Team:Marburg/Human Practices/Integrated/PAW/Transcript
Transcript of the intervew with David Spencer - Progressive Agrarwende
This interview was created in connection with our IHP efforts on 07.12.2020, around 10am local time.
Guest: David Spencer on behalf of the Progressive Agrarwende
Interviewer: OpenPlast members Jessica & Tristan
Tristan:
Thank you very much for taking the time as a member of the PAW to do this interview with us. Could you please briefly introduce yourself and explain what the PAW actually is?
David:
My name is David Spencer, I'm a PhD student at the Institute of Plant Physiology at the RWTH Aachen University and I'm doing research on fungal resistance in soy plants. I actually came to the Progressive Agrarwende through this whole plant/biotechnological background. The PAW is an initiative that was founded at the beginning of 2019, so it's not even that old. The Progressive Agrarwende is a dialogue platform that actually aims to think agriculture further, to develop agriculture further, always with the latest state of science and technology, so to think evidence-based and to make decisions based on scientific facts, socio-economic decisions, to stimulate political decisions. But we have to say we are not politicians, most of us are scientists. A few of us are involved, for example, in Scientist for Future or in the Green Youth or so, but yet we are not active in politics. What we have already done, where you might know us from, is last year, 2019 the CRISPR Advent Calendar where we presented the applications of the CRISPR/Cas system in 24 examples on crops and this year we are also doing an Advent Calendar, the Bioeconomy Advent Calendar but that probably doesn't concern your iGEM project anymore, that's next year. Okay. What else did we do? For example, we wrote open letters when Winfried Kretschmann, the Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg, wanted to put a moratorium on field trials with GMOs. We collected signatures from leading scientists in Germany and were able to write an open letter. In the meantime, we also have a dialogue platform in the form of YouTube videos that take place from time to time, such as webinars, where we actually do interviews and discussion rounds together with the German Association for Synthetic Biology, the GASB. And the PAW is an initiative, which means that anyone can actually take part and all the authors represent their individual opinions a little bit. On Twitter it would say, "Views are my own", but out of this whole context now, out of this mindset that we want to look forward, we want to work together socially. Together with consumers, we want to develop agriculture further, and we founded an association that only officially existed last month, that was basically only registered in November 2020, and that is the eco-progressive network, you can also look it up, ÖkoProg. And this is, so to speak, the supporting association in which the Progressive Agrarwende is also involved. But it is not only about agriculture, but in general about pursuing sustainability goals and not only in the green sector, but production in general, social structures, how we can really think in terms of climate neutrality, in terms of sustainability. Yes, perhaps that's a good start.
Tristan:
And what makes you so special about working at PAW, or what areas are you most involved in?
David:
Well, as I said, we are all scientists and everyone has a bit of a hobbyhorse, which means I wouldn't start writing something about climate gases if I didn't know anything about it. Of course, it's important that everyone sticks to their own expertise, I'd say, or at least keeps themselves well informed, because we often see that people try to present the big picture, but then they themselves only really bring in certain parts as expertise, so I think the charming thing about PAW is that we are actually such a conglomerate of people with different backgrounds. So some of us, for example, have taken over their parents' farm and actually work in the field. Others work with microorganisms, others are more into plants just like me and then others are into cattle breeding or something. And that's why I think that's the charming thing about the whole story, that we bring different expertise but all have the same goal in mind.
Jessica:
Yes, well, you are already very involved in Progressive Agrarwende, but you also do a lot of public relations work on the side. For example, you are known as a science slam winner or as a co-host of the plant research podcast Krautnah and you are also an organiser of various science events. How important would you say is it for a scientist to be active outside of the laboratory, i.e. to be actively involved in science communication?
