"A new generation of genetically modified crops is emerging from the labs to re-ignite the arguments around GM food." "It's certainly not a dangerous technology." "It's about the most benign technology I can imagine." "So, is THIS GM's game-changing crop?" "It dispels the myth that GM is some kind of ogre which is going to destroy agriculture as we know it." "But organisations which oppose GM insist there's still plenty to fear." "We can't give any blanket assurance that GM foods are safe to eat." "Yet, one of their former leaders breaks ranks for the first time to say they're wrong." "It is, in my view, unacceptable, morally unacceptable, to stand out against these new technologies." "So, are groups which oppose GM right to be worried or are THEY feeding the fear?" "No, no GMO!" "To some, genetically modified food still means Frankenstein food." "No, no GMO!" "No, no GMO!" "Opponents say there's still lots to worry about." "What happens is, you know, enormous amounts of contamination, huge, significant environmental damage, and a loss of control." "We are assuming that they're safe and that's a very big and very dangerous assumption." "18 million farmers grow GM crops in 27 countries." "Billions of meals have been eaten with GM ingredients." "So far, a mixture of public concern and European rules have kept them out of British fields." "GM has now been around for a generation." "After all that time, is the unease and occasional hostility still justified?" "Tonight, we're going to tell you the story of two genetically modified crops that might change your mind." "The first - the humble potato - is being developed in Britain." "And the other is here, in Bangladesh." "Hafizur Rahman is one of the country's 70 million farmers." "Today, he's selling aubergines." "It's a common food here, but these are a new, genetically modified variety, known as Bt brinjal." "How are you feeling about your crop?" "I'm very happy." ""Brinjal" is the local name for aubergine." ""Bt" signifies a gene has been inserted into the plant." "Hafizur is one of 108 farmers growing them as part of a government project." "TRANSLATION:" "When I first started," "I was not nervous." "In fact, I was quite excited that I would cultivate the brinjal." "I will benefit." "The aim of Bt brinjal is to cut pesticide use and boost the yield." "Hafizur used to spray chemicals twice a week to protect his crop." "It's expensive and bad for the farmer." "TRANSLATION:" "When I used the pesticide, my condition was very bad because of the pesticide." "Most of the time, I felt a burning sensation in my body." "My eyes were irritated." "My head was spinning around." "I used to feel very weak." "In Bangladesh, farmers use pesticides on aubergines more frequently than on any other crop." "They're battling the fruit-and-shoot-boring caterpillar." " Can I open it up and look inside?" " Yes, sir." "'Hafizur has stopped using pesticides against the caterpillar, 'though still sprays for other pests." "'A ring of unmodified plants grows around the edge of his field." "'THEY are under attack.'" "There it is!" "This is the problem." "There." "'There are none in the Bt brinjal." "'The Bt gene enables the plant to make a toxin from microbes 'present naturally in the soil that kills the caterpillar." "'It may also help farmers who overuse pesticides 'without adequate protection.'" "If every time they have an exposure, a common complaint is that they have burning in the hands and feet." "Dr Robed Amin works at the biggest hospital in the capital, Dhaka." "He says thousands of farmers who suffer from the effects of pesticides never see a doctor." "It is a big, big concern for us, because those people that are not coming to the hospital." "So, what do you think about a new variety of brinjal which uses nearly no pesticide?" "That's fantastic." "I mean, if the brinjal is modified in such a way that less amount of pesticide is needed, or very less, that would be wonderful." "Any sprays on these?" "Any pesticide spray?" "'Such human benefits are changing minds." "'A few years back, if you'd seen this man in a field of GM crops, 'he'd probably be tearing it up." "'Now he's the spokesman for the US university scientists 'monitoring the GM trial." "'Author and campaigner Mark Lynas fought against GM for two decades 'and then this...'" "My Lords, ladies and gentleman," "I want to start with some apologies." "'It was a change of heart with the passion of a convert.'" "For the record, I want to apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops." "I'm also sorry that I helped start the anti-GM movement back in the '90s and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option." "'Mark says his opinion changed when he decided there was no logic 'in accepting the scientific consensus on climate change 'while dismissing it on GM." "'The Bt gene has been added to corn eaten in the US for almost 20 years." "'Mark now believes there are great benefits in GM.'" "This has enormous international significance, because this is the first genetically modified food crop anywhere in the developing world to be in the hands of farmers and to be in the markets, and people are now eating it." "In many ways, this is a global first." "The trial is backed by US aid money and America's Cornell University." "The Bt aubergines have been given for free by the Bangladesh government, and farmers keep their seeds for next year's crop." "In my mind, when I was an anti-GM activist, this