access so we do need to reform the health care in the way that it's delivered. >> and scott pruett on environmental policy. >> there are things going on with clean coal technology across the globe, but not here. most of the tub and presently because of the disincentives that we put in play in this country. if you care about some of these concerns, it ought to be in the mix. >> programs are available on the homepage and bhome page and by e video library. >> next, food and agricultural experts discussed the genetically modified organisms and their effect on the environment and food industry. from the public square in los angeles this is just over an hour.

[applause] thank you.u. i hope you will still talk to me after tonight.l [laughter] the panel is extremely esteemed so please forgive me for reading, but the current director of the institute which is an intercampus institute that tells the university of walls h california los angeles. he's a molecular biologist who specializes in the area of plant genomics and served twice as the head of the genetics program at the united states department of agriculture. then, the author of the book held to pick a peach and both explore the science of cooking, farming and flavor.

he's a member of the james beard foundation food and beverage and america and the winner of multiple journalism awards including the distinguished writing. most of you probably know him as the former food editor and columnist for the "los angeles times" which was his home for more than 25 years. then we have mr. ted parson, the professor of environmental law and faculty codirector of the institute on climate change and environment at ucla and past roles include serving as an advisor to domestic and international institutions including the white house office of science technology policy, united nations environmentale ae programs and the council office of the government in canada. welcome, gentlemen. [applause]his top

this topic isn't controversial or anything. [laughter] we are not here to discuss whether or not there should be gm of. the horses are out of the barn for decades now and so what i'mm interested in hearing about this evening is more about other technologies because it is such a small part to separate the larger landscape and then of course some issues about ethics and larger cultural questions. if we were to walk through thelh supermarket, what are we likely to put in our cards that might have gm knows sprinkled through them? >> depending how you shop and what coke you are, if you are buying processed foods that

include different grain thehingh orioles, things that have cornstarch or corn product, the whole box and can part of the supermarket it's hard to avoid. if you are buying produce and fresh fruits and vegetables and meat, it is almost impossible to find anything. there's a few types of zucchini that have been genetically modified, hawaiian papaya. there may be other things coming down the pike but right now i think that it's pretty much thee limit of it. >> did any of you know that high a is genetically modified plaques if they were not you wouldn't have any.b, >> so, you are the plants i so

tell us a little bit about what gmo is. >> that is a great question because those of us t that do ts we all think that plants far because there's nothing you buy in your grocery store whether it is organic or conventional that hasn't been genetically modified every single broccoli, corn, cauliflower squash, everything was modified meaning manipulating genes and there is no difference between manipulating a gene and theff classical way by greeting because you are directing some change by projecting a trait that you want so in the modern l context or the popular context it means the molecular sent that

an individual wasn't born withia and so there's the two extremes and the other is geneticthe ot modification were doing some molecular work so from this day in age it's being born with ae gene one didn't have originally and i think most people would be really surprised that this technology is now 40-years-old that is when genetic engineering was invented and you may also be surprised to there are human beings walking around that are only alive because they have a gene named them that they didn'g have when they were born because they were born with a lethal disease. most of you may be surprised if you use insulin or other kind of

drugs they have genes that are engineered and if you are wearing jeans, they have a color so there's a lot of different organisms in which in fact they are a gmo but from the plant point of view for those of us do two things to try to improve agriculture we would consider genetic modification either thee classical way or the modern way of tweaking them and that is what is so exciting abouthem. everything. >> i will get back to you about more excitement. [laughter] so the next natural question would be i guess has there been a work and how do we know these things are fake plaques >> you never know for sure because you can't prove a negative. science doesn't prove anything and anytime somebody demands a

scientific proof of something whether it is scientific proof that human beings are changing the climate for that the gml is safe you know they are using tactics and that isn't something that can ever be provided. but we have an awful lot of evidence.. if you think about -- i find it puzzling what intense controversies there are. it seems to be a strange place for people to have such political controversies but if you think of the narrow way that their concerns are framed, concerns about healthy food and an environmental impact, the fact that genetically modified organisms modified by modern techniques of genetic modification such as the distinction a moment ago the fact that we have 25 or 30 years