David:
Well, totally important! I can't imagine what it would be like without it, so if you ask me, science communication should actually be part of our/your studies. That's exactly the problem of the last decades. I think that people have lost touch with what we are actually doing. Try explaining to your mother what a chloroplast is, maybe that's still somehow doable, but if you then somehow start with post-transcriptional modification, then of course it's too much and therefore ... What I want to say is that I think scientists have failed to learn how to communicate what they learn, understand or apply in the laboratory. Also what they present at the very end of their research work, for example with a doctoral thesis or a master's thesis. Scientists would say: look, this is super important, this can make a difference later in the agriculture of the future, but if no one can understand it, then what is the point? Social acceptance starts with understanding the subject matter and explaining that is difficult enough, so you realise right now we are scientists talking to each other. I can make jokes like that but when I talk to other people about it they just look at me not understanding. Science communication is essential and should be integral to our course of study, so that the innovations we produce reach society.
Tristan:
You already told us that PAW had met with the GASB and that you talked about the challenges of plant breeding in particular and that you described agriculture in general as quite resource-intensive. And especially in the future with regard to climate change, these problems will actually intensify. How would you say these problems can be adequately addressed with classical breeding methods and where would you see new methods, for example genetic engineering?
David:
Yes, the problem with classical breeding is, of course, when you really start breeding/crossbreeding in the sense of Mendel, then you look for two plants that both have some characteristics that are desirable. Let's say one tomato has particularly tasty large fruits and the other is particularly heat-resistant, which could be important in the next few years as climate change progresses. With classical breeding it would take quite a long time to combine these plants into one. So you can cross them, but the problem is that secondary effects arise. You mix the complete genome, the complete genetic material of this plant. When you cross it, this results in a series of side effects that of course you cannot influence or control beforehand. So you have no control over it, and it is the same when you go further and do mutation breeding as it was common practice 50 to 60 years ago. You irradiate plants or seeds of plants with either radioactive radiation/UV radiation or treat them with some mutagenic chemical and what comes out of that are a lot of spontaneous mutations that can have the same effect again like a different fruit colour or a cold tolerance. But all of this is totally uncontrolled. That means you have to backcross the plants generation after generation, i.e. backcross with the parents until the side effects are minimised. That takes years and then there's the whole approval procedure at the end. But that applies to all breeding methods, which also take a long time. What I want to say is that anyone who wants to breed a plant must be able to think 10-20 years in advance. You have to be able to think about what will be needed in 2040. Which tomato do we need in particular, which characteristic should it have? That is the difficulty. The advantage of the new genetic engineering methods, the new breeding methods, whatever you want to call them, is that you can target a gene sequence. Through the research of the last decades, we now know so much more about genes, about the function that these individual building blocks of the genetic material have, and that means that we know why a tomato in the 1950s suddenly became twice as big through mutation breeding, we know which genes are responsible for this. We can target these genes and change only these genes, while the complete other genome I was talking about, which is mixed through breeding, is spared these changes, which means we can reach our goal faster. We can tackle several genes at the same time and thus change the fruit size, the content of healthy antioxidants, the colour, the number of flowers, etc., at the same time and then, best of all, change them as much as possible. And then, best of all, we can introduce something like a tolerance to the changing environmental conditions. So I would say in short, both breeding or all breeding methods are valuable tools because you can find or discover things by accident with classical breeding that you might not find with the very modern methods, but they are all tools in a toolbox that should be equal because in my opinion it is the product that should be important and not the way to get there. No matter how a plant should be bred, it has to be quickly so that we can get a healthy and resilient plant and put it in our field, and that's where we're still a bit stuck at the moment.
Jessica:
Well, you just talked about mutagenesis and nowadays, for example, the CRISPR/Cas method is used to apply targeted mutations, that's what you said, and in your article "Fear of Change" you advocate that we as scientists should not only deal with this mutagenesis, but also with transgenesis. What exactly are the risks or the potential?
