: me a bit more about that aspect of it.
5:40
Speaker 3: Well, let me give you a little history first, so
5:44
Speaker 3: one of the interesting things, and we'll talk, as you say,
5:46
Speaker 3: about the judgment later. But this is a really current
5:50
Speaker 3: food story that almost nobody is talking about, not the
5:53
Speaker 3: big environmental groups, not the food campaign as, not the
5:56
Speaker 3: farming unions. And this has been the case for many,
5:58
Speaker 3: many years now.
6:00
Speaker 4: Of course, the.
6:00
Speaker 3: Mainstream media isn't talking about it either, and that is
6:03
Speaker 3: because over the years, these kind of techno solutions, which
6:06
Speaker 3: include genetic engineering, have been relegated to a kind of
6:10
Speaker 3: niche technical issue. It's a side debate for nerds and specialists,
6:17
Speaker 3: and it's disconnected from these big sexy questions of climate
6:21
Speaker 3: and biodiversity and public health. And that means it's never
6:24
Speaker 3: talked about in the context of these things, and so
6:28
Speaker 3: people don't have a sense of how quickly the technology
6:31
Speaker 3: is developing, and they don't have a sense of how
6:34
Speaker 3: far it is spreading and when you when you disconnect
6:41
Speaker 3: it from the system, you're losing a big chunk of
6:44
Speaker 3: what's actually stopping us from making progress on agricultural and
6:50
Speaker 3: environmental issues. And you rightly picked up the language question,
6:54
Speaker 3: which is really important for genetic engineering. So genetic engineering
7:00
Speaker 3: has gone through a number of language changes in the years.
7:05
Speaker 3: It's been called genetic engineering, genetic modification, gene editing in
7:10
Speaker 3: the UK, it's precision breeding in the Europe. Its new
7:15
Speaker 3: genomic techniques. Scientists are starting to call it synthetic plants
7:20
Speaker 3: now and in a few years time the government wants
7:22
Speaker 3: to bring it all under an umbrella of engineering biology. Right,
7:26
Speaker 3: so every time there's a new name, there's a reset
7:30
Speaker 3: from zero, and the public has to learn again what
7:33
Speaker 3: everybody's talking about and why it's important. And I've really
7:37
Speaker 3: come to the conclusion now that that's deliberate. It's not
7:40
Speaker 3: just a natural evolution. It's a way of putting off
7:43
Speaker 3: incredibly important questions about how these techno solutions work, how
7:49
Speaker 3: they're going to be regulated, who gets to make decisions
7:52
Speaker 3: around them. And of course also this language marks a
7:56
Speaker 3: really profound shift in our relationship with nature as well.
8:01
Speaker 3: I think personally, really big questions not just whether we
8:04
Speaker 3: can design plants, but what kind of relationship with nature
8:09
Speaker 3: is implied when we design technological solutions and make that
8:14
Speaker 3: the dominant practice rather than selection and adaption.
8:19
Speaker 1: Okay, well, that brings us to a really critical juncture.
8:23
Speaker 2: First of all, I would go back and say that
8:26
Speaker 2: I think you are squarely striking the nail on the
8:29
Speaker 2: head when you talk about language specifically designed to obscure
8:34
Speaker 2: what it was that was there.
8:35
Speaker 1: Before or what people thought they already knew.
8:38
Speaker 2: And I think we see that across the board with
8:40
Speaker 2: so many different things now. So that is that is
8:42
Speaker 2: absolutely an observable pattern. But just to go back with,
8:46
Speaker 2: you know, let's say adaptation. I mean, as far as
8:49
Speaker 2: we're aware, for as long as we can look back,
8:52
Speaker 2: people have been in a way attempting to tinker with
8:55
Speaker 2: nature through either cross breeding or cross pollinating or some
8:59
Speaker 2: form of hybridization. What is it that distinguishes anything that
9:04
Speaker 2: I suppose now could be regarded as traditional to the
9:09
Speaker 2: technological advancement that we're discussing here.
9:13
Speaker 3: Sure, so it's absolutely true that we have selected and
9:17
Speaker 3: crossed and adapted plants for thousands of years, but that process,
9:22
Speaker 3: which is usually referred to as traditional breeding is very
9:26
Speaker 3: different from genetic modification. A traditionally bred plant is the
9:30
Speaker 3: product of an ongoing relationship between genetics, environment, farmers, breeders,
9:38
Speaker 3: and of course external evolutionary pressures and processes. A synthetic
9:43
Speaker 3: plant or a genetically engineered plant is conceived and designed
9:47
Speaker 3: as a kind of self contained biological platform. It's not
9:50
Speaker 3: intended to work with all the various influences that are
9:54
Speaker 3: out there. It's simply intended to produce a single trait
9:57
Speaker 3: for a single purpose. And I think the words that itself,
10:01
Speaker 3: which is increasingly being applied to these precision bread organisms,
10:05
Speaker 3: suggest that we're moving beyond breeding and selection into this
10:10
Speaker 3: kind of technosphere of determining what kind of plants should
10:16
Speaker 3: be allowed to exist and what kind of plants should
10:18
Speaker 3: not be allowed to exist.
10:21
Speaker 2: Yes, and there are two things that I would like
10:24
Speaker 2: to draw out of that, in fact, partly born of
10:28
Speaker 2: an experience I had at the ground Swell Agricultural event
10:32
Speaker 2: last year, which has become a hotbed of presenting a
10:37
Speaker 2: lot of ideas as one thing and actually offering them
10:42
Speaker 2: up as a sort of plate from which corporations may
10:47
Speaker 2: swoop down and devour what's there. But there was a
10:51
Speaker 2: debate after a talk about exactly this issue, and one
10:55
Speaker 2: of the questions raised was, but look, if you're going
10:58
Speaker 2: to do this at this speed, because the argument put
11:02
Speaker 2: forward with regard to precision breeding and why it's okay
11:06
Speaker 2: is it's stated by certainly the British administration that the
11:12
Speaker 2: point that's arrived at could have been done naturally. You're
11:14
Speaker 2: just condensing the time period. So the question to the
11:17
Speaker 2: panel was, yes, okay, even if you do accept that
11:20
Speaker 2: that's the case, what about the shock to the ecosystem,
11:25
Speaker 2: because of course it also has to adapt in a
11:28
Speaker 2: very short space of time, as indeed does the human
11:31
Speaker 2: that's going to be consuming this. They haven't had that
11:34
Speaker 2: period of time to adapt, and this seemed to be
11:38
Speaker 2: a completely missing component which actually wasn't really even understood
11:43
Speaker 2: by the panel, whether deliberately or not. So that seemed
11:47
Speaker 2: to be a big part of it. I mean, do
11:50
Speaker 2: you see that there has been any regard given for
11:54
Speaker 2: apparently ignoring completely that element of it.