of the huge scale to experience all over north america of thesee things being planted and cultivated and eaten by essentially everybody and there is no sign of any differential health impact on north american consumers relative to the europeans to provide a natural experiment because they have had very little. that's an awful lot of basis for the confidence that the narrow framed worries would hurt you and harm your health to eat products genetically modified. we have a lot of content and that is not a problem. >> how much overall discomfort would this be as a result of its acting like a proxy for pushbacg against an economy that fails to respect the ecological and ecological limits? >> is bad to me? >> i think the short of it is

that unfortunately, there is nothing natural about agriculture and so if you thinkk about feeding people at one point in the united states we have the great plains and there were buffaloes and grasses and now there's farms that are making food using corn and soybean and that means the area has been drastically changed the question is can you in fact feed of the 9 billion people will have which is an enormous number of people we have to double the food supply and make more than we've ever made in the human history. how are you going to go about doing that with minimum ecological impact as much as possible and i think the wayay that can be done is by good science and i think some of the

gm knows that are out there have actually helped quite a bitent t rather than being negative and it is difficult to do something in an environmentally friendly way. >> what would you say to the people that for example "the new york times" article that came out recently and said that this is the fallacy that they are sold to the public all the time on this promise of higher yield and they did a study covering 30 years comparing canada and europe and in fact they hired you. >> i think it is technically complicated to go into here but i could give you an example based on hawaiian papaya that was essentially being wiped out. there's nothing more in agriculture the drops more than

viruses and bacteria. this goes very deep and essentially 20 years ago it was immunized by the geneticrus an engineering technique thatbu prevent it from infecting the papaya which means if you didn't genetically engineered he would have zero yield and if you engineered it now you have a very viable population which means that did increase the yield because it went from zero to essentially 100%.

it's a complicated thing that thats let's grow more with less space. it doesn't mean we can do this with pesticides or plowing thisl whale. that is the classic example of increasing the yield by taking two different varieties and v bringing them together with stronger better than the parents and so if we could learn what those mechanisms are, we would

be able to do that in the laboratory then be able to think about increasing the yield on a scale that we cannot even dream of today. >> in a different way i would like to take on the broad implications because it strikes me that very often when people expressed concern about gmo dearmond vetoed by a broad concern than the character of the agricultural system so let's backup a little and ask what would you want out of anag agricultural food production system? it seems you might want healthy seafood produced in quantities to feed people in an environmentally sustainable waya and in a way that is consistent with safety and sustainable

livelihood for the people in the production process. anybody that turns their attention to thinking that thean food system will come up with similar things. doing all of those are challenging and there's a lot o concerns about the current way of organizing and producing food that implicate all of those. maybe the environmental ones more than the health and safety ones.ha if you think that way, you will be concerned about things likeke agricultural practices. you will be concerned about the scale and uniformity of agricultural production and you're going to be concerned about the concentration of ownership and also the concentration of ownership and intellectual property and the conditions of the safe employment and now those are all important and legitimate. concerns but what puzzles me

about the debate is that focusing on gmos is a lousy proxy for the concern. a regulatory initiative that ret focuses to merrily on gmos iss liable to be missed targeted. you will begin to think that other dimensions of the policy in things like antitrust, things like the duration of intellectual property protection. you're going to think about environmental regulations and the whole sweep of mechanisms we try to put in place for the other enterprises to work with sustainability because it is like feeding 7 billion people safely and sustainably is going to be really hard. it's going to be harder than getting off fossil fuels. it's just coming down the pike i slower so we have not fully

