WEBVTT - David Schultz on GMOs (Audio)

0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:04.640
<v Speaker 1>Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are controversial in the farming

0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:08.000
<v Speaker 1>and food industries, with proponents touting their durability and yield

0:00:08.039 --> 0:00:11.160
<v Speaker 1>and skeptics worrying about their effect on the environment, their safety,

0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.120
<v Speaker 1>and the mixing of GMO and non GMO crops on

0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:16.960
<v Speaker 1>farms and in the food supply. Since the year two thousand,

0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.320
<v Speaker 1>there have been at least four class action lawsuits against

0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:23.799
<v Speaker 1>biotech companies involving GMO crops that became improperly intermingled with

0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.200
<v Speaker 1>other crop shipments, with three of the cases settled so far,

0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.200
<v Speaker 1>including one about wheat in which event is paid about

0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.839
<v Speaker 1>a billion dollars. Here did they talk about the impact

0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.839
<v Speaker 1>of this kind of litigation over GMO contamination? Is David Schultz,

0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:45.080
<v Speaker 1>environment reporter for Bloomberg b NA. David, how exactly is

0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:50.080
<v Speaker 1>it that the GMO crops end up mixed together with

0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:54.200
<v Speaker 1>non GMO crops and shipments? What's going on here? Look,

0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:56.720
<v Speaker 1>can happen a number of different ways. One of the

0:00:57.600 --> 0:01:01.080
<v Speaker 1>most basic ways is that you have to different fields

0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:05.120
<v Speaker 1>um neighboring each other, and there's some cross pollinations. So

0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:09.840
<v Speaker 1>let's say you have GMO corn, the corn releases, it's

0:01:09.840 --> 0:01:12.840
<v Speaker 1>it's pollen and it goes across to a neighbor's field

0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:17.480
<v Speaker 1>and then that uh, non gmo corn pollinates with the

0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:21.800
<v Speaker 1>GMO corn and it creates some some problems. But another,

0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:26.080
<v Speaker 1>um more common way is that, you know, the when

0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:29.920
<v Speaker 1>farmers send their their grain to grain silos for storage,

0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:33.200
<v Speaker 1>they're supposed to sort of keep the GMO and non

0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:36.800
<v Speaker 1>GMO crops separate for export reasons, because there are a

0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:40.080
<v Speaker 1>lot of countries that have different rules about GMOs and

0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:44.240
<v Speaker 1>the US do does I should say, and um, but

0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:46.560
<v Speaker 1>that doesn't always happen the way it's supposed to do,

0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.560
<v Speaker 1>and so sometimes there's traces of GMO crops that get

0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.400
<v Speaker 1>into these exports silos and get sent to other countries,

0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:58.480
<v Speaker 1>which creates a big problems. Very basic question, Do all

0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:01.760
<v Speaker 1>GMO strains have to be approved by the Department of

0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:06.520
<v Speaker 1>Agriculture and what's the process? Yes, they do. All um

0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.240
<v Speaker 1>GMO crops do needed U s d A approval, And

0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.480
<v Speaker 1>essentially what the U. S d A is looking for

0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.799
<v Speaker 1>is to make sure that these crops won't accidentally sort

0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.160
<v Speaker 1>of grow wild and overtake non gmo crops. So they're

0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:21.200
<v Speaker 1>looking for, uh, you know, essentially whether these crops would

0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:25.040
<v Speaker 1>would become in essence a weed. Uh. And you know,

0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:28.480
<v Speaker 1>at this point they've been doing these approvals for around

0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:31.680
<v Speaker 1>thirty years and basically since the mid to late eighties,

0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:35.080
<v Speaker 1>and most crops do receive approval, but there are some

0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:40.520
<v Speaker 1>situations where GMO crops that were grown in experimental field

0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:44.560
<v Speaker 1>trials and were never approved somehow make their way into

0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:46.520
<v Speaker 1>fields and start growing wild. And that's where you give

0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:49.080
<v Speaker 1>big problems. And for example, the the wheat case that

0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.919
<v Speaker 1>you mentioned, that's what happened there. There was an experimental

0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:56.079
<v Speaker 1>field trial of GMO wheat and it ended and then

0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.840
<v Speaker 1>ten years later, Uh, that wheat was sound growing just spontaneously.