11:59
Speaker 3: I think from the search establishment's point of view, no,
12:02
Speaker 3: there isn't really much regard given to it. Because what
12:05
Speaker 3: the scientists are looking at is what is possible? Can
12:07
Speaker 3: we take this plant and create this trait, or block
12:12
Speaker 3: this trait, or you know, make it produce something that
12:15
Speaker 3: it wouldn't ordinarily produce. And that's about as far as
12:18
Speaker 3: the consideration go. But I also want to make a
12:21
Speaker 3: point about what scientists say publicly versus what they know privately. So,
12:27
Speaker 3: for instance, at the very beginning of this process of
12:29
Speaker 3: deregulation in the UK, we're going back five or six
12:32
Speaker 3: years now, there was a large public consultation and we
12:37
Speaker 3: did a review of all the publicly available responses to that,
12:42
Speaker 3: and the one thing, really, the single thing that both
12:46
Speaker 3: sides agreed on was that this definition of could have
12:49
Speaker 3: occurred naturally was a non starter. Even the people who
12:53
Speaker 3: believed that we should deregulate this process said that it
12:56
Speaker 3: was opening up questions that had no rely once answers,
13:00
Speaker 3: that it was opening up the government to legal action
13:04
Speaker 3: that it simply could not be defended. And how the
13:10
Speaker 3: government has dealt with that in the current regulations is
13:13
Speaker 3: to require no proof that these these plants could have
13:17
Speaker 3: occurred naturally. So if I were a scientist and I
13:20
Speaker 3: wanted to get my precision bred GMO plant onto the market,
13:25
Speaker 3: all I have to do is basically make an argument
13:28
Speaker 3: that says, well, you know, nature's very diverse, and this
13:30
Speaker 3: could have occurred naturally. So yeah, it's it's equivalent to
13:35
Speaker 3: a natural product. And that is literally all that they require.
13:38
Speaker 3: There's no precedent required, and it's going to be a
13:42
Speaker 3: real problem, if I may, It's going to be a
13:45
Speaker 3: real problem when it comes to defending the patents that
13:49
Speaker 3: exist on these organisms, because in order to obtain a patent,
13:52
Speaker 3: you have to prove that it could not have occurred naturally.
13:55
Speaker 3: So they're talking out of both sides of their faces.
13:57
Speaker 3: On the one hand, it's completely natural. On the other hand,
13:59
Speaker 3: it couldn't possibly be natural. It's the result of human ingenuity.
14:06
Speaker 2: That is an incredible contradiction, although I think anyone following
14:09
Speaker 2: conversation so far probably won't be terribly surprised by it.
14:12
Speaker 2: But actually what that does introduce is the other element,
14:16
Speaker 2: which of course you've already touched on, in so far
14:18
Speaker 2: as the science is quite clearly compromised, and so is
14:21
Speaker 2: the messaging, and one has to ask why and who
14:24
Speaker 2: does that benefit in so far as what is the
14:26
Speaker 2: application of this, And of course the application is for
14:31
Speaker 2: large organizations to make huge amounts of money, but making
14:34
Speaker 2: money specifically, one might say through the element of control
14:38
Speaker 2: that can be inserted about this, because I think I'm
14:40
Speaker 2: right in saying, particularly with the production of seeds, that
14:43
Speaker 2: it's possible to in effect completely change the way in
14:46
Speaker 2: which people farn't because they're no longer able to create
14:48
Speaker 2: their own seed. It would be you're pushing people into
14:50
Speaker 2: a situation where every year, regardless of how they want
14:54
Speaker 2: to conduct their practices, they have to buy the new
14:57
Speaker 2: seed because the previous version will not yield reproductive seeds.
15:04
Speaker 1: Is that am I on the right track?
15:07
Speaker 4: You're certainly on the right track. With the GMOs created
15:11
Speaker 4: with older.
15:11
Speaker 3: Style genetic modification, older techniques. What the developers are now
15:17
Speaker 3: saying about whether people can save seed is not really clear.
15:21
Speaker 3: There are really fuzzy boundaries around gene editing. Now. My
15:25
Speaker 3: suspicion is that that conversation has been buried in order
15:29
Speaker 3: to put to get these plants, if you like, within
15:33
Speaker 3: the system, within the farming system and within the food system.
15:37
Speaker 3: If they are patented seeds, you absolutely will not be
15:40
Speaker 3: able to save them. You will have to keep planting
15:43
Speaker 3: anew every year. And one of our arguments is if
15:48
Speaker 3: they are precision bread seeds, they should be kept separate
15:51
Speaker 3: from other types of seeds, because what happens when you
15:53
Speaker 3: start mixing is you never know what's going to be
15:56
Speaker 3: in your field anymore. So there are certainly patent issues,
16:02
Speaker 3: particularly for breeders, by the way, because we now have
16:05
Speaker 3: a situation where let's say I'm a conventional breeder and
16:08
Speaker 3: I want to create a plant with a particular trait,
16:11
Speaker 3: but the GMO breeder over here also wants to create
16:15
Speaker 3: a plant with that particular trait. How do we tell
16:18
Speaker 3: them apart and who owns it? And whilst they've been
16:23
Speaker 3: looking at this in Europe, we've completely stalled this conversation
16:27
Speaker 3: here in the UK.
16:31
Speaker 1: That's another very good point.
16:32
Speaker 2: And I think for anyone who looks up the supposed
16:35
Speaker 2: control med measures when there are trials being undertaken in fields,
16:39
Speaker 2: particularly with the growing of plants, I mean.
16:41
Speaker 1: They're laughable.
16:43
Speaker 2: The suggestion that there is no way that an organism
16:47
Speaker 2: in that field could migrate to somewhere else and absolutely
16:51
Speaker 2: you would never know. I mean, the condition set up
16:54
Speaker 2: are ridiculous. Now, another thing to get to, which relates
16:58
Speaker 2: exactly to this, and I know is part of the
17:00
Speaker 2: court case, is how this affects organic farming. Just go
17:07
Speaker 2: through why this is such a threat to what it
17:10
Speaker 2: is that organic farmers want to do.
17:14
Speaker 3: Sure, and I have to say that our organic organizations
17:17
Speaker 3: in this country have really been pushing this point about
17:21
Speaker 3: how these two kinds of very different crops can exist
17:25
Speaker 3: side by side, what's called coexistence, and this was another
17:28
Speaker 3: thing that the government refused to look at. The Presence
17:32
Speaker 3: of precision bred GMOs in the food system is a
17:36
Speaker 3: particular threat to organic operators because organic operators must by
17:42
Speaker 3: law avoid all GMOs. A lot of people don't know
17:47
Speaker 3: that organic has its own set of regulations in this
17:50
Speaker 3: country and it must adhere to that. And by taking
17:56
Speaker 3: away all the traceability and labeling tools that an organic farmer,
18:01
Speaker 3: for instance, might rely on for GMOs, and that is
18:04
Speaker 3: traceability that goes end to end, from farm to fork
18:07
Speaker 3: at every stage, an organic operator should be able to
18:10
Speaker 3: identify whether there are GMOs in the supply chain. That
18:13
Speaker 3: doesn't exist with these new GMOs, and so it makes
18:16
Speaker 3: it very difficult to meet the standards of certification for organic.
18:21
Speaker 3: And there's going to come a point when an organic
18:24
Speaker 3: operator can't prove whether something has a PBO in it,
18:29
Speaker 3: and could for instance, have their certification suspended or something
18:33
Speaker 3: like that, and that's their livelihood being affected. So this
18:37
Speaker 3: is a really important issue to figure out how without
18:41
Speaker 3: the tools that they normally have, organic operators can maintain
18:45
Speaker 3: a GMO free supply chain. And at the moment, you know,
18:49
Speaker 3: this is a question that everybody's trying to answer and
18:52
Speaker 3: the government has failed to answer.
18:55
Speaker 2: Okay, well let's get to that, because well, sorry, first
18:58
Speaker 2: of all, just qualify pp is precision bread organism. I'm
19:01
Speaker 2: not sure that we'd stated that till now, but I
19:06
Speaker 2: think anyone listening who either does or or doesn't have
19:09
Speaker 2: any previous knowledge of this area must recognize from what
19:12
Speaker 2: you've just explained that the whole situation is a terrible mess.