embraced how severe it is. you're going to think aboutut worker health and safety regulations. the concerns are important and they implicate public policies, but the gm now is a place i'mco not saying that there is no connection, but it is a thin connection and a strange place to have intensity of conflict. >> don't you think it is natural given the introduction to most of us with these products in this process was from a company who was often known for agent orange, not months and tol monsf the others and -- [laughter] one of the others but a lot of these companies are chemical and

seed companies and are becoming sort of life intellectual property owners, so it would be great also talk about that. i think those issues are issues that make having this discussion much more difficult because with all that comes with that idea makes having a discussion about the safety of this technique much more lead and then if it had come to us through another way. >> here's the irony. and he won't raise let's just say in the biotechnology because exactly what you said applies in the industry as well as it does with agriculture. similar can turn u to in terms f the corporations.an

it is stressed in a parallel world. but the irony is back in the 80s when the plant genetic engineering was invented. there were scores of companies that were just very entrepreneurial going down different areas and exploring different niches that was extremely exciting. and then the regulatory arm dropped for better or worse. i'm not going to take up that discussion right now. and what happened is the coststs of getting the peace throughon regulation became now hundreds of millions of dollars and so it he irony is although the original discoveries and genetic engineering as word on my tiny little private companies, not by monsanto or dupont, tiny companies. they didn't have enough resources or money to get through the regulatory like getting a drug through stage one

anand stage two, speech three clinical trials. so in some respects, we created these monsters because there is no place in our agricultural economy for the little startups now because they won't have the capital to get through the whole thing because as i said, agriculture is very big so it isn't so much about making it in the lab, it's making the billions of c. with different geographies and climates thatrm then go to the farmers and that is to cost plus the regulatory cost so it is a very challenging issue. >> do you want to talk a little bit about intellectual property and patents? >> that is a great topic. >> there's a lot of intellectuae property in agriculture but it didn't come anew. they have been patented for many

years. patents on life forms were l formed in 1980 at the supreme court so there is an intellectual property. patents don't last forever so there are limits to the systems of intellectual property, and i'm not sure that it makes sense to think about the intellectual property as the problems in the food and agricultural system any more than it makes sense too think about gmos as the unique big complicated system that has the diversity of the societal and it's a very complicated to move in that direction. i have to say i find your observation fascinating that there is a sort of pathological part or ship between the drive for the very effective care for greg duration of the health andd safety of this new technology

and the concentration of ownership necessary to live with that system but also elicits the suspicion. .. it sounds like vicious circle. >> i would ask consumers what is ironic is that the gmos out there, let's say that you have as the processed food in corn or some soybean products. those have gone through 10-15 years of testing before approved by the epa and usda. great. but there is not one conventional variety of a crop. new varieties, new things made conventionally. there is a lot which kwlou you buy in the grocery store that is going through no regulatory. and an example, in my lab and

this is the irony. in two weeks i would engineer a hypoallergenic peanut. people have done this. that is going to go through 10-15 years of testing before it is approved if it ever is. in another part of my laboratory, i could use classical breeding to breed a peanut with ten times the concentration and i could give it to the farmers without any regulation. in the panels i have been on in the national academy says you have are thinking about the final project and whether it is

safe with respect to allergens and toxicity and we should focus on the product and now how it is made. >> i think from the consumer's point of view, i think a lot of the opposition i hear that becomes the vocal point, harkin back to an uneasy relationship with modernity. one of the reassuring things that happened in food and you know, farmers markets and all of that, and it kind of reinforces this idea of romantic we imagined happened to our parents and grandparents and that is just a romantic image. i think people who live on farms

when you talk to them they could not -- it leaves everything to nature to take its course and it is the worst thing you could ever do. >> dying of small pox and it is natural. the interventions we tonight like i think they hold a mirror up to things we don't like about selves or our society. >> i think you have a very middle ground.