0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:02.560
<v Speaker 1>Feel that no one really I thought that could happen,

0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:05.080
<v Speaker 1>and it caused a lot of problems for Monsanto, which

0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:09.960
<v Speaker 1>was the developer of the wheat. So David tell us,

0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:12.360
<v Speaker 1>who's liable here when this kind of that you have

0:03:12.440 --> 0:03:14.720
<v Speaker 1>different ways that it can get into non gmo crops,

0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:18.040
<v Speaker 1>who's liable? Yeah, Well that's a big unanswered question. Uh,

0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:20.000
<v Speaker 1>it could be you know, is that the farmer, is

0:03:20.000 --> 0:03:22.400
<v Speaker 1>that the person who sold the seed, that this the

0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.560
<v Speaker 1>company that developed the seed, And frankly, we don't really

0:03:25.600 --> 0:03:28.880
<v Speaker 1>know because all of the lawsuits that have resulted from

0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.520
<v Speaker 1>this have ended in settlements. So we've never had a

0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:34.920
<v Speaker 1>court of law into a ruling saying, uh, you know,

0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:37.760
<v Speaker 1>Monsanto your fault or the farmer your fault because you

0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:40.080
<v Speaker 1>didn't you know, plant the crops in the right way.

0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.240
<v Speaker 1>We just don't know. And and U. S. D A

0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:45.440
<v Speaker 1>has not issued really any regulations on this, and and

0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.320
<v Speaker 1>certainly Congresses is nowhere near ready to pass a law

0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:51.880
<v Speaker 1>that would it would make this clearer. So right now

0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.200
<v Speaker 1>it's really unclear. It's just you know, when when these

0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.440
<v Speaker 1>biotech companies like Monsanto and c Genta and Bear and

0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:02.320
<v Speaker 1>the like gets sued um, they pretty much just uh

0:04:02.600 --> 0:04:07.240
<v Speaker 1>tend to go towards a settlement and avoid a judgment. David,

0:04:07.280 --> 0:04:10.120
<v Speaker 1>what's the best hope for providing some of that certainty?

0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:14.240
<v Speaker 1>Is it the regulatory process? Is it? Is it? Uh,

0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:16.680
<v Speaker 1>you know, eventually getting a court ruling instead of a settlement.

0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:19.280
<v Speaker 1>How are we going to get out of this box? Well?

0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:22.800
<v Speaker 1>I think that the there's a current big class action

0:04:22.880 --> 0:04:26.000
<v Speaker 1>lawsuit that's ongoing right now against the Swiss company's Centa,

0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:30.040
<v Speaker 1>which is a maker of a lot of GMO products,

0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.480
<v Speaker 1>And in that instan what drove. That instance was an

0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:38.560
<v Speaker 1>incidence where centers GMO corn accidentally got into shipments from

0:04:38.600 --> 0:04:42.720
<v Speaker 1>the US to China, and Chinese authorities discovered that they

0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:45.160
<v Speaker 1>cut off all U S shipments some corn. So in

0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:47.800
<v Speaker 1>essence that for a couple of years after this happened,

0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:51.320
<v Speaker 1>US farmers could not export their product to China. That

0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:53.560
<v Speaker 1>caused the price collapse. It hurt a lot of businesses,

0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:56.960
<v Speaker 1>and those farmers whose businesses were heard then suits in Genta.

0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.800
<v Speaker 1>And this is a really unique case because in this instance,

0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.159
<v Speaker 1>Sintenda had received all the USDA approvals that it needed

0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.240
<v Speaker 1>and so that there were no problems with them growing

0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.040
<v Speaker 1>the crop in the US. Just what happens when it

0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:12.640
<v Speaker 1>gets exported to China. So depending on how that lawsuit

0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:15.960
<v Speaker 1>plays out, it could really influence um, you know, even

0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:17.839
<v Speaker 1>if you get all the approvals you need, if you

0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.680
<v Speaker 1>mess up, you know, export markets, you might still be

0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.839
<v Speaker 1>liable depending on how the case goes. Although it goes

0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:26.279
<v Speaker 1>to a settlement, then I guess we still won't really know.

0:05:26.680 --> 0:05:29.120
<v Speaker 1>And David, just to be clear, it was Monsanto that

0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:34.680
<v Speaker 1>paid the billion dollars, so that's right in the weak case. Okay, Well,

0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:37.480
<v Speaker 1>thank you to David Chultz, environment reporter for Bloomberg. V

0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:37.800
<v Speaker 1>NA