Open Source Food and Genetic Engineering - Michael Pollan

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/05/Michael_Pollan_Deep_Agriculture

"The real key to genetic engineering is control of intellectual property of the food crops that we depend on," says author Michael Pollan of companies like Monsanto. He advocates an open source GE model.

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Farming has become an occupation and cultural force of the past. Michael Pollan's talk promoted the premise -- and hope -- that farming can become an occupation and force of the future. In the past century American farmers were given the assignment to produce lots of calories cheaply, and they did. They became the most productive humans on earth. A single farmer in Iowa could feed 150 of his neighbors. That is a true modern miracle.

"American farmers are incredibly inventive, innovative, and accomplished. They can do whatever we ask them, we just need to give them a new set of requirements." - The Long Now Foundation

Michael Pollan is the author of The Omnivores Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, a New York Times bestseller. His previous books include The Botany of Desire: A Plants-Eye View of the World (2001); A Place of My Own (1997); and Second Nature (1991). A contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine, Pollan is the recipient of numerous journalistic awards, including the James Beard Award for best magazine series in 2003 and the Reuters-I.U.C.N. 2000 Global Award for Environmental Journalism. Pollan served for many years as executive editor of Harpers Magazine and is now the Knight Professor of Science and Environmental Journalism at UC Berkeley. His articles have been anthologized in Best American Science Writing 2004, Best American Essays 2003, and the Norton Book of Nature Writing. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, the painter Judith Belzer, and their son, Isaac.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• gm
• genetically
• modified
• foods
• biotech
• genes
• health
• unhealthy
• monsanto
• corporate
• corporations
• patents
• patented
• farming
• agriculture
• biology
• technology
• science
• fora.tv
• foratv
• fora
• tv

[2xtream]

Monsanto is corrupt.

[criticalmindseed]

monsanto is evil, yet their name translated means "holy one" oh and didn't they develop agent orange? this is still killing people in veitnam

[iLOVENATURE2011]

truth is, i hate numbers....but sad to say, you have to undergo through them to get by college...=D

[lovelplants]

oh.. that's what genetic engineering do.. ah.. nice

[Gatodefelix]

We feel oppressed because we don't know how to do what the biotech companies can do. We must educate people on how to better farm. How to save seed, simple crop/plant science, basic Mendelian genetics etc... Food is the most important thing in our lives, yet few of us know about the food we eat. Knowledge is power. With our knowledge we can become open source with the world wide web.

[mastersausagemaker]

@givebirthathome

No, I am not a troll

While it is true some cases all is needed is to unwrap the chord from around the neck, you didn't acknowledge the more extreme cases where immediate emergency treatment is needed. The truth is, birthing at home is idiotic and threatens the health of the mother and child. Tell me, do you have any statistics on the amounts of time it takes to get an emergency caesarean within a hospital as compared to someones home?

I was correct about your poor terminology

[givebirthathome]

@mastersausagemaker Fool---you unloop the cord with your hand. Lewis Mehl-Madrona's study comparing two large groups of parents in both hospital and home settings, matched for other risk factors, showed home-births to be slightly safer.

Based on your obnoxious behavior, I deduce you are a troll---therefore, I leave the further remedy of your ignorance to you.

[mastersausagemaker]

@givebirthathome

"[...] he is not a scientist, is ridiculous and fascist."

No, it is not fascist, it is technocratic. Based by your misapplication of the term fascism and failure to use the appropriate term from technocracy, I deduce you're American. You probably should know that there is a field called the social sciences. This is consistent with ninjas description.

Also, "givebirthathome", what does one do when a child is born choking with an umbilical chord around their neck at home?

[leosbeljimenez]

bueno

[givebirthathome]

@givebirthathome determined by controlled double blind studies. Being an uncritical science-groupie as many youtubers are, just makes you prey to any unscrupulous PR companies that like to spew lines like "there's absolutely no scientific evidence" and other talking points, no matter how inaccurately or irrelevantly. Sometimes there is evidence, although they deny it; at other times, the lack of scientific evidence does not prove the point they are trying to make.

[givebirthathome]

I see some idiotic science worship below. We learn things from scientific studies, but they only determine tightly defined technical questions. Science is not what detemines many very important issues in our society, and it shouldn't be. What MutantNinjaFly says below about not taking what Pollan says seriously because he is not a scientist, is ridiculous and fascist. What Pollan is talking about @4:18 is a social fact, and an important one, it is not in the realm of questions that have to be

[MutantNinjaFly]

@2xtream I'm interested in this study you cite. what was the sample size? control measures? which organs? "organ failure" is an extremely broad term. what was the significance level? who funded it and at what institution? Has it been published in a respected peer-reviewed journal like the New England Journal of Medicine? infowars.COM, never heard of it, doesn't sound reputable. Are there other corroborating studies? These are what you should ask before you jump to conclusions.