From CRISPR to the Purple Tomato: Dr. Pamela Ronald on the Future of Sustainable Agriculture

Dr. Pamela Ronald is a plant geneticist who has spent decades studying how plants defend themselves against disease and climate change. In “Tomorrow's Table” (co-written with her husband, organic farmer Raoul Adamchak), she argues that genetic engineering and organic farming aren't in opposition but instead can act as partners in a more sustainable food system. We sat down to talk about the book, what's changed since it was first published, and where she sees the conversation around GMOs and agriculture heading next.

The most recently updated English version of your book was in 2018. Since then, there’s been new progress in gene editing in agriculture and in policy associated with bioengineered ingredients in food. Given those past 8 years of change, what do you think are the biggest updates you would include in a newer version of your book?

By the time I was re-writing the book in 2015, CRISPR was just starting to be used in plants, so I didn’t include much on the topic. Since then, many groups have started developing CRISPR-edited crops and some are even being brought into the field. The regulations have been changing too. In the European Union it sounds like they’ll approve the use of CRISPR in agriculture, which is a really big change that I think is pretty exciting. I think it also emphasizes that the end product is what really matters, not the process that made it. It’s understandable why consumers get concerned about a particular technology, but it’s important to realize that by the time they start to grasp the technology the field’s already moved on to something new. The process is going to keep changing, so we should be paying attention to the criteria we care about in sustainable agriculture – is the crop going to advance environmental safety, or address socioeconomic concerns, or help farmers? Those points, which we have in the book, are still valid now even though the way we make these new crops is always going to change.

So do you think that consumers are showing more of an acceptance for gene editing, or shifting their perspective from “the process” to “the product” like you mentioned?

I don’t really think consumers have come around to this idea that the product matters, not the process. People are still pretty skeptical, but for various reasons genome editing is seen as more acceptable by consumers since it changes DNA by only a couple of letters to get new traits. It seems like people are more willing to accept that over the older conventional biotechnology processes. When I’ve talked to people about conventional biotechnology, the big sticking point was that you could put a bacterial gene into a plant. In comparison, if you’re just tweaking what’s already there, it’s seen as more acceptable. The other thing that’s changed a lot since we last wrote the book has been the increase in concern about climate change. More people want us to grow crops that are efficient, using less water and land, and emitting less greenhouse gasses. That’s really captured people’s attention when I talk to them. They point to how hot it is, and all the fires here in California and how we need to do something about it. So the idea of making a precise genetic change in a plant to help achieve those goals becomes more trivial to people.

Are you seeing agriculture shifting towards more sustainable practices, and what kinds of bottlenecks and restrictions are in place that hinder our ability to transition to more sustainable agriculture?

Organic agriculture hasn’t changed all that much, and has been pretty solidified into the practices that it uses. The National Organic Program Standards look over those practices, some of which are useful, others less so. Those practices aren’t changing all that much but it’s also a relatively small segment of agriculture overall. Looking at the big crop systems, fertilizer and sprays are still causing trouble. I understand that there have been some reductions in fertilizer runoff in the Midwest but dead zones from that pollution are still occurring. In France some vineyards have been sprayed with copper for so long that the soil is essentially barren, with very little microbes left around. That isn’t changing very much either, but being more specific about chemical and fertilizer applications, and rotating crops would certainly help in some areas.

Looking at the technology we have available versus the policy in place to incentivize or disincentivize the use of those technologies, where do you see the primary bottleneck in improving agricultural sustainability?

Farmers are business people. They're going to be quick to adopt new technologies, new seed, or new approaches if it's going to make a difference for them. Sometimes there will be environmental benefits, and certainly if there's government incentives, it makes a big difference. So I think that policy incentives are going to be useful, and farmers are definitely ready to implement new technologies.

Speaking of policy, how does governmental regulation and funding currently impact agricultural research and implementation?

There are many things we can do in the laboratory, but unless we can get them out into the hands of farmers they sort of dwindle away in the lab. For example, we have exciting ideas for engineering new disease resistance genes and maybe we can get great results in the lab, but we need collaborators to test these things in the field and get them into the right genetic backgrounds. That’s a big effort which requires research funding.

I just read that USDA grants have been frozen again and the NSF hasn't issued a single grant since June 6 [June 12 at the time of interview], when they usually issue new grants like every day. So, things are still very topsy-turvy in the United States. In China, they seem to be fully on board, I think, for funding agricultural research. They have a history of citizens understanding the importance of food, maybe in a fundamental way that people in the US don't. I don't know, that goes more into sociology which I don't know much about, but there’s certainly more support in China for this kind of agricultural technology. In Europe, too, there's a lot of support for science but they have more hesitation funding this research even though their regulatory agencies have said again and again that these genetic technologies are fine and they compare well against older technologies. But it still gets caught up in politics. The European Food Safety Committee is still, I think, the premier organization that evaluates new products, so they can be very happy with something that comes out, but then it could be just one member country in the EU that doesn't like it and slows approval down.