19:16
Speaker 2: It would seem also an intentional mess in order that
19:20
Speaker 2: such and such an outcome can be derived from it.
19:24
Speaker 2: But with that being the case, obviously the one thing
19:29
Speaker 2: that we that we must talk about is getting a
19:33
Speaker 2: mechanism or setting up a mechanism by which you can
19:36
Speaker 2: challenge the government. Now you have done that, but before
19:41
Speaker 2: we get into the specifics of it, what was the problem?
19:45
Speaker 2: What was the problem that you had identified that you
19:48
Speaker 2: could actually effectively formulate an attack against.
19:55
Speaker 3: One of the first things, well, let me let me
19:57
Speaker 3: step back. Sorry for people who don't know, a judicial
20:01
Speaker 3: reviews where you take the government to court to challenge
20:04
Speaker 3: a regulatory choice that's been made, and we have been
20:09
Speaker 3: It's often considered a remedy of last resort because it's
20:13
Speaker 3: something that you do when you've exhausted every other avenue
20:16
Speaker 3: of inquiry, when your negotiations have collapsed, and yet you
20:20
Speaker 3: still believe that the government has done something potentially unlawful.
20:24
Speaker 3: And one of the points that we've been trying to
20:25
Speaker 3: make to government for the last five years is that
20:32
Speaker 3: it has the power to enact traceability and labeling. The
20:37
Speaker 3: Parent Act, if you like, the Genetic Technology Act, which
20:41
Speaker 3: came into force in twenty twenty three, makes that very clear.
20:44
Speaker 3: But as stakeholders, in stakeholder meetings, we were continually told
20:50
Speaker 3: not just by DEFRA, the Department of Environment, but also
20:53
Speaker 3: by the Food Standards Agency that labeling was out of scope.
20:57
Speaker 3: There was no provision for labeling. We couldn't have labeling.
21:00
Speaker 3: We're not going to talk about labeling. We've had five
21:03
Speaker 3: years of this, and anybody who's ever read the actual
21:07
Speaker 3: Act and the regulations that sprung from it knows that
21:10
Speaker 3: it's nonsense. What we didn't know until we took on
21:12
Speaker 3: the judicial review is that the government advisers were spinning
21:16
Speaker 3: the same story to the Farming Minister. And the interesting
21:20
Speaker 3: thing about that is that the Farming Minister did ask
21:23
Speaker 3: repeatedly about adding labeling provisions to the regulations and acknowledging
21:30
Speaker 3: that in his view, you know, there was a consumer
21:33
Speaker 3: right to know and the public's increasing appetite for information
21:37
Speaker 3: about their food. But he was told repeatedly that he
21:41
Speaker 3: did not have the power to bring those provisions into
21:45
Speaker 3: the regulations. And on that basis, the court decided that
21:49
Speaker 3: the regulations decided that had he had that information, he
21:55
Speaker 3: would have made other inquiries and he might well have
21:58
Speaker 3: made entirely different decisions about the shape of the regulations.
22:03
Speaker 3: So having made the regulations on the basis of not
22:08
Speaker 3: enough information, the court decided that the regulations were made unlawfully.
22:12
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I mean, you make it sound so simple,
22:15
Speaker 2: So I think we'll go into a little bit more
22:17
Speaker 2: detail just before we do. What you know, talking about
22:20
Speaker 2: deb Brah and the Food Standards Agency joining up and
22:24
Speaker 2: saying there is.
22:25
Speaker 1: To be no labeling.
22:27
Speaker 2: What's your view on why that was said, or indeed,
22:31
Speaker 2: what was the court's view and are they are they
22:34
Speaker 2: two different things?
22:35
Speaker 3: I think there's a couple of answers to that. I
22:38
Speaker 3: suppose the first answer is that these regulations weren't just
22:43
Speaker 3: written by government. They were written by vested interest researchers
22:50
Speaker 3: who felt that they must that there was an urgent
22:53
Speaker 3: need to get their products onto the marketplace, and they
22:55
Speaker 3: did a very good job of convincing the government that
22:58
Speaker 3: this was the only thing that was going to tackle
23:02
Speaker 3: the problems that agriculture causes our environment and our health.
23:08
Speaker 3: And the government kind of went with this because part
23:11
Speaker 3: of the argument was that genetic technologies are a new
23:16
Speaker 3: growth area. And in fact, this is really important for
23:21
Speaker 3: anybody who's interested in food and farming an environment, because
23:24
Speaker 3: you know, the government produces all sorts of reports and
23:27
Speaker 3: recommendations around these things, and they never get anywhere. And
23:31
Speaker 3: the reason they don't get anywhere is because our food
23:35
Speaker 3: and environment is now policy is now being directed by
23:38
Speaker 3: what the government calls the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is
23:43
Speaker 3: genetic technologies and digital technologies, and these are seen as
23:47
Speaker 3: growth markets. And once the government got the bit between
23:50
Speaker 3: its teeth about genetic engineering, being a growth market. There
23:55
Speaker 3: was really no stopping it because the developers were arguing
24:01
Speaker 3: that if we label them, people won't buy them, and
24:04
Speaker 3: then we won't be able to have a growth market.
24:07
Speaker 3: And of course this works right against the sort of
24:09
Speaker 3: free market principles of let the market decide. You need
24:12
Speaker 3: to know what you're buying before you decide whether you
24:14
Speaker 3: want to.
24:14
Speaker 4: Buy it or not.
24:16
Speaker 3: So although that wasn't part of our case, it was
24:19
Speaker 3: certainly part of the government's desire to deregulate, and the
24:25
Speaker 3: judge did note this by the way in his judgment
24:28
Speaker 3: that they were the government was focusing on commercial interests
24:32
Speaker 3: to the exclusion of the interests of the public.
24:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean apparently very obviously.
24:39
Speaker 2: Just explain because in fact, this is something I've talked
24:41
Speaker 2: about on UK column news a lot, the idea of
24:44
Speaker 2: their being vested interest. But I think specifically the way,
24:47
Speaker 2: one of the very obvious ways in which I've looked
24:49
Speaker 2: at it is through supposed sort of pharmaceutical products for livestock,
24:54
Speaker 2: and you look at who funds the search and the
24:57
Speaker 2: development side, I need to see that they're exactly the
25:01
Speaker 2: same people who are paying for the drugs themselves. I mean,
25:06
Speaker 2: the whole thing is a closed shop with precision breeding,
25:11
Speaker 2: gene editing, whatever we're calling it. How does that work?
25:15
Speaker 2: How exactly does the network express itself in so far
25:21
Speaker 2: as best it interests are concerned, And are there any
25:23
Speaker 2: significant players that we should be aware of?
25:26
Speaker 3: Well, it works differently in different countries, and the UK
25:30
Speaker 3: is really unique in that most of our research is
25:33
Speaker 3: done through universities and research fatist facilities that are publicly funded.
