I received an email from Michael Pollan this afternoon. That was no surprise (subscribe here) but the content dropped my jaw. MP was on a panel this week with Hugh Grant, the CEO of Monsanto, the discussion of which is available on Youtube.
I delayed what I should have been doing and watched. I was ready for a showdown. And I was ready for Monsanto to say, no, everything that is being said about GMO's is wrong and here's why it's all wrong. That would have been good.
The panel is pitifully short at 36 minutes though. Michael Pollan does a great job of presenting facts. And Hugh Grant is likable. He makes the audience laugh and with his sleeves rolled up talks about how we all have to work together.
None of the big issues of world hunger, the future of seeds or the green revolution in Africa were solved, they were barely addressed in the minutes available but I have my fingers crossed that we can see more public discussions with Monsanto.
I need to know more. We all do.
I'd love to know your thoughts if you have the time to watch.
2 days ago
4 comments:
Fascinating!
And your link over to MP's site gave me a head's up that he'll be here 10/30. I just bought my ticket to go hear his talk.
Thanks!
laura - Yeah. I'm glad you get to see MP. I hope you write about it afterwards.
I'm back now that I've had a chance to watch it again and have time to write.
I found the conversation fascinating from the standpoint of the overall civility of the conversation. MP inspired me with his point that growing enough food and getting it to the people that need it are two different problems. It made me feel guilty for not taking my excess green beans down to the food pantry to share.
HG struck me as too much of an engineer/analyst to really hold his own in the conversation. I wanted to hate him, but couldn't.
Thanks for sharing the link.
Laura - Thanks for writing your thoughts. It's funny how inspiration and guilt are sometimes opposite sides of the same coin. I didn't want to like HG at all either and at the end when he crossed his arms, I gave it all I had, but ultimately it sounds like he's just coming at the problem of growing food from a different angle (obviously) and drawing lines around only the information he wants. I never do that!
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