David:
I'll start with the potential. Transgenesis means that you really have to introduce a foreign gene, i.e. a gene that normally/naturally would never jump from a sunflower into a soy plant or from a soil bacterium into a dandelion. Foreign genes that normally do not come into contact with this organism are called transgenes and the potentials are actually particularly strong in that. One can of course develop properties that these plants could never have, for example a sunflower can of course withstand a lot of sun and is accordingly heat tolerant. If you introduce a certain transcription factor, i.e. a regulatory protein from the sunflower into the soybean, which has actually already been done in Argentina by the company Bioceres, then you get a soybean plant that can withstand a bit more drought and a bit more sun. You wouldn't be able to do that just as quickly through cisgenesis or mutation in one and the same plant, because the genetic material might not be able to do that. Or if you want to think further, the production of rubber or the production of bovine insulin for diabetics will never be achieved by mutation breeding in a tobacco plant. But if we express the gene for insulin production from humans, from cattle or from pigs in the plant and simply let the plant produce it, then it can be done immediately. That holds enormous potential as far as the production of substances is concerned. The risks must also be mentioned. For example, you can of course produce allergens that did not exist before. Any proteins that may then be present in pollen or in the end product could result in people being allergic to them. But for that we have our usual pipelines of food testing and quality assurance where we of course do extensive clinical studies and preclinical studies to avoid something like that, and that of course applies to every new food that comes onto the market, no matter how it was produced.
Tristan:
You yourself are researching disease resistance in crops at RWTH Aachen University, which you have already told us about, although the process from research to market maturity probably still takes quite a long time. Where do you think the biggest difficulties lie in these lengthy economic processes, especially in relation to the complexity of the plants?
David:
As I just said, you have to be able to foresee a long way ahead, you have to be able to somehow assess whether soya, for example, will still be in demand in 20 years' time. The thing is that the value chain starts with the farmer but of course it goes through the breeders, and how do you call it, the people who process the food until it ends up in the supermarket that we buy. If at some point the customer or the consumer doesn't want any more soy because it always comes from Brazil and we want to buy more and more regionally and seasonally, then there are two options: Either we will have a soy that grows well in Germany in 20 years' time - there are already a few projects there - or we won't have any more soy-based products and will instead use lentils, lupins or some other legumes that have similar good properties but are simply not yet as established as useful plants. Such a long process requires good planning to know whether all the work is worth it. I always think that as a scientist you can ask yourself that question. But as a scientist you also have to have the necessary curiosity to do experiments simply because you are addicted to knowledge or because you are curious. So I don't do it because I'm rock-solidly convinced that in 20 years there will be this plant in the field, but I do it to show something, to find out something and then to talk about it, to take this as a prime example of how breeding can work. I assume that less than 1% of all breeding will ever make it to the field and you just have to know that. Does that answer the question?
Jessica & Tristan:
Yes
Tristan:
However, the transferability between plants is probably also quite poor, which means you would probably have to research all the plants simultaneously in order to be able to somehow establish them here in Germany, and I think there is too little research for that, isn't there?
David:
Yes, it always depends, of course. Research comes out of research funds and these also come out of politics a little bit, so it is particularly absurd in Germany, I would say, because the decision of the European Court of Justice 2 ½ years ago states that all new breeding techniques are genetic engineering and are therefore practically prohibited for cultivation here. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research, the Research Minister Anja Karliczek, has written that we should now become sustainable, that our plant production should become sustainable, that we should use less pesticides, that we should engage in scientific communication. But on the other hand, we have the dilemma that all the research we are doing here, especially in the area where all the scientists say that this would perhaps really be the most sustainable way to go, is being suppressed. That's just a bit diametrically opposed, and that's exactly where we come in with PAW, and where you come in with your project. We're looking for a dialogue and that we're trying to say: "hey guys, don't you see that this doesn't fit together somehow?". Everyone votes for the Greens now, but the Greens have always been against genetic engineering. But when it comes to climate change, they are very science-based and point to the figures, point to the diagrams and say look here, climate change is real, which is of course true, but now I expect a bit of a transfer from the population but also from politics to extend this to our area. I think that research is taking place on many crops, but I also think that a lot of research is not taking place because people don't see a future in it in this country or in Europe. Unfortunately.
