 And our next speaker that I'm very happy to introduce to you is Giovanni Carrada, who is a biologist by training, but is a science journalist by profession. And Giovanni, beside having been one of the authors of super quark, which is a very popular science program on the Italian public TV, and very successful I'm going to say, is also I think one of the people who have given most thought as to how to deal with the communicating science and innovation in the food system and in the agricultural system. So today he will start our war show by perhaps taking a reverse approach so we start by how to explain what we do and then we'll describe what we do. And his talk is entitled the power of meaning. Thank you Giovanni, the floor is yours. Thank you Michele, for inviting me to speak here today. Why the power of meaning because people in the sciences people trained in the scientists believe in the power of data or facts for good reason of course. But we are entering now in a very different domain, where the power occurs to meaning much more than to facts and numbers and data. Why because we, as I think we'll, I will be developing these about I think the next speakers we will get into it a bit more, we need a turnaround in the way people perceive innovation in the food sector. And if we don't get this turnaround, we're going to have serious problems in using the very technologies that might help make the food system more sustainable. And so, I would go here it is the next one. Okay, so what one thing that's been it has been briefly mentioned before is that people the public doesn't have any perception of the huge impact of food production on the environment. It has always had it it's always been the the by far the biggest single factor affecting the environment, especially through land use the biodiversity crisis is a is a result of huge land use and converting natural highly ecosystems into simplified frail and ecosystem which, for example, do not stop carbon. It is a is we're talking as we can see from the slides about huge amounts of land that have been lost mostly to forests. We have devoted to food production as a, as in all areas of sustainability, real progress will be made. Yes, of course through changes in people's habits in behaviors, but these can go on so far, especially in food. And we need new technologies new ways to do things which can give us the same amount of food with at a lesser cost for the environment as a lower cost so we have to effectively the cop tried to decouple our food production from the natural resources that we have to share with a biosphere and land is by far the the foremost factor, but so we need innovation within a lot of innovation, but the, the great paradox of food is that is yet by a few is our it is arguably the only sector in our economy, where something new is perceived as being inherently bad and not even inherently good. If you think about the all the marketing strategies of the, of the food sector is this it's the, the, the, the arc or more or more progress goes backwards, not forwards. Whatever innovation is being done. It's an in lots of areas it is a lot of innovation. It is being kept hidden carefully hidden that just think of the wine sector. In Italy is a huge economic importance it's the last 30 years is completely innovated in every aspect, but nobody ever speaks about it. So we, the public at large have developed this idea that there is something inherently bad in the new way in everything that has been done in the last 100 years. It's a very widespread notion, which is not very helpful when you have to innovate, because you find resistance at every stage. So, this is a condition in which incumbents, which is people doing all things and have one who have an economic and financial interest in doing things the old way have huge way sway. It has always been like this in all kinds of innovation historically. What happens is that when you have a new technology, the proponents of old ones usually debated publicly in the name of health safety and to do also the environment. What we have seen is a, so it is a condition in which opposition to innovation can have usually have the upper end, and in which innovators find it very, very difficult to have their voices heard. So what we have to do is in a way to make food production normally gay what does it mean. It means that every innovation is judged on a scientific basis on a case by case basis by science based regulatory agencies, instead of being judged and allowed or banned, according to political criteria, which in the food market as it seems to be the normal way to deal with things in this area. The GMO controversy has been mentioned already. It is the only way it's one of the very few cases, maybe the only one in which a whole technology has been labeled in a certain way and effectively banned. Without listening to the advice of the very regulatory agencies, for example, here in Europe. So, the topic of my short talk would be about how to make food production normal again, that it is to be judged on a fact, a factually on a case by case basis. It's very important today, because as you have said the impact of food production is huge. Professor Morgan that mentioned that 38% of our missions were the missions are somehow related to food production and distribution and everything. But we have at least three big technologies that can be real game changers. The first one as we mentioned is genome editing, which can progressively help adapt plants to the environment rather than the other way around, which is what we've been doing until now, which is why we have such a big environmental impact. And if you think about it, genetic technologies, which you have seen as we have seen, being the biggest contribution to the progress of our agriculture are among the only, maybe the only ultra technique that did not have any significant negative impacts, just think of all the others fertilization, lots of