25:40
Speaker 3: So the great irony here is that although the British
25:43
Speaker 3: public generally really doesn't want genetically engineered food, taxpayer money
25:49
Speaker 3: is going into these university departments and research facilities to
25:54
Speaker 3: develop these foods, and so they're not the big players
25:59
Speaker 3: that you would hear say on the global stage. It's
26:02
Speaker 3: not Bill Gates, it's not Monsanto. And actually a focus
26:07
Speaker 3: on those kind of big players really allows all the
26:10
Speaker 3: dozens of other players that are doing exactly the same
26:12
Speaker 3: thing to get off scott free. So it's important to
26:14
Speaker 3: have a global view. But one of the things that
26:18
Speaker 3: was revealed in the internal documents that came out as
26:23
Speaker 3: a result of our case was that the government was
26:27
Speaker 3: planning to leverage public funding, so taxpayer money in order
26:33
Speaker 3: to bring more private funding into the UK to expand
26:38
Speaker 3: the development of genetic engineering in food, in farming and
26:43
Speaker 3: eventually the wider environment. So taxpayer money is being used
26:48
Speaker 3: to expand private funding which we will have absolutely no
26:53
Speaker 3: control over once it comes.
26:55
Speaker 2: Indeed, yeah, another instance of a total lots of controls. Again,
27:00
Speaker 2: as you say, funded by the tax better, I mean
27:02
Speaker 2: it is. It is absolutely shocking. I think you've just
27:05
Speaker 2: touched on it. But another I think fascinating part of
27:10
Speaker 2: the judicial review was the fact that information that turned
27:14
Speaker 2: out to be absolutely pertinent, and you've referred to these
27:17
Speaker 2: internal documents, was only get or rather only came into
27:22
Speaker 2: the public domain as a result of your action. That
27:25
Speaker 2: again tells a story of its own, doesn't it.
27:29
Speaker 3: I think so it's this is it's a food system story,
27:33
Speaker 3: but it's also a regulatory story.
27:35
Speaker 4: We got a really.
27:38
Speaker 3: Upsetting glimpse into how regulatory decisions are made, how ideology
27:44
Speaker 3: trumps things like risk and safety assessment and right to choose,
27:51
Speaker 3: and of course who is making choices on our behalf.
27:56
Speaker 3: That's the thing that a lot of people feel really
27:58
Speaker 3: uncomfortable with about this is that the government has decided
28:02
Speaker 3: by not including traceability labeling, monitoring, risk assessment, health assessments.
28:10
Speaker 4: The government has decided what.
28:12
Speaker 3: Risks we should be prepared to take, and those risks
28:16
Speaker 3: go I think far beyond.
28:20
Speaker 4: Just is it safe to eat?
28:22
Speaker 3: You know, that's usually the question that people ask, is
28:24
Speaker 3: it safe to eat? But that question is doing a
28:29
Speaker 3: lot less heavy lifting than I think most people realize.
28:32
Speaker 4: Because.
28:35
Speaker 3: It's entirely possible that a lab created food. I mean,
28:39
Speaker 3: we eat a lot of chemical foods. I'm not saying
28:41
Speaker 3: that they make us healthy, but your head doesn't drop
28:44
Speaker 3: off immediately either, right, So it's possible that a precision
28:49
Speaker 3: bread plant might be safe to eat, but whether it's
28:56
Speaker 3: actually beneficial for us is a whole other matter.
28:58
Speaker 4: And this is how the story as pivoted.
29:00
Speaker 3: Now, it's pivoted from is it safe to eat because
29:05
Speaker 3: there's hardly any evidence either way to look all the
29:09
Speaker 3: good we can do with our precision bread organisms. So
29:13
Speaker 3: there's some really good examples at the moment. Most of
29:17
Speaker 3: them will revolve around tomatoes weirdly enough, so there's a
29:20
Speaker 3: GMO purple tomato which is high in antioxidant anthicyanins, and
29:26
Speaker 3: this is of course being boldly promoted as anti cancer
29:29
Speaker 3: there's a gene edited vitamin D tomato which is claimed
29:34
Speaker 3: to fight vitamin D deficiency, and in Japan there's another
29:38
Speaker 3: tomato which contains an amino acid which it claims lowers
29:42
Speaker 3: blood pressure. And all these claims are being made by
29:47
Speaker 3: the Way through press releases rather than through clear and
29:51
Speaker 3: rigorous scientific testing and legitimate health claims that are allowed
29:56
Speaker 3: under the law. But there's a problem here, right because
30:00
Speaker 3: the purple tomato has been denounced by cancer organizations as
30:06
Speaker 3: a bit of a sham, because there's actually no evidence
30:09
Speaker 3: that high anticyonins in your diet will prevent cancer, and actually,
30:14
Speaker 3: for some people a high level can become prooxidant and
30:17
Speaker 3: therefore more of a risk for cancer. The vitamin D
30:20
Speaker 3: tomato doesn't actually contain vitamin D. It contains a precursor
30:25
Speaker 3: which your body might be able to use to convert
30:28
Speaker 3: to vitumin D, but before it does that, the actual
30:31
Speaker 3: fruit has to be exposed to UVA radiation in order
30:34
Speaker 3: to create higher levels of the precursor. So there's all
30:37
Speaker 3: kinds of problems with this sort of stuff, and the
30:39
Speaker 3: Gabba tomato, the amino acid tomato, there are really serious
30:44
Speaker 3: questions about releasing something like this unlabeled into the market,
30:47
Speaker 3: because what if you already have low blood pressure and
30:50
Speaker 3: you eat it and it really does work and it
30:51
Speaker 3: lowers your blood pressure further. You know, these are the
30:54
Speaker 3: sorts of claims that we need to get really smart
30:57
Speaker 3: about and start challenging because they're being used to further
31:01
Speaker 3: an agenda which isn't good for any of us.
31:05
Speaker 2: That's a really good point that one main thing I
31:08
Speaker 2: will come back to. But you're quite right because it
31:11
Speaker 2: does introduce this idea, even if they're not described as such,
31:15
Speaker 2: that effectively medical medicinal products are being forced upon or
31:21
Speaker 2: at least presented to the population, but in such a
31:25
Speaker 2: way that should not be either well, is not appropriate
31:29
Speaker 2: or cannot be lawful, in that there's no dose, there's
31:33
Speaker 2: no specific doves given. And the obvious example with this
31:37
Speaker 2: is is putting fluoride in water, or what's happened with
31:42
Speaker 2: flour and bread and what not? Putting folic acid without
31:46
Speaker 2: there being any stipulation as to how much or how
31:50
Speaker 2: little somebody should receive. But the main point that comes
31:55
Speaker 2: out of this course, exactly like you say with the
31:57
Speaker 2: press release, is the role of media and this we're
32:01
Speaker 2: seeing this across the board. This type of communication, as
32:05
Speaker 2: you say, done informally through press releases without really ever
32:08
Speaker 2: allowing the public to get at the heart of what's happening.
32:13
Speaker 1: That's part of it.
32:13
Speaker 2: But obviously, you know, the other thing is why on
32:16
Speaker 2: earth is the mainstream not picking this up.
32:18
Speaker 1: You came on.
32:19
Speaker 2: UK column News to talk about the judicial review. You
32:23
Speaker 2: may have seen it elsewhere. I mean I've not even
32:26
Speaker 2: seen it reported anywhere else. Has it been touched.
32:29
Speaker 3: And not by the mainstream media. It's been covered by
32:32
Speaker 3: the independent media. There was a piece in the Times,
32:35
Speaker 3: but the people that you might expect to cover it,
32:37
Speaker 3: The Guardian, for instance, hasn't covered this story at all.
32:41
Speaker 3: And when the media these days covers stories about genetic technologies,
32:47
Speaker 3: mostly it's just industry talking points.
32:50
Speaker 4: And this kind of relates back to your.