Jessica:
You just said that there is still a great rejection of green genetic engineering and that many critics are actually very aware of the environment and sustainability. How do you explain that this group of people has such a great distrust of green genetic engineering?
David:
Well, I think that's mainly due to historical reasons. There are many reasons, but I already said at the beginning that scientists have never really learned to communicate. That we should have integrated this in our studies, simply in order to always be able to explain, or to always be able to explain understandably why we are doing something. We don't do it to introduce a gene for a malaria drug into another plant because we can or because it's fun, but because we really believe that it will help us to achieve better production and that it can really have a social and health benefit. I guess that genetic engineering has a bad image for various reasons, the first reason being that for decades it was reserved for a few big companies to do research on it, which didn't have much transparency about it, which then simply made it into the media in the form of products but of course also occasionally in the form of scandals. That is the only image that has remained of green genetic engineering, but if you look at red genetic engineering, for example, let's say the production of insulin that I just mentioned, that was of course a great advance for diabetics. The benefit is beyond question and I don't think anyone has ever held up a sign that they don't want to have genetically modified insulin or something. So it's because of communication, it's because of the media, but you can't just blame it on the media but also on the failure of science and research to communicate and then there are other things that have to do with the same issue. That big companies control and dominate the seed business. Then of course problems like farmers in India commiting suicide because of economic ruin because he always has to buy seed from company come to public attention. Where I first of course think that is really bad but that is not at all related to the technology, so it does not matter which plant, whether it was produced genetically or not, these dependencies exist and these are social problems that we must address. That means that the counter-argument here misses the point a bit and that's the way it is with a lot of counter-arguments. If you dig a little deeper then I think it's just a lack of education. Also this "no genetic engineering" label on our milk, on our cheese, our yogurt, that suggests a healthy food, suggests somehow security where none is. In my opinion, this is consumer fraud, but the consumer decides for themselves what they want to have and then the production is based on that. That's how it is and now we have to go and tell people that if you really want to live more sustainably and if you think your non-GMO yogurt is more sustainable because it is now non-GMO then look at the soy that was made for this yogurt. With Alpro soy, now I have said a brand, this soy yogurt then is perhaps not that sustainable and one could rather produce a regional variety with these modern breeding methods and I believe this whole thought process is beginning just now, also with the people who were or are categorically against it.
Tristan:
And one of the recurring arguments is probably that the DNA from the genetically modified organisms can also spread between the fields of the farmers and that could also lead to major legal difficulties. Do you think better biocontainment could counteract this and also ensure greater acceptance among the population?
David:
Absolutely, so you always have to look at what kind of crops you have. Corn for example is very susceptible to this. If two corn fields are next to each other then it is very likely that there is a crossover, so pollen flying into the opposite field. With other plants it is almost impossible. Almost all grasses, wheat, barley and some more crops are mostly self-pollinators and in very few cases the pollen is only transferred via the wind. But definitely biocontainment is an important aspect of research. What we can't do and what we don't want to do is of course to put some containers over our fields or something like that so that somehow nothing comes out of there. That means also that communication is needed again to tell people this is a wheat field, nothing can break out of there. And then of course there is research like your project for example that by targeted modification of chloroplast genes, plastid genes, which normally cannot be spread via pollen, a kind of biocontainment can be done and I think that's super important because that's one of those big anti genetic engineering points that you can never completely invalidate.
Jessica:
So you already said that science should serve the well-being of people and we have just talked a lot about organic and sustainable agriculture, but we have only briefly touched on social justice through genetic engineering and I wanted to ask you again maybe we can go a little deeper. To what extent can green genetic engineering contribute to making the world a more socially just place?