You've done a lot of work communicating research and the benefits of sustainable agriculture and genetic engineering in plants. Surely you've developed a skill set over the years for gaining the public's trust as well as trying to dispel misinformation. For any aspiring scientists out there who want to follow in your footsteps, what kind of recommendations do you have for them?

Do what you're doing right now! Just get out there and just start doing it. At first, it's really nerve-wracking and you might say something and then think, "Oh, why did I say that? That was wrong or it sounded strange or that person got angry." But then the next time you learn to be a little more careful around whatever issue that was. So I think a lot of it is practice. It gets easier and easier, and it's very fun because people are truly interested in food, they're interested in technology. They want to understand it. So when they meet people that are willing to explain it, and talk to them and listen to their concerns, that really makes a difference.

Over the years that I've been doing this, there's been waves of concerns. For a while it was, "Genetic technology is going to give us cancer" and then that subsided and it became "Multinational corporations are going to control it all", or "Roundup is a huge problem", forgetting about any other kind of genetic technologies out there. And there's probably newer waves of concern that I'm not even aware of since I've been doing less public speaking in that area. But what I’ve learned is if we’ve heard it before over and over again, you have to take that concern very seriously at that moment because often the person has a lot of angst and they're really worried. They may not know that the concern is kind of an old idea or that scientists have addressed the issue many times. It's very present for them. They need a listener, somebody who hears their worries, and maybe you can help to explain it to them in a different way.

In recent years there's been an increase in genetically engineered foods geared toward more niche or novelty applications. For example, there's the Purple Tomato from Norfolk Healthy Produce, which is aiming to increase antioxidants in tomatoes. But these are smaller in scale compared to the genetically engineered crops that have been put out in prior years. What are your thoughts on these products? Do you think they’re just a trend or do you think they're going to become more common moving forward? And why do you think that a product like the Purple Tomato has been successful compared to something like Golden Rice which really struggled for acceptance under the similar goal of improving nutrition?

Great question. Well, one thing I remember from years ago was a physicist named Freeman Dyson who said about genetic engineering that "People in the developed world, they're just not going to care unless they can get a fluorescent zebra fish to put in their kid’s fish tank". It's this idea that we're so removed from food and genetics, but our kids would be really excited if we have this cool fish. I think there's a lot of truth to that. Sadly, I've come to a similar conclusion from some of my lectures in the developed world. It's not that these people are callous or that they don't care about others, but they just don't really “get” Golden Rice. They don't get why people in the developing world can’t take vitamins or eat oranges or carrots. To understand the poverty at that level and the fact that people are eating only rice three times a day is almost impossible to imagine.

I think it's human nature not to want to see it because it's horrible to think of children dying. What are the numbers? 500,000 children go blind every year? 250,000 die because of a lack of vitamin A and more become prone to other diseases? It's really, really shocking and I think, as humans, we put blinders on and say, "I have so much to do today. I have to work. I have to worry about my family. It's just too much, and I don't want to think about that." But when somebody says they have this tomato and it's healthy for you and it's fun, it “sticks”. Here in developed countries, most of us, but not everybody of course, have enough food to eat. So especially in more wealthy areas we look for novelty. I think that appeals to people more than saving the lives of children, I'm afraid. And I don’t think it's because people are not humane, it's just something in our nature. We just can't or don't want to think about it.

And Golden Rice was actively demonized by certain organizations, right? Greenpeace? Where was that pushback coming from?

Yeah, Golden Rice was made in the developed world and opposed by the developed world. And it's sad because these are people that do have enough to eat that are demonizing something they don't really understand. It's hard to fathom, fundamentally, why they would do that. Maybe in the beginning they were scared, but there's been so much research since then. It's been 30 years and they're still demonizing it. And children are still dying.

To go with this interview, we made an accompanying video where we prepare a few of the recipes included in “Tomorrow’s Table” and discuss the science behind genetic modification and its uses.

That’s great! What recipes did you make?

We made sticky rice with papaya and brown rice salad with purple tomatoes. We were big fans of the sticky rice. It may be one of my favorite desserts I’ve tried!

Me too! The first time I had it was in Thailand and I was so amazed, it was so good. When I came home and tried to make it, I saw you used a bunch of sugar and thought, “Oh… that’s why it’s so good”. I’m glad you liked it.

To watch our video making dishes with genetically modified ingredients, click here. Many thanks to Dr. Ronald for her thoughts and taking the time to chat with us.