you know, 25 years at the times covering what i covered along with the conjunction of agricultural and food. spent a lot of time talking to farmers and agriculture scientists. as a journalist when i publish a story two things i try to keep in mind and how do i think i know what i know and the other is what does the other side say and that doesn't mean what the other side says is right but it does mean i need to fully investigate that and find out whether what is valid and for me the journey started back in the '80s with organic movement. and the organic philosophy which seemed like such a wonderful

thing but then again when the regulatory arms stepped in became a checklist of things that needed to be done and the flus philosophy went away and it got set in stone at the time that it was legislated. i would talk to people and i would go out and the image was either you were like buying stuff from baby jesus or you might as well be insecting or main lining agent orange. ....

the reason all kinds of very organic techniques but because they were too ornery to go through the certification or because they reserve the right, they believed it was better to use some of these things that were outlawed and organic. and there are plenty of paradoxes and in the organic, chemicals that are derived in one way or are fine if they are

derived in another way they are not. but generally, the needle has moved toward the middle on that. for example according to the last pesticide report, this will probably shock people, 50 percent by weight of all the pesticides used in california last year were organically approved. [laughter] people think organic means no chemicals. so anyway, questioning that led to questioning when gmo started coming up and it led me to have a think a little bit more of an open mind or more of a questioning mind. and the things i would hear, arguments against and i would begin to investigate them, they seemed to be made out of, they seemed to be fairly flimsy. >> one of the things that is really fascinating to me is, do

you, inattentive research that you do, do you also interact with people who are doing research on - is not even how to describe it at this point. but on fertility of the soil. things that we might think of as being more quote - confessional. are there as much resources being poured into the other time, the more traditional kind of farming. because it seems like the people any more than one magic bullet. you need a million, right? and to think of this as political, do you remain on different sides of the aisle or do those of you who are in plant science but not in the genetic modification part of it, do you interact with one another? >> there is no question about that. i can give you an example. i'm on the board of agriculture and the national advisory of

science which advises the president on policies. we get together five times a year in washington. and we have traditional, agricultural economists, you name it, people who are involved in the whole system of agriculture. we are always interacting and trying to say how is this piece and that piece together and trying to get the best kinds of recommendations so that you look at the agriculture as a whole. so i think you're absolutely correct.we do not have, i do not have as much chance at ucla because we do not have a negative culture of college.i did, and i frequent about that. but the thing is that riverside or berkeley, these scientists are doing miraculous things. , all of these things to find the best type of culture, the most environmentally sustainable with as little ãas

it can possibly do. >> another one of the great ironies and the anti-gmo movement are there ready crops. one of the hot topics is no fill. it does all of the script instrument you cannot do that. it is very difficult to do that because you're going to be plowing and that is the point of no till. so when you, i do not think it is accurate to think of all of these things as being the tools strictly of degrading soil or degrading the planet. there is great promise for developing or increasing sustainability. >> is interesting if you read,

they no till in this bizarre strange world that using roundup ready feeds, etc. give them the opportunity to do that for the first time. which is kind of odd. that would be lester's harvest and they sprayed some round up ready for the seeds emerge and that is it. then they leave it again. all the soil has been saved on times and tons of soil. it has been quite dramatic change in agriculture. >> when you were in that room in washington and there is that you are in washington, just allocation and monopoly worried people? >> i think in some respects it is a little bit of a mix. there are literally thousands and thousands of speech is a that our doing what they need to do to make the best seats for local environments.

and i think that when you think about consolidation, for example university of california. if we do anything that is significant in agriculture, let's say we have some intellectual property or some patent embedded in anything that we might license to big companies, the fact that you have to get a royalty-free license to any small company in the developing world, people need it, to be able to grow fo 111 mw dow , they do give this in the developing world. so it is not a black and white world in terms of these people have this and they have intellectual property. what's really important agriculture is not the one gene that you would add to the sea.