David:
If you look at the UN Sustainable Development Goals, there is, for example, the goal of less hunger. I think less hunger is a desirable goal in terms of social justice because a lot of the social unrest that we see at the moment, whether it's waves of migration or wars or poverty, can be traced back to the fact that people are starving. The absolute number of starving and malnourished people has fortunately decreased, but it is still far too high and most of the people are of course in Africa and Asia, the emerging countries that simply cannot keep up. We have seen these locusts swarms in Africa, we have seen the climate change in many places, we have seen forest fires and the harvest losses that people have, which are fatal because, we do not know that here. If there is a bad year here, then so what, we simply import what we lack from other countries, that is just not possible there. This issue is something we must understand in this country, we must explain that just for many people agriculture is a livelihood and not just a nice effect. Then, in addition to hunger, health is also an important effect. For example, plants that need to be sprayed less are of course better for the user. And all this could be avoided by using more resistant plants, which is what we are also researching here in Aachen. So this is also a social advantage, the hunger and the health and then of course profitability depends of course totally on how the legal framework is. Matin Qaim and Klümper together in 2014 brought out a study where on average it says that the yield, so the yield per field can increase by about 20%. Through genetic engineering the use of pesticides can be reduced by about 37%, which is quite a lot, and resulting from these two things, the profit for the farmer can be increased by 68% and that is not to be despised, so we are not talking about 2-3-4-5% but actually about almost ¾ or ⅔ of yield increase or also profit increase and that is really something that can help in social justice. But that is of course all under the condition that the policy takes part. That not only 2 big companies control everything and always give the farmers hybrids that have to be bought again. We have to think ahead with concepts like open source seeds, self-propagated seeds that you can grow yourself and modern breeding technologies.
Jessica:
So your opinion is that one should attack politics first?
David:
Absolutely, everywhere at the same time is best because politicians of course need to listen to the population and vice versa. And yes, the population listens more to the media and we should become louder, we should talk a lot as we are doing right now. We should sensitize people for the topic that they inform themselves further and then in turn continue to report on it. So you can't ignore that and now in this time when we all have become scientists, when we all have become virologists, when we all are all at once totally familiar with the R value and with some incidence numbers maybe the enthusiasm for something like this is higher and maybe this is our chance to say here guys, we also have cool numbers here and there are also this and that pandemic in the plant sector. The banana is dying out right now, the olives in Italy have all been uprooted because a bacterium is killing them all, that's all climate change and you can really tackle that with scientific methods. So you have to attack on the level that you can reach, people in your environment, politically if there is something to demonstrate you should go and then the media. Our content is usually not so exciting for RTL or VOX or other channels but you know what I want to say. It must arrive in all public places and permanently in the life of the people. Somehow we must get these topics into the broad population.
Jessica:
Is that also the reason that you use rather a lighter form of speech in your article,so that it is understandable for the masses.
David:
In any case, so what's the point if I would write scientifically with the correct terms, then you would read that and others who see it anyway probably similar to me. Or the people who are against it and have informed themselves very well about it, will also read it and they will not necessarily move away from their opinion. That's why my idea or our idea is, the less technical terms, of course not at the expense of correctness, the better. Everybody knows that from the lecture, so that you just don't lose the desire to deal with it and yes that's why I always try to choose a language that is as simple as possible.
Tristan:
And what is coming up soon for you at Progressive Agrarwende? What are your future projects that you want to achieve?
David:
Yes, we want to build up or expand our network, so we are still looking for active members, not only at PAW but also at ÖkoProg. Also, we are just doing the Advent calendar as I said, we all of course also have something to do on the side as I do with my doctorate and almost all the others also do something else. This is voluntary work that is worked on sometimes a lot and sometimes only little but we definitely want to continue to build our network, a bit more in the direction of young politics. Just recently we started the campaign #GiveGenesAChance that connects early-career researcher throughout Europe and makes a stand for scientific consensus on new genomic techniques. There is a lot we are still planning to do, but it all takes time. The faster the word spreads around, the faster we can do something against our upcoming problems.
Tristan:
Thank you very much for doing this interview, I think it has brought us all a bit further and I think the viewers have come a bit deeper into the topic and we thank you again very much.
David:
Thanks, it was a lot of fun!