energy, tilling erosion and loss of carbon pesticides, etc. So it's a, it's a, it's a field that in the public section is really seen upside down, really an upside down field. So we have genome editing, which is already suffering all the opposition that GMOs met in the past, but which is huge. So it has huge importance for adapting the plants, and also of course for increasing productivity, because another paradox is that the word intensification is seen as something bad in public perception. If you think about it, the higher the productivity of land, the less land we need. And this is not just an hypothesis. It is what has is already happening in advanced countries. In this country in Italy, we have four times the amount of forest we had a century ago, four times as much. And in the last 10 years, forests have been growing at the rate of 60,000 hectares a year, due to increasing intensification of food production. So technological advancement due to innovation, it's a hundred thousand actors a year in Europe. The same is happening in the United States, in Canada and all the other advanced countries so we're talking about very big things. Just think that in Italy, growing new forests is a response for observing about between 15% and 20% of our greenhouse emissions. So it's a huge contribution. Just think that just by extending our innovation, existing innovation to the world, we have huge effects. Then there is cellular agriculture, cultured meat, cultured fish, cultured coffee has already been made, coffee without passing through the plant or a meat without passing through the animal. Just think about the human, the huge suffering of these animals, but from the point of view of sustainability, it's something that is truly disruptive because the amount of land and resources that all inputs needed to make cultured meat or fish is a tiny amount of the overall impact. So we have things, tools that might really revolutionize all this field, but it is increasingly meeting a lot of resistance, resistance which mainly comes from, of course, all the established industries in the agro sector. We see, we've seen, we've been seeing it in Italy very, very clearly and it is being done with very same arguments that were made 30 years ago against GMOs. They have never been proved true, as we have seen after 30 years of experience. And it is effectively preventing us from making the biggest contribution we can make to the sustainability of food systems. The engine dries, I would add, it's still not mature technology, it still has to prove itself fully, but it has the potential to wipe out all the pests in agriculture, especially insects but also rodents, which is a major source of waste in the food system. And with it we could do without the huge amounts of pesticides with all that it entails in terms of impact that are currently used in agriculture. So we are talking about really big things which are meeting this kind of a position to new things. What are these misperceptions made of and here. So partly it's played ignorance. Part is that we are very vulnerable to threats that are being made to the purity, the integrity of our food. We have it is an internet mechanism in our that it was as evolved to protect us from food contamination, which is impossible, a very serious problem. So whenever one raises a specter or something bad in our food, whether found it in facts or not, we are very careful. We have a strong preference for the tried and true what is in our food tradition, good reasons of course because it was foods that have already been tried by someone else in the past. So traditional foods have, we are so it means we are very conservative when it comes to food. In this case about in the case of food technologies several decades now a very negative communication of things being said against innovation in food. Part of these things are founded of course because modern agriculture had very heavy impact, not just on the environment we're also on cultural traditions in many places. So this is, we might think about also it's an interesting thing to think about why food has become such a lightning road for anxieties. If you think about it, food is the only maybe the only part technology, the only product of modern technology that we can actually choose. Whether to eat a particular food or not, but we can't do without the smartphones or other kinds of innovation that some, they are somehow forced on us. So we have concentrated on on food a lot of expectations and anxieties that we don't attach to other technologies. So it's a very sensitive issue. We have powerful cultural trends and the foremost one is a cultural trend that makes us surprised everything that is or seems to be natural. This is also a byproduct of our anxieties about the future. It's characteristic of every affluent age and age in which changes are rapid. And it is very misleading because it has been applied in this debate in food to agriculture that is being branded as something natural, but it isn't at all. Agriculture is a very artificial thing. But it has been framed is a very important word where we are going to talk a lot about it as something natural. And in our culture today, natural means good, fair. And in a way, something divine. We are in a secularized societies, we have been in a way turning nature into a God. And when nature is a God, everything they does are we think it does. It's perfect. We can change it. This plays also on a lot of moral lashing religious intuitions that in a way compel us to feel that meddling with nature is something that should not be done. So we think that all the agriculture we've been doing is natural. So we don't have to do to change what we've been doing. And this makes us blind to the huge environmental impact that for thousands of years has agriculture has had. Especially for example, in countries as densely populated as Italy in the late middle ages, Tuscany was almost three less erosion was