32:52
Speaker 3: Previous point about health claims. For instance, the pivot towards
32:57
Speaker 3: what health benefits there might be from GMOs is based
33:02
Speaker 3: on a distortion of language as well. It's based on
33:05
Speaker 3: an idea that's really sacred to a lot of people,
33:08
Speaker 3: that food is medicine, right, but they're twisting that to say, oh,
33:13
Speaker 3: but this genetically engineered food is better medicine, and what
33:17
Speaker 3: we find with the mainstream media is that these are
33:20
Speaker 3: the kind of talking points that they find are really
33:22
Speaker 3: grabby headlines. So with the gene edited field trials that
33:28
Speaker 3: are going on at the moment, I think it was
33:31
Speaker 3: either the Times or the Telegraph that put the headline
33:38
Speaker 3: that PBO trials will give you a juicier steak in
33:41
Speaker 3: the future. You know, these are the kinds of headlines
33:44
Speaker 3: that we're getting at the moment, rather than serious and
33:46
Speaker 3: critical inquiry not just into whether the technology works but
33:50
Speaker 3: what its future implications are as well. We are in
33:54
Speaker 3: a situation in this country now where we have very
33:56
Speaker 3: few really good environmental reporters left. There are hardly any
34:01
Speaker 3: consumer affairs reporters left in the mainstream papers. People are
34:06
Speaker 3: also under pressure, i think from the top from corporate
34:09
Speaker 3: influence that says, you know, this is a good news
34:12
Speaker 3: economic story and we're going to report it that way.
34:15
Speaker 3: And this adds to the general public's lack of awareness
34:19
Speaker 3: of what's happening behind the scenes and how these regulatory
34:22
Speaker 3: changes might affect them.
34:24
Speaker 2: Absolutely it does, and I think it goes back to
34:27
Speaker 2: your very good point about where and when the development
34:34
Speaker 2: information is ever inserted. You said that whilst it may
34:38
Speaker 2: be possible to eat a precision bread organism and your
34:41
Speaker 2: head doesn't fall off, Yes, okay, but exactly like you
34:46
Speaker 2: said in ef fact, we wouldn't be here if it
34:50
Speaker 2: weren't for the fact well we might be, I suppose,
34:52
Speaker 2: but we would be less likely to be here if
34:55
Speaker 2: it weren't for the fact that the environment, the land,
34:58
Speaker 2: that the soil composition hadn't been destroyed by again, things
35:04
Speaker 2: that at the time wouldn't have been regarded as being
35:07
Speaker 2: instantly harmful, but over a period of time it has
35:09
Speaker 2: turned out that that has been incredibly harmful in the
35:12
Speaker 2: same way that it can't possibly be known now just
35:17
Speaker 2: because you eat a PBO and your head doesn't fall off,
35:20
Speaker 2: that it's not going to have long term impact on
35:22
Speaker 2: not just your health but that of successive generations. I mean,
35:27
Speaker 2: is there even any sort of sincere research going into
35:31
Speaker 2: that area. As far as you're aware.
35:34
Speaker 3: There's certainly no, and nor has there ever been, with
35:37
Speaker 3: genetically modified foods, any serious attempt to study their health effects.
35:43
Speaker 3: And the problem now is, particularly in countries like America
35:48
Speaker 3: consuming them, particularly as ingredients and food is so widespread,
35:51
Speaker 3: it would be hard to find a control group that
35:53
Speaker 3: hasn't consumed them. But I'd like to make a point
35:56
Speaker 3: about safety and maybe expand that question in a little bit,
36:00
Speaker 3: because even if the thing that you put on your
36:03
Speaker 3: plate is inert or harmless to you personally, we have
36:09
Speaker 3: to ask what sits in, what is it in service of?
36:12
Speaker 3: What kind of farming does it prop up? What kind
36:16
Speaker 3: of values does it represent?
36:18
Speaker 4: Because if a.
36:19
Speaker 3: Technology mostly makes industrial farming, industrial monocultures, for instance, or
36:24
Speaker 3: energy intensive greenhouse foods a bit more efficient in the
36:30
Speaker 3: face of climate stresses, it isn't solving every problem. It's
36:35
Speaker 3: not solving the drought, the flood, the past persistence, the
36:38
Speaker 3: dead soil, etc.
36:40
Speaker 4: So I think.
36:42
Speaker 3: There's some really good examples that illustrate this point. So
36:47
Speaker 3: right now we're trialing these gene edited ceial varieties. There
36:52
Speaker 3: is a wheat with a bigger seedhead, which the developer
36:56
Speaker 3: says will increase yield, because all of this is about yield, yield, yield,
36:59
Speaker 3: more and more more. But when you alter one plant trait,
37:04
Speaker 3: there's always a trade off somewhere else. So even if
37:07
Speaker 3: a developer could create a plant with a bigger seed head,
37:11
Speaker 3: what the research is showing is that the bigger seed
37:14
Speaker 3: head means there's fewer seeds per plant, and then the
37:18
Speaker 3: plants become top heavy and they start to droop, which
37:20
Speaker 3: makes harvest difficult, which increases waste. And changing a big
37:26
Speaker 3: trait like the size of the seedhead can also change
37:28
Speaker 3: the nutritional content of the seed, making it unsuitable for
37:32
Speaker 3: some uses. So there's a really good example in another
37:38
Speaker 3: field trial of gene edited products at the moment, which
37:41
Speaker 3: is a gene edited barley that has a higher fatty
37:44
Speaker 3: acid content. So people who like a cold one on
37:48
Speaker 3: a hot day will know that barley is used extensively
37:51
Speaker 3: in beer and spirits, but a high fatty acid content
37:55
Speaker 3: makes it unsuitable for brewing because it interferes with fermentation
37:59
Speaker 3: and taste. So the developers are now saying that this
38:01
Speaker 3: barley will be used as feed for industrially reared animals
38:05
Speaker 3: with the potential benefit of reducing methane emissions, and that
38:09
Speaker 3: could be seen as a plus if you want to
38:11
Speaker 3: go down the route of more industrially reared animals. But
38:15
Speaker 3: of course then there's evidence showing that too much fatty
38:18
Speaker 3: acid supplementation in the animal's diet is actually damaging to
38:22
Speaker 3: their stomachs. So you know, we have an animal welfare issue,
38:27
Speaker 3: an uncertain climate issue. There's another one that's being developed,
38:32
Speaker 3: a GMO Camelina, which claims that it's a plant that
38:36
Speaker 3: produces fish oil and on the front of the package
38:39
Speaker 3: it says it's healthy for humans, but on the back
38:41
Speaker 3: of the package it's intended for industrially farmed salmon. How
38:47
Speaker 3: can we say that's safe and how can we say
38:49
Speaker 3: those things are healthy?
38:50
Speaker 4: We can't.
38:51
Speaker 3: So the question of safety and health is really much
38:54
Speaker 3: wider than just what we eat.
38:56
Speaker 2: I mean that is becoming very much more evident, although
39:00
Speaker 2: evidence certainly to you those in your orbit, evident to
39:03
Speaker 2: the UK column audience, but not really to the wider public.
39:09
Speaker 1: There does seem to be a.
39:12
Speaker 2: Movement that is gathering momentum, I think, in so far
39:16
Speaker 2: as concern in this area and awareness and also wanting
39:20
Speaker 2: to sort of wind the clock back. I think what
39:23
Speaker 2: people always want to come away from these sorts of
39:25
Speaker 2: interviews with is a better idea of what it is
39:31
Speaker 2: they can do that will help the situation to improve.
