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Bitter Harvest, BBC
TWO, from Sunday 16 June
A new,
three part series tells the inside story of possibly the most powerful
technology ever developed - biotechnology - and the revolution it
has wrought in the food industry.
Out of Eden, Sunday
16 June, 8.00pm
In 1972, an experiment took place in a laboratory in Stamford University
USA which transformed the world of biology. Genes were successfully
transferred from one organism to another unrelated one, one with
which it would not normally reproduce.
The original experiments were performed using bacteria. The technique
could be applied to all living things. Once unimaginable genetic
combinations were possible.
First-hand accounts now tell the story of the initial scientific
breakthrough, the recognition of the benefits and dangers of the
new science and attempts to reconcile the differences, the realisation
of the earning power new technologies could unleash, the discussions
over patents and regulations.
It is a story of how scientists dreamt of changing the world, how
industrialists saw the potential for rich and powerful global businesses,
and how activists fought to stop them.
Contributors include Nobel prize-winners Professors James Watson
and Paul Berg, Professor Stanley Cohen, writer and activist Jeremy
Rifkin, and Earle Harbison, ex-President of Monsanto.
Producer: Glynn Jones
Seeds of Anger, Sunday
23 June, 8.00pm
By the mid-1990s American scientists had created genetically altered
crops which promised to fight off insects, weeds and diseases.
Within just a few years American farmers had planted millions of
acres of genetically modified corn, oil seed rape and soya. The
giant of agricultural biotechnology, Monsanto, saw this as a revolution
in food production.
In 1996, loads of genetically modified grain were trucked to processing
plants and mixed with non-GM varieties for shipping to Europe.
Like Monsanto, Greenpeace understood this was a revolution in agriculture.
Unlike Monsanto, Greenpeace opposed it.
Seeds of Anger tells how the arrival of GM crops in the UK unleashed
massive opposition. Ships were intercepted, fields trashed, supermarkets
disrupted, politicians accosted by naked demonstrators.
A trade war threatened and a giant global corporation was brought
to its knees. The controversy was fuelled by research released by
Dr Arpad Pusztai which pointed to abnormalities in rats fed on genetically
modified potatoes.
Contributors include Lord May, Chief Scientific Advisor to the Government
from 1995 to 2000, Professor Don Grierson of Nottingham University,
Peter Melchett, former executive director of Greenpeace, activist
Kathryn Tulip, Dr Arpad Pusztai, Charles Secrett, Friends of the
Earth, and Michael Meacher, Environment Minister.
Producer: Katharine Quarmby
On The Eighth Day, Sunday
June 30, 7.30pm
In
rural Pennsylvania, the Amish harvest tobacco in the traditional
way. However, there's one difference between this and previous crops
they have grown. These tobacco plants have been genetically modified
so they don't produce nicotine - one of the first of a new generation
of products which scientists think will convince worried consumers
of the value of biotechnology.
Professor
Ray Goldberg of Harvard Business School says: "… the commonality
between animals, plants and human beings, to understand their interaction
and to provide a way of improving society beyond anybody's measure,
to me is the most important change that we have in our world today.
"It
covers every industry, not just agriculture, and I think that we
are only at the beginning phase of it."
Writer
and activist Jeremy Rifkin comments: "... We're on the cusp
of a scientific and technological revolution that can change the
very basics of human nature and the nature of nature itself.
"If
there was ever a moment in history where successive generations
had to be up to the task of knowing about the science and the technology,
being engaged in it and making tough collective decisions about,
this is that time."
Products
in development include a drug to treat cancer - ironically using
a genetically modified tobacco plant seed to provide the protein
used in the treatment.
Introducing
spider genes in goats' milk produces a fibre strong enough to suspend
a jumbo jet or assist in opthalmic surgery; cows have been modified
to make them resistant to mastitis, a disease common in high-yielding
milk cows. Pigs could be modified so their manure is less poisonous
to the environment. So this is the future? But will the revolution
succeed?
Producer:
David Street
Bitter
Harvest is a BBC production for BBC TWO. The executive producer
is Glynn Jones.
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