huge. And there are lots of data about coast and things that demonstrate this. And of course there are lots of cognitive biases that prevent us from changing our mind. And all the communication of incumbents, all the people who have an interest in opposing innovation in food production and always played on this. And you can't challenge these things directly. There is no way, once we have made up our mind and we have and these are, these are very deeply convictions we all have that I have also you can challenge them directly. So what all these things have in common all these psychological mechanisms we've been talking about is that they are very impervious to data to arguments made of data and facts. And this is a lesson that not just the agricultural Genesis community has learned the hard way but lots of other just think of a vaccine science. You don't challenge these convictions is they're made of emotions are very deep seated emotions with data and facts you need something else. We assume the famous 18th century Scottish philosophers and understood it three centuries ago, and cognitive scientists are rediscovering this lesson now. We decide with our emotions, and then use rationality to rationalize away what we have already decided. So you have to conquer hearts first, and then you can conquer minds. In my work as a science communicator. This is the number one lesson, unless you open the door of the emotions packs don't just don't get through. Let's say, have an example that we all know of of the power in this case of just three letters the acronym GMO to frame I was thinking without our even perceiving this. If you label plants go some plants genetically modified organ is what we all think is that all other plants have never been genetically modified. And so that is it is must be something new and strange and something if it is related to food that we should be very suspicious about. This has been the foundation of all the controversy. But if you think about it, genetic modification random genetic modification continuous, continual and random genetic modification is at the heart of life mutations. So the recombination of genes is random evolution is genetic check continual genetic change, but it, we never think about it when we hear you here and use the word GMO. So it is very misleading, and we don't even know that we are being misled. So this is a very small example of what we can do to use these rhetoric tools in a more positive ways. This is my very small contribution to the field, but you can use it consider it a proof of concept of the power of what I'm going to say is that when Italy's agriculture genetics is asked me. Well, we have a problem because they are labeling. And they did it plants as the new GMOs, what can we do. So they're trying to take all the prejudice that surrounded GMOs to this new very different technology, and if they manage these, that's the end for public perception. And so how can we call them these new plans and I said, don't call them with any new way, however clever, because he would set them apart from all other plans. So we should have a new name for the technology. Nobody wants in this in this culture climate to have their food engineered. For example, with biotechnology or new breeding techniques. You said, well, we call we need a new name. So I came up this is assisted evolution technologies, which is suggest a gentle nudge to nature, which is actually the truth. You produce a desired mutation that might have come about naturally. And it's, it reminds us of assisted. And you have, when you need to have babies, artificial, the artificial. And which is now be seen as something positive an act of law to have new children and these small trick together with a package of rhetoric new rhetorical package, but how to talk about genome editing in relation to the needs of Italian agriculture It worked. It was a part of an effort that was made by our geneticists and talking to very important stakeholders in the agricultural sector, and they managed to convince the, especially the biggest they had been staunch opposers of GMOs to side with this new technology. So it worked. It was a way to talk about this new technology that in a way was not did not stride against all this psychological perceptions we all have, and it helped convince a lot of stakeholders. That indeed, maybe Italy that does not need GMOs, but these new technologies what we need at this moment. So we had these, we changed these the perception of these technologies and it happened and it happened rather quickly. It was a very small turnaround, but I said it's a proof of concept of something bigger that we should be doing. So, in order to make food innovation normal again, we need what I call a creative program to find a number of framing premiums ways to reframe technology and reframe this issue in a different way. It's one of the people's minds framing premium. What is the term I, I borrowed from Bill Gates book on climate change is that we need new technologies with a green premium which is called the, the, the, the financial reward of using new clean technology, and not all their technologies. We have this, we need a framing premium and a clever new ways to talk about these issues that help overcome all these layers of those layers of prejudice. We all have. I will briefly go through what I think is at the wish list in this creative program that I think should be done. The first is that the ecological transition should be framed as a change in the technology we use. It seems almost obvious, but it is not in, in, in public discourse. The ecological transition is very often seen as a kind of paling Genesis, in which we have to change everything. And it has also some political undertones, which are not helpful in this way, while we, what is actually happening is we already doing our ecological transition has already happened. The countries are lowering their impact and emissions year by