39:36
Speaker 2: You're obviously, you know, on the inside of something that's created,
39:40
Speaker 2: at least recently a significant effect. Now we want to
39:45
Speaker 2: make sure that that is built upon. I mean, what
39:47
Speaker 2: would you suggest to people listening as to the sorts
39:51
Speaker 2: of things they might consider either looking further into, or
39:55
Speaker 2: action they could take, or indeed just you know, how
39:57
Speaker 2: to raise awareness with those.
39:59
Speaker 3: Around Sure, if you will indulge me again in a
40:03
Speaker 3: little context and background. You know, at the heart of
40:06
Speaker 3: our case, it's really about how societies govern powerful and
40:12
Speaker 3: uncertain technologies that affect food systems and ecosystems, and human
40:16
Speaker 3: rights and public trust, all things that you can call
40:18
Speaker 3: them listeners I'm sure are really concerned about. And over
40:23
Speaker 3: the last few years it's become painfully obvious that complex
40:29
Speaker 3: and important political and regulatory decisions are being made very quickly,
40:36
Speaker 3: often on the basis of more hype than scientific data,
40:40
Speaker 3: often far in advance of any actual products that we
40:45
Speaker 3: can even study. They're also being made with this limited
40:49
Speaker 3: public awareness which you point out, and no dialogue, and
40:52
Speaker 3: with the strong assumptions about things like inevitability and urgency
40:57
Speaker 3: and how regulation, which is of course intended to protect
41:01
Speaker 3: us mere mortals, is a burden that a progressive society
41:05
Speaker 3: no longer needs. So what the new regulations are asking
41:09
Speaker 3: the public to do right now is to trust that
41:14
Speaker 3: the regulation will work, that politicians are honest, that we
41:17
Speaker 3: can remove all the tools for traceability. But that's all
41:20
Speaker 3: right because they're already safe. They've already been deemed safe.
41:25
Speaker 3: And you know, you can get angry about this. You
41:29
Speaker 3: can put some cross or sarcastic posts on social media
41:33
Speaker 3: and that lets off a lot of emotional tension. But
41:35
Speaker 3: what we really need right now from ordinary citizens is
41:40
Speaker 3: focused and strategic action and engagement with this issue. And
41:46
Speaker 3: this is something which we are uniquely placed to do.
41:49
Speaker 3: You know, you can and should, as far as I'm concerned,
41:52
Speaker 3: start writing to your MP and beyond GM has a
41:55
Speaker 3: platform that makes that really easy. It gives you some
41:57
Speaker 3: advice on what to say. And the more people who
42:01
Speaker 3: write to their MPs, the more MPs will raise it
42:04
Speaker 3: with the Secretary of State. The more it's raised with
42:07
Speaker 3: the Secretary of State, the harder it's going to be
42:10
Speaker 3: for her to ignore the court judgment or try to
42:13
Speaker 3: fudge the demand that the regulations need a thorough reconsideration.
42:18
Speaker 3: And you know, we know already that people are engaged
42:22
Speaker 3: with this. It does matter to them. Because we're a
42:25
Speaker 3: really small organization, we function on hardly any money at all.
42:30
Speaker 3: So all the money that we've had to pay our
42:31
Speaker 3: legal fees has come from public crowdfunding. And the crowdfunder
42:36
Speaker 3: has been really successful and it's getting closer each day
42:39
Speaker 3: to our hoped for total.
42:41
Speaker 4: But when you read the.
42:42
Speaker 3: Comments on the crowd Justice site from people who are
42:46
Speaker 3: giving you know, five, ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred whatever,
42:50
Speaker 3: it shows that this is an issue that matters, that
42:53
Speaker 3: people are horrified by what's happening, that they want some
42:56
Speaker 3: action from government. And what we need to do is
42:59
Speaker 3: to turn that concern into citizen action right now. So
43:04
Speaker 3: you know, the first thing, raise it with your MP.
43:08
Speaker 3: If you're active locally, you could be raising it with
43:10
Speaker 3: local councils. We could start asking local councils right now
43:14
Speaker 3: to initiate a no GMO or no PBO procurement policy
43:22
Speaker 3: for schools for local councils the only locally British grown
43:29
Speaker 3: food that can be done if there's enough pressure on it.
43:33
Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's very interesting to listen to you talk about
43:36
Speaker 2: this because there will be a lot of people in
43:38
Speaker 2: the audience, I would wager who will in a way
43:42
Speaker 2: switch off to a certain extent at the suggestion of
43:45
Speaker 2: writing to your MP. People have become jaded over the
43:48
Speaker 2: years at the number of letters that either appear to
43:50
Speaker 2: get tossed straight in the bin or they are answered
43:54
Speaker 2: with a copy and paste, lazy reply, and it's the
43:59
Speaker 2: whole thing appears to be meaningless. But what I what
44:02
Speaker 2: I would you know, think is a really significant consideration
44:06
Speaker 2: in this regard is that you are proof effectively proof
44:11
Speaker 2: of concept. You know, you have applied that pressure, okay,
44:15
Speaker 2: admittedly through high court action, but you have demonstrated that
44:19
Speaker 2: with enough pressure it is actually possible to generate a result.
44:24
Speaker 1: And I think people should take part of man.
44:25
Speaker 2: And I think also your point about the lower levels
44:28
Speaker 2: local councils, local authorities is very well made because you know,
44:33
Speaker 2: after all, they are people who are absolutely among us.
44:38
Speaker 2: The people that represent supposedly represent the public on those
44:43
Speaker 2: bodies do live in the areas that are affected by this.
44:46
Speaker 2: They're not all sitting in Westminster and therefore somewhat remote.
44:51
Speaker 2: So I think that that is a very good point
44:53
Speaker 2: to concentrate on. And as you say, the degree of
44:57
Speaker 2: organization that is required. Now, what I would like you
45:01
Speaker 2: to do a little bit is to talk about because
45:03
Speaker 2: again You've said this in the email before, the difference
45:06
Speaker 2: between sort of advocacy and campaigning, and then converting that
45:11
Speaker 2: into what you did do, which was to take a
45:14
Speaker 2: legal action.
45:15
Speaker 3: Sure, And can I just say just to dovetail to
45:19
Speaker 3: your last point before I do that, the real test
45:23
Speaker 3: of your passion and your engagement for any issue is
45:26
Speaker 3: how you respond to things like patent cut and paste letters,
45:33
Speaker 3: or how you respond when things get hard. Because it's
45:36
Speaker 3: always going to be hard and it's only going to
45:38
Speaker 3: get harder, but we still have to keep engaging. That's
45:41
Speaker 3: what being a citizen means. So yes, so we took
45:47
Speaker 3: the court. We took the government to court on this,
45:50
Speaker 3: and for a small organization, this is a This is
45:53
Speaker 3: a really big step because judicial reviews are expensive, they
45:59
Speaker 3: are complicated, they can take a long time. They are
46:03
Speaker 3: rarely focused on the kinds of issues that campaigners would
46:07
Speaker 3: normally focus on. They tend to focus very narrowly on
46:11
Speaker 3: what is lawful and what isn't lawful. And it's a
46:14
Speaker 3: completely different language, it's a completely different way of talking
46:18
Speaker 3: about issues from the way that campaign groups normally do.
46:21
Speaker 3: There's no room for storytelling or emotional appeals. There's no
46:27
Speaker 3: room for exaggeration. Nobody cares if something seems unfair. You
46:31
Speaker 3: have to stick to the facts. And so before you,
46:34
Speaker 3: before you undertake this, you better be sure of your facts.
