[tt] NYT: A Conversation With Nina V. Fedoroff, Advocate for Science Diplomacy

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A Conversation With Nina V. Fedoroff, Advocate for Science Diplomacy
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/19/science/19conv.html

By CLAUDIA DREIFUS

When she was a single mother in the early 1960s, Nina V. Fedoroff,
66, defied odds and conventionality by working her way through
college, graduate school and postdoctoral studies. Dr. Fedoroff, a
member of the National Academy of Sciences, did fundamental research
on plant transposons, or jumping genes, and was among the first to
clone plant DNA. She is science adviser to the secretary of state
and administrator of the Agency for International Development. We
spoke last month in Washington and later on the telephone. An edited
version of the conversations follows.

Q. WHEN YOU GAVE A RECENT SPEECH AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ADVOCATING
GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS, SOMEONE SITTING NEAR ME SAID, "OH GREAT,
OUR STATE DEPARTMENT IS PUSHING G.M. FOOD. SHE'S THE AMBASSADOR FROM
MONSANTO." WHAT'S YOUR RESPONSE?

A. How do I answer him? My answer is: There's almost no food that
isn't genetically modified. Genetic modification is the basis of all
evolution.

Things change because our planet is subjected to a lot of radiation,
which causes DNA damage, which gets repaired, but results in
mutations, which create a ready mixture of plants that people can
choose from to improve agriculture.

In the last century, as we learned more about genes, we were able to
devise ways of accelerating evolution.

So a lot of modern plant strains were created by applying chemicals
or radiation to cause mutations that improved the crop. That's how
plant breeding was done in the 20th century. The paradox is that now
that we've invented techniques that introduce just one gene without
disturbing the rest, some people think that's terrible.

Q. WHY DO YOU THINK THERE IS SUCH FIERCE OPPOSITION TO GENETICALLY
MODIFIED FOODS?

A. This is an unintended consequence of our success. We've gotten so
good at growing food that we've gone, in a few generations, from
nearly half of Americans living on farms to 2 percent. We no longer
think about how the wonderful things in the grocery store got there,
and we'd like to go back to what we think is a more natural way.

But I'm afraid we can't, in part, because there are just too many of
us in this world. If everybody switched to organic farming, we
couldn't support the earth's current population -- maybe half.

Q. YOU BELIEVE THAT ENVIRONMENTALISTS SHOULD BE EMBRACING
GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS. WHAT'S YOUR ARGUMENT?

A. If we put more land under cultivation to feed the world's growing
population, we're going to pull down the remaining forests.

And if that happens, it will contribute tremendously to
desertification. The more we can grow on already cultivated land,
the better. Europe, North America, Australia, Japan -- we've been
extremely successful in applying science to agriculture and we can
afford to say, "Let's go natural." But there's collateral damage.

When I went to Rwanda, you saw farmers with holdings of less than an
acre.

If their population doubles again, we're looking at more strife.
Arguably, Darfur isn't about politics, it's about water. Many of the
conflicts in the poorest countries are about too many people chasing
too few resources. Do we have time to transition something that
looks like Rwanda to a more efficient agriculture and to do it
wisely enough to absorb the people?

Q. WHY DOES THE SECRETARY OF STATE NEED A SCIENCE ADVISER?

A. Because science and technology are the drivers of the 21st
century's most successful economies.

There are more than six billion of us, and the problems of a crowded
planet are everyone's: food, water, energy, climate change,
environmental degradation. Other nations, even those that have lost
respect for our culture and politics, still welcome collaboration on
scientific and technological issues.

Q. REPRESENTATIVE GEORGE E. BROWN JR., ONCE THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE
SCIENCE COMMITTEE, WORRIED THAT BECAUSE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
AGREEMENTS WITH OTHER COUNTRIES WERE NOT FINANCED, THE UNITED STATES
WAS HURTING ITSELF WITH EMPTY GESTURES. WAS HE RIGHT?

A. That's a great question and a very current one. Yes, the State
Department opens doors by negotiating government-to-government S&T
agreements. It also takes the first step in fleshing out such
agreements by bringing scientists, ministers and agency
representatives together to explore mutual interests. But actually
supporting collaborative research on problems of mutual interest,
that's just beginning to be recognized as important.

George Brown was right -- without the resources to support
collaborations, it's much less than it could be. There are members
of Congress who are keenly interested in science diplomacy.

But Congress will have to make a bigger investment for science
diplomacy to flourish.

Q. CAN YOU NAME A SITUATION WHERE SCIENCE DIPLOMACY CHANGED HISTORY?

A. History isn't like a science experiment. You can't go back and
rerun it "without science diplomacy" to see what happens.

Nonetheless, some historians credit ongoing relationships between
Soviet and American scientists, particularly physicists, with
preventing a flash-over of the cold war.

Today scientific interactions exist between the U.S. and certain
countries with which we have no formal diplomatic relations. We're
promoting scientific interactions to address water and health issues
among the countries of the Middle East. Our recent interactions with
Libya had science and technology as a centerpiece, ranging from a
major international astronomical event around a solar eclipse, to
addressing issues of health, water desalinization and agriculture.

Another example of science diplomacy is a small group, the
Israeli-Palestinian Science Organization. A project they're doing
that I'm enthusiastic about involves genetic assessments. There are
some diseases unique to the region that may have a genetic basis.
The question is: Which genes and how do you identify them? With that
group, I see how science is a real force for bringing people
together.

Q. WHY CAN SCIENCE CREATE COOPERATION IN PLACES WHERE EVERYTHING
ELSE FAILS?

A. Because science is more collaborative than other types of
endeavors. It aspires to more democratic principles than many
political systems because we have an external reference.

People can have different theories, but we form an experiment to
test it. It's the evidence that matters. So in science, we can have
differences of opinion, but we can't have two sets of facts.

There is an in-built process that says, "You and I may have
different religions, different politics, but we can talk about
science across chasms."