year. It's something that's been happening for 15 years now in the 33 biggest economies, it's already like this. So, we need to change technologies. So the focus should be on technology change of technology. And the last step said, okay, which technologies. So it's not, it's not about going back by, it's about going forward. So the second thing is frame and environmental progress of the coupling from nature, not competing for the same resources, especially land. So we can't go back to nature. There is a very widespread notion that by going back to the good old days, everything will be fine again, which is a very reactionary thing to say, if you think about it, and it's not true. In the good old days, we had two little food of very bad quality, and we had huge environmental impact. It was amazing when I went to the, the highlands of Ethiopia, the agriculture is still in a way almost to integrate the, as a stage of neolithic, and there was not a single tree, they had to plant every, every small piece of land to. So we have to go forward. So we have to reframe farming, people don't know that it's that farming food production is the biggest impact on the environment. And if you don't know this, you don't have this piece of information, you'll never feel the need of innovation. So with it, we are, we are, we can convince ourselves that we have to change only if we have something very big is pushing us. And if it until this piece of information is not out there. There will be known, people will say why change, we have food is good, maybe we're eating too much, why change, because I don't know about this impact. So farming is something artificial, we will be doing it only in the last 10,000 years is nothing. And productivity is a concept that is not out there also. We see productivity as something bad, and the use of the term sustainable intensification which is used by FAO to describe something good. The use of people is something bad. We have become accustomed to consider intensification something bad. We think about it is about more input, more water, more fertilizer, more energy. Well, it's actually the reverse. So you have to be very careful at the word you use when you talk about this. Well, the words that are being used are considered normal in the scientific community out there can have can be perceived in a completely different way. And all these innovations together with digital innovation mean that we are at a turning point in agriculture where we come from a century in which we plant and be cultivated in the same way with the same varieties everywhere. Because of the limits of the technologies we had to make, it was very difficult and expensive to have to make a new variety. Now with genome editing is going to change completely. At a time when we can match each plant each new variety not just with specific environment, but also to a culture. So we'll be able to improve lots of other species and varieties that are in the traditions of cultural traditions of every part of the world. So what many of the things we did not like in in industrial farming, finished. And we have to be very clear that this is a possibility that the technology gives us. It's not more of the same, not still more industrial agriculture is a different thing. So frame innovation as solution also for countries, of course it's been mentioned by Professor Morgan to reframe by a technology the tools to restore the natural order, as we've seen the, the semi religious idea that you don't have to touch, touch what has been created. It's not something we're going to change so easily. So we have to emphasize the fact that what we can do with the new technology is just continue to adapt the existing thing we're not changing everything. We are just adopting what we already have. And so it's not, it's a new beginning. What we have seen how many things we already have in our minds all of us about food innovation. So we said we can change this. So we need to find something that creates something of a blank slate in people's mind. That's the opportunity also of the new technologies. So what we have to think is to be, we should be very clear in saying, and it is the truth that's what the technologies we've been talking about can promise. Put an end to what the industrial culture we have been we have known for the last 100 years. There is something new. And people must be very clearly made aware of this. And, of course, these are these new rhetorical tools have much in common, for example with political communication to have, we have to be very careful in using it in a very ethical way. I mean, which is the way I think we managed to do with assisted evolution techniques. So it takes a lot of discussion and scientific community about this new rhetoric that we have to craft. But it's, if you don't have an effective rhetoric, your device will not be heard. So it must be effective, but it must be scientific community and the innovative community must keep its integrity. And the most important lesson I think is I put it as the last slide at this problem with not solve itself. I've been dealing with this issues for the last 25 years. And I've seen the whole innovation communities blind to this problem, effectively blind. There has been a lot of discussion, lamentations, but very little. The most important in less than I think is that today, if we need to, if you want to innovate and radically lower the impact of food production, the communication problem is more important than the technical problem. Thank you. Thank you very much Giovanni for the very interesting presentation. We have time for a couple of questions from the floor or from the people online. Do we have questions online. Yes, we have a question. Do you have any resources or training you could recommend on genome editing for increased production of food and or plants metabolites, which can be developed for treatment of disease affecting humans and other animals. There is