46:38
Speaker 3: And very often with the judicial review you you put
46:42
Speaker 3: through lots of arguments and you hope that one's going
46:45
Speaker 3: to hit, and of course in our case, that's exactly
46:48
Speaker 3: what happened. The judge decided really that pushing the regulations
46:56
Speaker 3: through the government prioritized, as I said, commercial interests over
47:01
Speaker 3: concerns raised about impact on the organic sector, on consumers,
47:06
Speaker 3: on trade within the UK and the EU, And he
47:11
Speaker 3: noted particularly apart from the main judgment, unlawfulness of the
47:18
Speaker 3: process by which the regulations were made. He noted particularly
47:22
Speaker 3: that while traceability might not be completely impossible, if you
47:26
Speaker 3: were really motivated, he would be more complicated and it
47:30
Speaker 3: would be more costly, and that those costs would be
47:33
Speaker 3: passed on, particularly to the organic and non GMO sectors,
47:38
Speaker 3: to the businesses, to the consumers that seek to avoid
47:41
Speaker 3: these genetically modified foods. But he went further still, which
47:48
Speaker 3: is the interesting part of the judgment. He recognized importantly,
47:53
Speaker 3: and I think for the first time in case law,
47:57
Speaker 3: that organic farming is not merely a technical standard or
48:01
Speaker 3: certification scheme. For many organic farmers and businesses, it represents
48:07
Speaker 3: a distinct and fundamental set of values and principles and
48:12
Speaker 3: professional commitments which the regulations make it much more difficult
48:16
Speaker 3: to maintain, and that I think extends to consumers as well.
48:19
Speaker 3: A lot of people that seek out organic foods are
48:22
Speaker 3: doing so for reasons that are very deeply held values
48:27
Speaker 3: to them. And I still puppose for me, I'm a
48:33
Speaker 3: former trustee of the Soil Association. So this is a
48:35
Speaker 3: really important statement that kind of sets the tone for
48:40
Speaker 3: organic farming because it's the only farming that has standards
48:44
Speaker 3: that farmers must meet in order to work with nature.
48:47
Speaker 3: So that was a really important statement as well.
48:50
Speaker 4: And the judge also took a.
48:51
Speaker 3: Side swipe at the way the regulations prevent the Secretary
48:57
Speaker 3: of State from applying any test on a precision bred
49:02
Speaker 3: GMO that wouldn't be applied to a normal food, even
49:05
Speaker 3: though we know that GMOs are not normal foods. They
49:07
Speaker 3: are lab created creations. They must be treated separately. But
49:12
Speaker 3: he did emphasize that whilst he wasn't going to change that,
49:17
Speaker 3: he did emphasize that the food Standards Agency has a
49:21
Speaker 3: really important and legally binding duty to perform the right
49:25
Speaker 3: tests in order to understand what food they're putting into
49:28
Speaker 3: the food system, and that certainly leaves us open for
49:31
Speaker 3: some very serious discussions with the Food Standards Agency.
49:35
Speaker 1: It certainly does.
49:35
Speaker 2: I suppose people will make their own minds up as
49:37
Speaker 2: how they feel about the way that those discussions would go,
49:40
Speaker 2: given what you said earlier about their reaction to labeling
49:44
Speaker 2: and indeed that of Dethra. Just to move on slightly,
49:47
Speaker 2: because you've talked about it, this idea of growth, progress,
49:52
Speaker 2: continual development, technology, everything else. What I'm seeing, and I
49:57
Speaker 2: think what we at UK Colin are seeing, is that
49:59
Speaker 2: the the absolutely determined and unqualified push of all things
50:05
Speaker 2: technological arspicial intelligence in particular, but also let's say, sort
50:09
Speaker 2: of digital forms of communication, digital identity, digital currency, all
50:13
Speaker 2: these things are sort of queuing up to in a
50:16
Speaker 2: way force their way into people's lives. As a result
50:20
Speaker 2: of the way in which it has been pushed in
50:22
Speaker 2: such an unqualified and of course unregulated sense, that does
50:26
Speaker 2: seem to be a growing backlash against it. Do you,
50:30
Speaker 2: I mean you may, I don't know if you agree
50:31
Speaker 2: with that position. In the first place. But whether or
50:33
Speaker 2: not you do, do you think that that school of
50:38
Speaker 2: thought may provoke a further reaction against what it is
50:43
Speaker 2: that you're talking about with regard to food technology.
50:48
Speaker 3: I think it's certainly part of the question, yes, And
50:51
Speaker 3: I think particularly where technology and food intersect, people are
50:57
Speaker 3: much more sensitive to this. So I've been in a
51:00
Speaker 3: lot of recent public dialogues around the next iteration, which
51:05
Speaker 3: is engineering biology, and people, for instance, express the opinion that, Okay,
51:12
Speaker 3: maybe this might be useful in creating a medicine that
51:16
Speaker 3: would save someone's life, but I don't want it in
51:19
Speaker 3: my food because we have a much different relationship with food.
51:22
Speaker 3: It's much more personal. It's something that we eat every day.
51:26
Speaker 3: It's something that we feel we have a choice over,
51:29
Speaker 3: and it's a step too far, I think for the
51:33
Speaker 3: food system. And that's why there's much more resistance to
51:36
Speaker 3: genetic technology in foods than there are, say for medicines.
51:41
Speaker 3: And I think when the technologies start to come online
51:44
Speaker 3: for using say genetic technologies as a conservation tool as
51:50
Speaker 3: a way of you know, killing off unwanted species and
51:53
Speaker 3: bringing back charismatic species and things like that, that's going
51:57
Speaker 3: to start to create a lot of outrage. Before that happens,
52:01
Speaker 3: the government will be bringing in new regulations for gene
52:05
Speaker 3: edited farm animals. So your meat, your milk, your cheese
52:10
Speaker 3: could all be coming from genetically modified farm animals and
52:14
Speaker 3: there will be outrage about that and people will start
52:17
Speaker 3: to get behind this. So the more the deeper the
52:20
Speaker 3: government goes into this issue of genetically modifying food and farming,
52:24
Speaker 3: I think people will start to get very much more
52:27
Speaker 3: involved because it really it crosses a line that people
52:31
Speaker 3: have already said they don't want cross. And it cannot
52:34
Speaker 3: hurt at all that people are aware of other technologies
52:38
Speaker 3: and invasions of choice and privacy and autonomy in our lives.
52:44
Speaker 3: The question is how do we turn that into effective action?
52:47
Speaker 3: And again that's what I say, It seems hopeless. The
52:49
Speaker 3: government's very powerful, the people that are helping the government
52:52
Speaker 3: and lobbying the government and encouraging the government are very powerful.
52:56
Speaker 3: But none of these things work if there isn't a
52:58
Speaker 3: marketplace for them. So people need to get involved and
53:01
Speaker 3: make it clear we're not going to buy it, and
53:05
Speaker 3: I think that is what will eventually start to push
53:08
Speaker 3: things in the other direction.
53:10
Speaker 2: I think so it's an extremely powerful and important point,
53:14
Speaker 2: And of course the one thing we haven't actually talked
53:16
Speaker 2: about at all is where these things do come to market,
53:19
Speaker 2: which for the best part is in supermarkets. And in
53:21
Speaker 2: actual fact, when you examine the supermarket business model, they
53:24
Speaker 2: operate on fairly very tight margins and it does not
53:29
Speaker 2: take much of a change in football to seriously affect
53:32
Speaker 2: the outcomes the profitability of supermarkets, which causes them to
53:37
Speaker 2: examine the ways in which they are conducting their business.