was only going to benefit big corporations, big monocultural agribusiness." "Here you have the exact opposite." "It's on a very small scale." "This is just a way of protecting a crop against an insect pest." "There's nothing that scary about it." "After a false start last year, this season, more than 90% of the GM trial plots" "HAVE been successful." "This, they will use for composting..." "'But on this organic farm, they are not convinced." "'Farida Akhter favours planting wild versions of brinjal, 'which don't attract the fruit-and-shoot-borer pest, so don't need the GM cure." "GM seed is making the seed toxic." "They are saying that with this seed it will die." "OK?" "And so, if it dies in the brinjal, when I eat the brinjal, why don't you think that it is toxic for me as well?" "Because you're not a fruit-and-shoot-borer." " You're a human being." " But I'm a life as well." "That is a life." "So there is no evidence that it will not have any health impact." "The scientists behind the GM crop are quite happy for organic farming to continue, you're farming, but you don't want them in the country at all - is that fair?" "We are not doing any harm, but we do not want to open the lock of the door, which will do harm to us." "'But is it right to say that GM food can cause harm?" "'One of the UK's top plant science labs near Norwich 'is where GM crops are being developed by Jonathan Jones.'" "So, is GM not hazardous to humans?" " Some may disagree." " Yeah." "'An overwhelming majority of scientists now agree that, 'when properly controlled," "'GM crops pose no more risk 'to the environment or our health 'than traditionally bred, commercial crops.'" "GM is a method whereby you can add genes to a plant and thus confer some improvements in the properties of that plant." "I like to use the analogy of a smartphone." "So, if you download some apps to it, you've got some added functionality on your smartphone." "It's hard to envisage how you could do something dangerous by doing that." "Most of these things are utterly benign." "But, in the past, there have been anti-GM protesters outside his lab." "I think that it's very unfortunate that certain activist groups have painted such a dark picture of the technology, in part because of their opposition to companies, to multinationals that sell herbicides, and you can sort of understand that," "but they've thrown out the baby with the bath water." "The UK's leading organic farming group insists there ARE risks." "Scientists may say that the technology is safe, but the way that it's being used in the environment is not safe for that environment in the medium term." "We've seen that proven over the last 20 years." "The technology is being used in the wrong way, and we need to make sure that we have controls and a vision for what we want in our countryside." "At the moment, GM fits nowhere into that picture." "Most GM plants in the ground have been adapted to survive a dousing with this chemical, glyphosate herbicide, meaning the weeds in the field are killed but the crop survives." "20 years ago, that crop and weedkiller combination was created by the American agricultural company Monsanto." "Farmers have to buy one with the other." "The company stood accused of creating a chemical-based farming model that harmed wildlife." "It earned Monsanto big profits but a venomous opposition." "Fear of anti-GM hostility means Jonathan takes precautions." "This is the trial site." "It's a wheat trial there, for example." "Here's where the GM potato trial will be." "Big difference between the two plots." "'Jonathan once belonged to Greenpeace, 'but their stance on GM turned him away." "'Greenpeace International is a leading global campaigner 'against genetically modified organisms." "'They've taken direct action against GM food, 'disrupting scientific trials 'and reinforcing fear of GM as a biohazard.'" "Once they are out in the open environment, the genes can contaminate other forms of agriculture and also, there may even be health effects from the foods that are derived from them." "We can't give any kind of blanket assurance that GM foods are safe to eat." "They've been eating them in America for close to 20 years, probably billions of meals, famously litigious society, no-one's brought a case saying it damaged their health." "A single instance where GM crops have been shown to be safe, if indeed they have been, does not give any kind of blanket assurance that other unpredictable effects can't happen in other crops or other foods." "Greenpeace International opposes the GM aubergine," "Bt brinjal, as well." "In 2011, its activists ripped up a university trial of the aubergines in the Philippines." "The damage was valued at hundreds of thousands of pounds." "Greenpeace wouldn't discuss the raid, for legal reasons, but their motive for opposition is clear." "There's reasonable evidence that the particular modification could transfer to wild, weedy relatives." "There's over evidence that suggests that there's a health risk associated with it." "So, in terms..." "Where is the evidence there is a health risk associated with Bt brinjal?" "The evidence about the health risks of Bt brinjal is relatively tentative, but we have the possibility of a crop that will contaminate, potentially for time immemorial, the wild relatives." "Surely, the balance you've got here is a certainty of using less pesticides, and that is better for the farmer, better for the consumer and quite possibly