very little, very little. This slide week is exactly the point I want to, I just made at the end of my presentation. This is a very neglected problem. And unless an effort is made to study this problem and find creative communication solutions, not going anywhere. Unfortunately that is not. The intellectual property of the technology which is created. Thank you. And so I will explain my question a bit more I totally agree with you that genetically modified organisms does nothing new. It is as old as agriculture is farmers select and by selecting they modify what has maybe changed in the last 100 years is then giving the intellectual property so patent rights these kind of things to who has created that initial investment. It is logical you invest you need to have a return on profit. There are many people who would criticize the fact that a lot of this was basically a common good, the biodiversity, which farmers had shared amongst each other had traded for for millennia, which then becomes private property of a private institution. So how do you think we could solve some of the tensions or avoid some of the tensions that arise from this, without limiting investment. So it's a kind of balance. The answer is, I don't know, because I'm not in the scene but it's something that can be discussed and solved. I mean it's a kind of it's a problem of regulation. And but so it's not a problem of communication but something that is usually forgotten all this discussion is that it is true that, for example, genetic traits come come from traditional agriculture. But until they are used in a new context that they don't have the same factor. So, every time there is innovation. There are profits from the person who sell this innovation. The very biggest part I remember some figures from economist works is that is what everyone gains by using that innovation. This is always forgotten everybody thinks of the other profits. And sometimes, of course, they must be regulated better. I'm sure about that. We always forget the benefits that we get from better seeds for example, which is my if you see the overall benefit is much higher than any financial gain that a company can make. We all we all benefit. And this, of course, we have to find ways to to give part of this back to the but it's a question of regulation on a public perception. For example, I'm also a farmer I own a farm and one of the reasons I would probably not or I'm sometimes reticent and I come from, you know, Italy so we tend to buy our seeds every year. We don't really conserve seeds, but I've worked a lot of time in Africa and South America, where reusing seeds is a very important part of their economic. So why would a farmer buy GMO so it's which then they cannot replant in many cases. Now the Terminator gene is normally used much. No, but there is an intellectual property. It's sometimes you're going from a kind of self sufficiency to you are very much affected by current economics so by the price of seeds, you then have to use pesticides and fertilizers use a lot of petroleum based inputs, which are very cost. So, sometimes we need to think more about the small older farmer and trying to push them to then use this innovation because they're scared of this innovation, because they tend to lose control. They are very much then dependent on the third parties on who sells them the seeds and fertilizers and so forth. This is a regulation problem. It's not a technical problem. No, but you were talking about the perception and the perception comes from a lack of relation. So that has to be also solved from a communication point of view on the users on the farmers. So there's the consumers who eat the food but also you have to convince the farmers. And so in this also I think we need a bit more communication and in order to create that communication we need a bit more regulation or the regulation has to be a bit geared towards more more vulnerable actors in that food system, which are the ones. Not only innovation is made by big companies in Italy for example a lot of it is made by public institutions and the amazing thing that happened for example with all the general issues is that all the research made by public research was lost. These new regulations crushed all the public research, all the startup research, and the cost became so high that only a few big companies could compete. And that was the result of the position is exactly the opposite that was a foreseen which is makes you think. Okay, thank you sir for the impact what you have made. Like in Africa, the issue of GMO still becomes a big problem, like every place in the world. I specifically will agree with you 100% on the issue of information. Like where I work my institute we invest so much on information to spread the information to the masses. GMO for me is nothing new. Because as long as we exist the world evolves, Eman evolves, plants evolves. So we just modify some few parts to see how we can feed ourselves and make ourselves more sustainable than others. And also another point I looked at is the impact of agriculture in environment. I've worked on environment science for quite many years now. It is huge, especially in industrialized country in Africa is still not a big problem, but in terms of substance farming, but if you turn the way around in a commercial agriculture is a serious issue. And then from solid Russian land degradation environmental pollution contribution to climate change and even pollution of the food we eat, and that has translated into so many cancerous diseases and some new hybrid disease that we are still finding solutions to like scientists. So the output I looked at from what you have done is excellent because number one you have been able to touch the very one thing that is causing problem ignorance of what a modification of plan does it doesn't do anything harm. It makes us more sustainable so that we can move to what I like to talk about a type one