53:39
Speaker 2: So I think you're absolutely right to make that point.
53:41
Speaker 3: Can just make a really quick point about the supermarkets
53:44
Speaker 3: is that they have been utterly cowardly in this debate.
53:49
Speaker 3: Supermarkets are waiting to see what they can get away
53:51
Speaker 3: with legally, and that's all they're waiting for. So the
53:54
Speaker 3: more you can complain to your supermarket, the better.
53:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
53:57
Speaker 2: Well again, I mean absolutely, I would entirely reinforce that,
54:01
Speaker 2: not just on this issue, but on all of them. Frankly,
54:04
Speaker 2: I mean that I think the code of conduct is appalling. Frankly,
54:09
Speaker 2: so a point well made. What I was going to
54:11
Speaker 2: say was regressively, of course, we are where we are.
54:16
Speaker 2: You've given I think some very clear and powerful advice
54:21
Speaker 2: about what it is that people could do and how
54:23
Speaker 2: it is that effects can be delivered, And obviously people
54:27
Speaker 2: absolutely should realize that we all have an interest in
54:29
Speaker 2: that because of very many.
54:31
Speaker 1: Factors that you have gone over.
54:35
Speaker 2: I suppose, not wanting to encourage you to be unrealistic,
54:40
Speaker 2: but what sort of changes in a real sense would
54:46
Speaker 2: you like to see take place? Accepting that it is
54:49
Speaker 2: not possible simply just to sweep all this away tomorrow
54:52
Speaker 2: and for there to be a new system presenting itself.
54:55
Speaker 1: I mean, what is your vision for the next five
54:58
Speaker 1: ten years.
54:59
Speaker 2: If people do start to wake up to this and
55:02
Speaker 2: actually take the actions that you describe.
55:06
Speaker 3: Well, it's going to be a long fight. As I say,
55:10
Speaker 3: we're working on plants, but we're already preparing for animals.
55:14
Speaker 3: The animals discussion will make the traceability issue much more important.
55:18
Speaker 3: I one hundred percent believe that these precision bread GMOs
55:24
Speaker 3: should be traced from farm to fork at every stage.
55:27
Speaker 3: You should be able to know where they are in
55:30
Speaker 3: the food chain, and that provides reassurance for farmers and consumers.
55:35
Speaker 3: For me, speaking personally rather than on behalf of our case,
55:39
Speaker 3: which is subject to a lot of negotiation at the moment,
55:42
Speaker 3: that's what I want to see, and I think that's
55:44
Speaker 3: inevitably where we have to head.
55:46
Speaker 4: And a lot of things are.
55:47
Speaker 3: Working in our favor there, including the fact that so
55:53
Speaker 3: many parts of the system required to bring these precision
55:57
Speaker 3: bread organisms to market are not in place yet, which
56:01
Speaker 3: gives us an opportunity for other negotiations with government. The
56:06
Speaker 3: proposed realignment with Europe could end up working in our
56:10
Speaker 3: favor as well, because as terrible as the European new
56:14
Speaker 3: European regulations are, they're better than what we have here,
56:18
Speaker 3: and if the carve out can't be achieved, then the
56:21
Speaker 3: regulations are going to have to be reconsidered anyway. And
56:25
Speaker 3: of course we have potential political upheaval here too.
56:28
Speaker 4: Which may work one way or the other. We really
56:30
Speaker 4: don't know.
56:31
Speaker 3: So what's happening at the moment is this a really
56:33
Speaker 3: fluid picture about how we're going to regulate these things,
56:39
Speaker 3: and within that there are lots of cracks where the
56:42
Speaker 3: light can get in, and that's what we're trying to do.
56:45
Speaker 3: We're trying to work within those cracks to ensure that
56:49
Speaker 3: public perspectives are heard, legitimized, and acted upon. And for me,
56:56
Speaker 3: that's really quite a noble cause.
56:58
Speaker 2: I think there'll be many people agreement with you, Pat,
57:01
Speaker 2: that's absolutely the point. Now to further that, to draw
57:05
Speaker 2: that out. You know, you've talked about a crowdfunder, You've
57:07
Speaker 2: talked about necessity for funding. I'm sure there are lots
57:10
Speaker 2: of people listening who realize that this is a very
57:13
Speaker 2: serious subject and indeed that they would like to do
57:16
Speaker 2: something about that. I mean, I don't know if you
57:17
Speaker 2: can mention specific figures, but obviously there is a Just
57:20
Speaker 2: tell us a bit more. I will put notes with
57:23
Speaker 2: this interview so that people can follow any links, but
57:25
Speaker 2: just just talk a little bit more about the crowdfunder
57:27
Speaker 2: and what it is you're trying to hit as a target.
57:31
Speaker 4: Sure, so for.
57:34
Speaker 3: Legal cases like this, judicial reviews, there is a specific
57:39
Speaker 3: crowdfunder site called crowd Justice.
57:42
Speaker 4: And what crowd justice does is it raises.
57:44
Speaker 3: Money for the legal fees only, so not our work.
57:49
Speaker 3: Our work isn't covered. It's just what goes to the lawyers.
57:51
Speaker 4: We don't see a penny of it.
57:52
Speaker 3: It goes straight to our legal team. And I mentioned
57:56
Speaker 3: earlier that judicial reviews are expensive. Judicial reviews can run
58:00
Speaker 3: anywhere from eighty five to one hundred and twenty thousand
58:04
Speaker 3: pounds as a starter, and if they go on longer
58:07
Speaker 3: than that, you know more. And we're very close now
58:12
Speaker 3: to our initial target of ninety five thousand pounds. People
58:16
Speaker 3: have been just enormously generous with their money as well
58:20
Speaker 3: as their comments, and it makes us feel like we
58:24
Speaker 3: need to work even harder to really push through what
58:28
Speaker 3: people want. So yes, we're always grateful for donations of
58:32
Speaker 3: any amount all amounts help and you can read more
58:37
Speaker 3: updates on the crowd Justice site as well as on
58:40
Speaker 3: the beyond GM website. But this is really it's our fight,
58:44
Speaker 3: but it's also our fight for other people who won't
58:47
Speaker 3: have the money or the resources to take the government
58:51
Speaker 3: to court because it's as I say, long, complicated and expensive, so.
58:57
Speaker 2: Very evident is but that's given people huge amount of
59:01
Speaker 2: think about that. I think the importance of it, what
59:03
Speaker 2: you've achieved is remarkable and I think it does give people,
59:08
Speaker 2: as I say, plenty to think about, plenty to do
59:10
Speaker 2: as well. So I'm really grateful to you for going
59:13
Speaker 2: through in really phenomenal detail. All it is that you
59:16
Speaker 2: have set out that you've made it relevant, you've made
59:18
Speaker 2: it important, You've made people realize what exactly the concerns are,
59:21
Speaker 2: and exactly, like you point out, this is an area
59:24
Speaker 2: that people really do need to know more about. So
59:27
Speaker 2: thank you very much indeed for joining me. Please keep
59:29
Speaker 2: in touch and I'll look forward to talking to you again.
59:32
Speaker 4: Yes, of course, thank you so much for having me on.
59:34
Speaker 3: It's been really enjoyable.
59:37
Speaker 2: Issue two of The Column, a quarterly magazine from UK Column,
59:42
Speaker 2: is now in the UK Column Shop, so please go
59:45
Speaker 2: to shop dot UK column dot org to pick up
59:49
Speaker 2: your copy