it's really important is the whole series of genes which we call the germ by some that make the seed.and most of that is based on classical breeding. it is done by thousands of little companies whether it is in india or bangladesh or south america. and you just hear about the big companies. >> what you do here when monsanto says something about the seeds it will sell in 2050 will have 14 stacked traits. >> yes. >> from where the culture has brought us now and what we accept now, which is would have seemed insane. looking ahead to godliness frightening. for a lot of people. it can be. on the other hand. who are the consumers of the seeds? the consumers are the fathers. there is a limit seeds that they will have to buy. the farmers have adopted the technology. faster than any technology and

agricultural history. they do their business people. in addition grow their crops cheaper and more efficiently and get my benefit from yourself in some respects i'm not here to think that it is that the farmers are godliness and the farmers are going actually to say this is great technology because we need this to be able to make our profits that we make. and if we had this conversation and aims aisle or someplace in columbus ohio, they would really be surprised by that. what's also i think been a surprise to everyone is that in the added value, that is the value that you get when you use a gmo, is a monetary amount. the united nations and cultural economist a lot of studies on

this. 75 percent of the added value that is the money that comes back goes to the small farmers and not to the monsanto or the dow. so most of the increase in economic value is really going back to the farmers. not to the corporations that have developed the technology. sure, they get a little cut but not that. >> monopoly is bad but not all production at large concentrated scale is monopoly. and also, we have a kind of set of foundational policy and legal principles that we allow or even granted monopolies sometimes and one face of the government granted monopolies and has since the constitution was adopted is in the area of patents. because you want to encourage benefits innovation. and and stu is granted a monopoly under certain conditions in return for somebody doing innovative useful things. i do not you can fairly

consider one side of this without thinking about the other. goodness knows, like innovation and food production or by and for good things. with associated harms requiring regulation when they come off. >> now i want you to surprise and excite us. what you working on? what are you working on that is something that you're excited about and you feel kind of the idealism about that you felt when you went into this line of work? >> gosh i get excited every day. it changes every day. let me put this into context. the goal for all of us i think it's making healthy food supply that is sustainable and minimizes chemicals, minimizes the use of water, minimizes any

of the things that we need to do that we need to grow agriculture. in this area of genomics, yes i can sequence the genome of every single person in this room in my lab in about one week and know everything there is no button.that is being applied to agriculture. the relational plant in the face of this art that does not grow in some environment over this. we quickly do it naturally with the genes in the plant bodies. and with the tools that now exist, the things that we are talking about is the gmo's are really to us that the model t ford. the seminal wild tomato growing in the mountains of the andes,

and let's say it is resistant to somebody. that the domesticated tomato growing somewhere in the midwest will be destroyed by. we can find that jean and that little tiny tomato that you would not want to eat in the andes and we know exactly what it is. and we can go in with a domesticated tomato. but the little typewriter, literally, and we can change it. a very simple change.we do not have to edit anything. and now we can make a domesticated tomato resistant to the fungus. do you know what that means? and his brothers ms. in the absence of spring with frank sicard and that's what is exciting. so in some respects the technology is going backwards. it is sort of back to the future. we can use all of that perversity in all of these crops around the world to find out what makes them different, what makes them resistant to pests. what makes them growing santa monica beach with almost no water? find all the information.

and we are in labs all over the world.and we can use that to be able to tweak the things that we grow agriculturally because they're different and make them better make a great sustainable outcome. i look at it as an organic farmer stream. because 50 is not doubt that we will be spraying a lot of stuff and i doubt that we will be flooding the fields with water. because we are understanding the processes. that is what excites me. [applause] >> okay cento have to ask a question of the three of you. well, you i know. do you cook? >> i love cooking. my wife is 5 million times better than me. >> what is your dish? >> my dish? oh gosh, i love steamed vegetables like broccoli and wild rice. >> do you cook? >> not much.not much and not

love. i like all fruits and vegetables. >> you look like you like broccoli. you look very healthy. >> suspiciously healthy. [laughter] i think genetically modified. [laughter] >> me too. >> for you sir, what is the most interesting you been lately? it can be raw or at a fine dining experience. >> i don't know. most interesting thing. you know i did something this is totally off-topic. but i'm working on a book with somebody who is one of this kind of very advanced, norton that weird, he is advanced in that weird way that weird perfection way. he is the coach for the american -- a big cooking competition it takes place.