civilization because if you still do what the forefather did, like what they say the good old days. Do you want to start drinking? Don't you like aircraft? Don't you like iPhone? So going back to the good old days for me is maybe they are not aware of the impact science has done. They are aware of the iPhone they are with. And number two thing for me is the modalities to cut down this environmental destruction that agriculture has made. That means developing new tools to solve new problems because there is always a new problem. And how can these tools go down to the end users? And for them to understand these tools, for them to use these tools, and for them to apply it in various policies, which is very, very important because for you to do anything you do and succeed in any country, it must be backed by policies. So let me stop at the point of policy. So I will love us to include a kind of a policy strategy so that we, the government of each land can key into it and execute this very important tool that we are talking about here today. Thank you so much. If I correctly decide your question, your point is, I might answer that you don't have to turn citizens into small experts. You'll never be able to do that. You just have to reframe, as I said, some key concepts, which I've been talking about. So agriculture is impact is the biggest impact, however it is made. So yeah, you should hopefully do it as little as possible of it. So the one you make might be very productive. And also that there is an arc, as in industry, the first way was lots of pollution, lots of problems, lots of unintended consequences, and that things got better. I think in agriculture is going through the same thing. I mean that if you see the first wave of the Green Revolution and the 50s and 60s, the very impactful, but then I see it clearly in Italy, though, you always find ways to improve you learn from mistakes, to lower the impact gradually. So as new technologies are adopted, things improve. The problem is that we don't perceive progressive improvements clearly. But that's why we need to, we need a clean cut in communication. So, okay, let's get rid of industrial agriculture. We have new technologies that can address the things we don't like, we've never liked about it. So we have a new thing. When you have a new thing, you have thrown away, hopefully you get rid of all those prejudices, and you can have a new playing field, a more level playing field. Now, I'm not a techno enthusiast at all costs, but it must be normal again, as I said, so everything will be judged each application. What was wrong with it with the, with the GMO issue that was, they were all lumped together as a single thing, as if we lumped all drugs in the same way. It just goes absurd. We have to regulate each one and evaluate each one carefully on a scientific basis. That's what I advocate. So, also with respect to all the other problems, each thing that we discussed and seen and not lumped together in a way that actually only helps incumbents and prevents innovation and gets and the worst thing that they left all the problems and touched. Last questions, but try to be short because we don't have time. Okay, thank you for the chance. My personal question is, do we worry about nature? The answer is no. We all are not worrying about nature. Why I say this one, as we know that agriculture and biodiversity, they are very important. Agriculture is very important because it generates different types of food crops. Without our culture, we can't even live. So our daily food shortage is covered by the culture. The other thing is biodiversity issue, because I am from ecology part, so there are different plants, different animals from the lower to the higher. So they are very important for nature as well as they are very important for us, every nature. So, for example, if you take in my country, developing countries, for example, Ethiopia, I came from Ethiopia, so that in Ethiopia, there are so many types of degradation, forest degradation, water degradations, different plant species degradations. There are different legs are now currently degraded because of agriculture, because of some different herbicides, for example, herbicides actually they are very important, but at the other side, they destroy the plant species in the crops. So we are not selective currently. So, from your point of view, from your talk, I really appreciate. So how we are going to worry about nature, we have to worry, we have to think about nature. Nature are very important. Water resources are very important. So we have to keep them. So the main problem is the management issues, the management, the regulation of different countries, how they are serious on resources, are they serious? If they are serious, we are also very serious. The farmers, the rural farmers, without training, technologies are in the rural community, they have to know, they have to train. Otherwise, no training, no well management, rather than it is destruction. So we have to keep, we have to worry about nature. Thank you. Yeah, you're talking about the importance of conserving also the biodiversity, the natural biodiversity. I think this is something that is overlooked, the importance of more resilient ecosystems. We are going through a climate change, which will not be able to avoid all together, I'm afraid, and we need to, to be prepared with more resilient ecosystems and more resilience farming systems. We have more resilient farming systems, if we can rapidly have the right agricultural biodiversity, which is different from the natural biodiversity, which we need, if we want to have resilient natural ecosystems, so it's very important. I think we'll have to finish the discussion, thanks a lot Giovanni for the very interesting contribution, and we'll move on into the technologies that can help agriculture to be more sustainable. And the next presentation will be by Pierre Domenico Perrata, I'm very happy.