better for the environment, against these hypothetical "what if" risks that you're throwing in?" "The risks of out-crossing to wild, weedy relatives are not "what if" questions." "They are genuine uncertainties." "Trials in India show the chance of cross-pollination is low and the gene doesn't persist in the wild." "Plant scientists say the contamination risk is overplayed." "There will be people who have an absolute, purist view that one grain in a billion is too many, but all I can say is, there is no scientific justification for taking that view." "They might see it as an ethical position on which they are not prepared to compromise." "In Britain, there is growing scientific and political weight supporting GM, now pulling in some unlikely allies." "Stephen Tindale was head of Greenpeace UK for four years, until 2005." "Everything within Greenpeace is decided centrally by Greenpeace International." "It is a top-down organisation..." "'While there, he led criticism of the Government's GM plans, 'but now he is speaking out for the first time, 'saying we SHOULD be growing it.'" "The reason I have decided to speak out on GM now is because I think it is necessary for people like me, who have opposed it, to say things have changed." "I think it should be a case-by-case basis, what is this being done for and is it worth taking the risk?" "'Stephen feels Greenpeace should stop demonising the method 'and look at what each GM crop can deliver.'" "The overwhelming majority of scientists think that it is safe." "It is, in my view, unacceptable, morally unacceptable, to stand out against these new technologies." "I worry for Greenpeace and the other green groups because they could, by taking such a hard line on GM, they could be seen to be putting ideology before the need for humanitarian action." "It's in the poorer world, where hunger is commonplace, the debate is more polarised." "Sometimes scare tactics prevail." "ActionAid is an international charity raising tens of millions of pounds a year to alleviate poverty and end hunger." "In Uganda, as a bill was being debated to allow GM crops," "ActionAid Uganda ran this radio advert for a week in 2013." "A single study linking GM maize with cancer in rats was discredited by the European Food Safety Authority, and a different study, suggesting a link to infertility, was withdrawn." "Well, that is really shocking... to be scaremongering about health risks, particularly cancer, with no scientific justification, to me, that is totally immoral." "ActionAid said it should never have happened and was part of a campaign now stopped." "Back at one of Britain's leading plant science labs," "Jonathan Jones and a UK-wide team of scientists are developing what they think could be a game-changing GM potato." " Here is...those leaves." " These are potato leaves?" "That is right." "So, what we've got here are two sets of leaves, one from a wild type potato that is susceptible to late blight..." "'Late blight alone cost farmers" "'£55 million a year 'in fungicides and lost produce." "'The scientists' answer?" "'Insert eight genes in the Maris Piper potato," "'Britain's most popular spud." "'Two will protect from attack by roundworms, 'the rest, coming from relatives of the potato, 'should prevent bruising and late blight.'" "These potatoes, as you see, are not protected by any gene at all, and they are being wiped out by the late blight disease." "And these ones, because we cloned the resistance gene and put it into the potato, now they are resistant to the disease." "So, if we can use genetics instead of chemicals to control plant diseases, then I would regard that as working with the grain of nature in a scientifically well-informed way." "'This former MP has heard all the arguments." "'He chaired a cross-party committee, 'which recently investigated GM technology.'" "We have, I think, a moral duty to go ahead and develop some of the technologies." "And he says we shouldn't forget the world's population is growing." "It's impossible to consider how to feed a planet of 9 or 10 billion people without genetic modification." "GM, to my mind, is a safe technology to use and we should encourage its exploitation in appropriate circumstances." "The committee concluded Britain should be able to grow GM crops, deciding each on a case-by-case basis, and it was critical of Greenpeace's evidence." "I think they were driven by their beliefs and put their beliefs ahead of the real scientific, and indeed ethical, argument." "I think they are simply wrong." "I don't take that view that we are an ideological organisation." "We are taking a balanced view of the risks in the context of pressures that are being exerted by both Government and business to move new technologies on." "The Soil Association say promises of the future shouldn't blind us to risks of the present." "I think we are providing a counterbalance to the propaganda that's coming out from companies, and from the Government now, about this technology, where they say there may be specific benefits, consumer benefits in some cases." "It feels to me like an attempt to do a PR job on the technology to allow the continuation of these millions and millions of acres of herbicide-resistant crops." "Back in Bangladesh, farmer Hafizur Rahman is treating me to a meal of his GM crop." "Although given for free, the active gene is under licence from global farming giant Monsanto." "This is a meal I simply couldn't have in the UK, and yet