he was second last time and he is the coach this year. >> is a gavin? >> no. he did it three or four times ago. -- did it to. i was up at the lab. protecting their dishes and watching them sharpen carrots with life this great big pencil sharpener. every carrot was exactly the same size. and then, gluing together the skin of the chicken breast with the chicken meat and then horsemeat and different things put together. it was very weird and in its own way gmo exciting. [laughter] dishes that were not intended in nature.it sounds

unnatural. >> before we get to the q&a there is one more question i want to ask you. and i know this is a different can of worms i'm opening up. and i apologize. when you were talking about the papaya. and you described what you did with it. you describe what people, you said inoculate. is that how we should think about this? like a vaccination but with plants? >> with the papaya it was not an immunization in a sense. it was to prevent viruses. >> how often is that done? >> it depends upon the plans. in the case of a papaya and squash those are the only two food in which it has been done. but it can be generally done with almost anything that you can imagine. >> beta is working on -- >> no but that is a big problem. we work on soybeans.

>> are we ready? let the floodgates open. >> we have times to take questions. we are going around with microphones. please raise your hands and we will come to you. please see your first and last name before asking a question. this is being recorded by c-span for rebroadcast at a later date. >> i am alexander -- i am under the impression that there are no gmo organic vegetables.do you think there will be an upside to having gmo organics? >> is an oxymoron, right? >> it would be a regulatory decision with what falls in the category. i think the interesting way of understanding it is with there

being gm modifications that would be consistent with the underlying philosophy that aims at logano. my guess without a lot of specific knowledge is that it would be good it could be environmentally beneficial. you disagree. >> i am with you but it is a very difficult topic. >> it is. >> because gmo's will organics is a no no. >> i think it is really acting as reverse labeling now. since people really feel that they want labeling which we did not get into. knowing that if you do choose something organic then it has been shorted does not have gmo's. >> one of my favorite molecular biologists, she has written a great book with her husband who is a director of the uc davis student organic farm and is a former member of the california organic certification board.

i think there is tremendous promise there. it is getting across the political hurdle. >> soaked up married couple can sit together at dinner - >> they can even write a book together. it is called - [inaudible] thank you! it is wonderful. >> how long will it be before crops are going to be able to accomplish nitrogen fixation? >> oh my gosh that is a great question. one of the dreams in 1985 when plant genetic engineering was invented was to be able to do nitrogen fixation from bacteria. date associate with the roots and give the nitrogen different forms of the plant. but the problem is that it involves literally hundreds and hundreds of genes. both on the bacteria side and

on the plant side . it will be a long time before anyone can do hundreds of genes in a crop to be able to do this, if it can be done because there is a lot of energy requirements and things like that that might not be suitable to plant cells. it is much more complicated problem than one could ever imagine.in the beginning of this science. >> next question on the right. lex -- my question has to do with, is the nutritional value of organic food and nonorganic food the same? the a question of that as well i become ill if i eat nonorganic food?

and b well i be healthier if i eat organic food? >> there have been studies that come down on the margin of each argument. there have been surveys and studies it take a look at all of literature, all of the studies that have been done and analyzing them. some say yes there is marginal benefit to eating organic and some say no, there is no benefit whatsoever. nutritionally, from my point of view nutritionally, the food that we get is conventionally, is, what we are talking about one or two percent more at the most, in the most optimistic scenarios. so to avoid conventionally grown food because you're going

to get one or two percent gain in vitamin k seems shortsighted to me. >> also very privileged place to be. super privileged place to be. i think 11 times it is good to remember that. because boy, do we live in a series of concentric bubbles. >> organics are more expensive and they have to be more expensive because the yield is so low. statistics, and varies depending on growing area and crop. but the average is 20 percent reduced yields. so if a farmer is going to be able to make his rent he has to charge 20 percent more. so the equations keep, they keep complicating rather than simplifying. >> basically makes no difference. >> eat vegetables.

[laughter] >> my name is scott kennedy and i am a documentary filmmaker. i want to start by thanking you for putting on these amazing things. and for having such a mature conversation all of you. thank you so much. [applause] i am a little excited so i will try and control myself. i've been working for about three years on a documentary called food evolution. about almost everything we are talking when you're trying to reset the conversation on gmo's. we just premiered in new york and hope to come to movie theaters and around the country in 2017. we are still looking to have the ãas the narrator and were trying to have the same mature conversation that you all are having.we touched, their servant doesn't want to estimate can't wait to have drinks. i have two go to, it has only been touched on a little bit

and i would military talk about this and thank you evan for doing this. because we know that to a lot of people you represent organic. you represent local. you represent perfect food. >> and he is a foodie also. >> that is a tricky word. you asked how did we come to, if gmo's are brought to us, brought to us by monsanto, that made it very difficult. but i asked everybody in this room, how did they first hear about gmo's? and it was not from monsanto. it was from somebody interpreting monsanto. and i will take that a step further going to your point about organic marketing. who is the organic usually, the marketers to safely say that gmo's are scary, look what we can get you to buy. look at that lovely woman was

asking. >>. [inaudible] i would love to see a show of hands of how people first heard about gmo's and will be one of three documentaries. >> you should have an open mind. [laughter] >> i complimented you on that and then i felt, thank you. my question is are we going to ask the, or some in the organic and natural food industry to stop fear mongering and stop these people about what they should eat and say eat your vegetables, please?>> well, i don't know. do you want me to answer that? >> are you afraid of gmo's? >> no i am not afraid. i do not eat from that part of the supermarket. i am a cook. i take brought food and i transform them in the privacy of my own kitchen. [laughter] so have i ever had a doritos? sure. have i gone to taco bell? yes.

[laughter] >> taco bell? [laughter] >> but so for me it is not that i avoid gmo's, i just do not eat a lot of processed food. and so you know, if the, for example when i was in washington and oregon in the spring and i was eating blackberries as big as my head, it would not have bothered me at all. i was just happy to put that gorgeous juicy fabulous blackberry that was as big as my head into my mouth. that was not a gmo but for me, is a much bigger conversation. and for me, how the first, or anything to medically modified was -- >> it was on the market. >> it was economically viable.

>> and we are from california so we would not need that. >> but there is no controversy. >> no. >> cannot respond to two point? one is natural versus unnatural is a really lousy proxy for good versus bad. whatever value you are talking about. good for you, good for the environment, virtually. and the other is, we expect enterprises, commercial interest to advance their interests. and one of the oddities is that people have the villainous side and they perceive the other side of it as virtuous. now, i do not want to cast anything in any individual enterprise within both of those premises are suspect. they're both doing what they do, sell product and set up an

organized and their genome to attend to the public consequences. that is why we have government and laws. to control health effects, environmental effects and stuff like that. so, i love this as much as anyone else to have a skepticism both whether it is a sensible category to ram your passions around. i mean there's an awful lot of natural stuff get off a lot of unnatural stuff that is really good in my opinion. and i also cancel you about a credulity that enterprises and people who managed to appropriate certain symbols to themselves unnecessarily acting in your interest. >> yeah.>> next question on your right. >> -- you made a great case for gmo's.

and yet you say the most exciting advancements are in diversity. in peruvian tomatoes. how do we balance kind of the culture that is taking over because gmo produces more? because of beads that are being sold to produce more. and it is taking over the diversity. and that diversity might hold some promise. >> i think in terms of monoculture it is an overused word. and the reason i say that is that the soybean that grows and mississippi is that the soybean that grows in ohio.nor is it the soybean that grows anywhere else in the world. and so there is a tremendous amount of what we call genetic diversity within soybeans, within corn, with any of these crops that one would think this is a monolithic thing.