Hafizur and his family, in the heart of Bangladesh, eat it regularly, so are they being exploited or are they leading the way?" "The Bangladeshi government insists this isn't a Trojan horse for a GM farming takeover." "And are you truly free and independent of the big agri-tech companies or are you in the pocket of Monsanto?" "You see, the Bt binjal gene, it was given by Cornell University." "They are not an agri-tech company." "My job is to feed our people." "I know what I am to do and I am trying to do my job." "Legally, I am in the right track." "Scientifically, I am in the right track." "Bangladesh is in the right track." "Monsanto says it does not receive benefit from the Bt brinjal project in Bangladesh, but helping independent farmers from the developing world could sway the global argument over GM." "It does feel to me very much like this is part of a corporate push to make GM acceptable." "It's not corporate." "It's the government and American universities so this is very much a public-sector project." "This is not some kind of nefarious conspiracy by the Monsantos of this world to take over Bangladeshi farming." "This is just a way to get seeds to Bangladeshi farmers to reduce their pesticide consumption." "So, what are the chances of GM appearing widely here?" "The UK Government IS pro-GM but those in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are not." "But the rules are made in Brussels and the European regulatory process is so slow that Jonathan Jones' last GM potato went to America " "British know-how going abroad." "We essentially have a broken market regulatory system here." "In fact, the regulatory system itself is OK but then, once the European Food Safety Agency say it's safe, it then goes to the Council ministers and the Commission, and you get politics." "'In the last 20 years, EU scientists have passed 40 crops as safe 'but only one is currently being grown - 'a GM version of maize, mainly in Spain, as animal feed." "'European countries opposed to GM are setting the pace." "'Anne Glover says that's frustrating." "'Until last year, 'she was chief scientific adviser to the European President." "'She says it is time for governments to accept the science.'" "There has never been a technology which has had so much money spent on it in terms of looking at the safety." "If politicians had the leadership and perhaps the bravery to say that they looked at the evidence and say," ""We accept the technology as safe," ""but if you, as citizens, don't want it," ""we will continue to vote against,"" "and then I think we might be able to have a decent debate about choices." "Anne says arguments from non-governmental organisations are weak and sometimes, she claims, she's seen even worse." "The evidence is very straightforward on the safety of GM technology, so if you don't like the technology for ideological reasons, then what you have to do is make stuff up." " Do you think that is happening?" " Yeah, I do think it's happening." "There have been examples when they have used fear tactics." "The NGOs have quite a privileged position in our society because many of us, me included, would trust NGOs." "They have to be squeaky clean when it comes to how they use evidence and they should never make things up in order to suit their argument." "Fresh blueberry and pear!" "If they were to be grown and sold in Britain, would people want to buy them?" "Justin King has spent 30 years in retail and recently ran Sainsbury's." "His success as a shopkeeper meant understanding what customers want, so what about GM?" "There is a small, but it is a small, minority who are implacably opposed." "There are very few, a similarly small minority, who are proactively for." "The vast majority are waiting to be persuaded by the arguments on either side of the debate." "He thinks there are two things that could persuade them to accept GM - the first would be a clear health benefit, the second would be cheaper food." "If you could use GM technology to deliver a 10 or 20% price difference," "I'm very confident that a very large number of consumers would move from being open-minded to very clear that it was in their benefit and they'd adopt the technology as a result." "And it is already in our food chain." "Since 2013, most of Britain's supermarkets have allowed their suppliers to give genetically modified animal feed to poultry and meat we consume." "Non-GM feed proved too expensive." "Greenpeace insist the risks of going further outweigh the benefits." "If those who are cautious about it, like us, are wrong, the upshot will be a few years' delay on returns to shareholders for large international companies." "If, on the other hand, the pushers are wrong, then we have potentially changed our environment with uncertain consequences for both ecology and for health for really...for time immemorial." "But could our caution about GM in Europe be harmful elsewhere?" "I think there is a big danger that we can inadvertently export our views to other countries who cannot afford the luxury of having the views that we do because I don't go to bed hungry at night." "If we don't use GM, then the consequences for them are quite dire, when GM could offer them a means of sustainable agriculture." "GM flourished by putting chemicals into agriculture." "Now it is offering to take them out." "A worldwide revolution in farming, and the benefits it claims, is once again challenging consumers with questions of trust and safety."