which it is not. there is much diversity in these crops that are grown as there is in the room. so it is not without all the same. they are in fact very, very different. i think the key is that if you go to the grocery store, you'll see this rich bountiful store of plenty. we have all kinds of different vegetables and all kinds of different crops that are grown. it is not simply corn and soybean. i think that with the monoculture, where comes in is that we have this meeting based society. and that meat based society. when it eating the kind of corn respects the cows and chickens and everything else. nancy changed the way in which we do things, going from a meat based food to something else is

that you will not have as rich different crops and plants that you perceive to be less of a quote - monocle because ac the corn and soybeans growing the midwest. >> the main one is at 70 percent? 70 percent of all of the monoculture crops are being fed to livestock. if we stop eating so much livestock we will have less mono crops. >> and the reason their monocultures is because they're very low margin crops. and so to grow them you need to grow a lot of them. it is not like, the tomato we get a high return. one of the things i think we need to keep coming back to in all of the discussions like i'm culture is that this is negative. i mean everything that we are doing, anytime we are asking farmers to give something up we

need to remember that they are already in the hole. >> they are fewer and fewer of them. >> four percent. >> what is ironic about this is that you give me a segue. in 1930, believe it or not, there were 29,000 farms in los angeles county. if you believe that. and los angeles county from 1950 to 1954 was the largest agriculturally producing kathy in the united states. not simply california. and about 50 percent of the workforce and los angeles county was in agriculture. there is no forms and almost no one works in agriculture now. so things change. >> one thing i would like to bring up. i think, because we very rightly have been focusing on this very modern aspect of agriculture. but i think that sometimes people get fixed in their mind

that you're either going this way or this way. i think really, we are in a certain age agriculture especially california. especially for people like us who, the perfect salad is -- we can get the lettuce at the farmers market. they are there for us if we want them.for the vast majority people, for whom feeding is a nutritional exercise, they can get really nutritious cost-effective, very safe food. at reasonable prices. food is no longer a barrier to health. so anyway, we have to remember that we can do both of these things at once. it is -- >> my name is --. i'm very curious about a

presupposition of what a lot of this is based on. i think early on there is nothing without when it comes to gmo's. my question is how is it being evaluated? who would be finding the research? how many generations would be required for evaluation to be able to truly justify the truth behind the statement? for me, i guess i like to understand more about the meat and potatoes of justifying that there is no evidence that gmo's are harmful. and then i have a question is in reference to, aren't they categorized somewhat? meeting, is monthly to take a

gene from a tomato in one part of the world and integrated into a tomato in another part of the world. what is not different in terms of how human system with work with that, even over multiple generations. if you take a cauliflower and stick a pig gene in it. now have cross species, now we have got much more genetic differentiation. in a way that gmo's are being utilized. >> go ahead. >> you first. [laughter] >> i will take the second part. >> that is the easy one. >> a gene is a gene is a gene. how many do you have? >> quite a few. >> have so for the most per day are digested in all these things that clearly to get and realized or you could fill

no. >> caller: 1-111-111-1111 consene

dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. schumer: mr. president, i rise this afternoon on a few topics, first on the investigation into the trump campaign's potential ties to russia. this is a matter of such gravity we need to get it right. there should be no doubt about the integrity and impartiality of the investigation, either in the executive branch where the f.b.i. and department of justice are looking into it or in congress where the intelligence committees of both chambers are conducting an investigation. unfortunately, the house intelligence committee has come under a cloud of suspicion and partisanship. a few months ago, chairman nunez spoke to reporters at the request of the white house to tamp down stories on the links between the trump campaign and russia, which is exactly what his committeeus