Biology
Prof. Resigns Over Government Use of Plant Research
We speak Dr. Martha Crouch,
a former biology professor at the University of Indiana. She ran a lab dedicated
to cutting edge plant research but decided to end her career when she found out
that biotechnology companies were co-opting her research for profit.
We
are broadcasting from Bloomington Indiana on our Unembed the Media Tour. We are
joined in the studio this morning by Dr. Martha Crouch. Dr Crouch used to be a
biology professor at the University of Indiana. She was once a pioneering biotechnologist
who studied her entire life to reach the top of her profession. She earned a Ph.D.
in developmental biology at Yale before going to Indiana University, to teach
and run a lab dedicated to cutting edge plant research. But she decided to end
her research career when she found out that biotechnology companies were co-opting
her research for profit. ? Marti Crouch, former professor of Biology at Indiana
University in Bloomington, Indiana. This
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AMY
GOODMAN: We're joined by Dr. Martha Crouch. She used to be a biology professor
here at the University of Indiana, was reaching the top of her profession. She
earned a Ph.D. in Developmental Science. She taught here at the Indiana University,
ran a lab dedicated to cutting- edge plant research, but she decided to end her
research career when she found out that biotechnology companies were taking her
research, using it for profit. Dr. Marti Crouch with us, former Professor of Biology
here at Indiana University. We welcome you to Democracy Now!
DR. MARTHA CROUCH:
Thank you, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: So, first tell us very quickly what happened to
you? This was years ago. When was it?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: This was 15 years
ago, about 1990, and it was at the very beginning of genetic engineering in agriculture.
You know, now probably in Indiana, 75% of the crops grown are genetically engineered,
but at the time there wasn't anything in the field. I could see the writing on
the wall, though, from the consulting that I was doing that genetic engineering
was going to promote industrial agriculture. And I feel industrial agriculture
is one of the major reasons that the environment is in the sad shape it is today.
So, I couldn't, in good conscience, continue that kind of research.
AMY GOODMAN:
Now, specifically, you were doing work on palm trees?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: I
was doing work on canola. You're probably familiar with canola oil. And the work
that we were doing was basic research. We didn't have any particular application
in mind, but we were doing some consulting with Unilever in Great Britain, and
they were using oil palm plantations around the world to make edible oil. They
used some of our research to make the trees more genetically uniform so that they
could grow larger plantations, and in the process, they cut down a lot of rain
forests, kicked Indians off their land, polluted the rivers with the waste products
of the processing of the oil. I was horrified by that because my own allegiance
is with the small farmers and with the rain forests, and the idea that the kind
of knowledge we were generating about how genes work was primarily being used
to promote that kind of destruction, really sent me back to the basics of why
research is funded.
AMY GOODMAN: So what did you do?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH:
Well, I shut down my lab. And I think saying--
AMY GOODMAN: You're a professor
here.
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: I was a professor here.
AMY GOODMAN: You had the
cover story of which magazine, your research?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: Well, Plant
Cell, which at the time was the major research journal for my field. I had had
the cover story the month before. So I was involved in this research, and--
AMY
GOODMAN: You were a rising star.
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: I guess I was at the time,
and--
AMY GOODMAN: So what do you mean to say you just shut down your lab?
DR.
MARTHA CROUCH: Well, I asked my students to finish their projects, and
I didn't
accept any more grant money and announced through writing a sort of a manifesto
to the Plant Cell, where I had had the article, that I wanted people in biology
to think about what their work was being used for. And not to have on blinders
and just think that somehow the government was giving them money to do research
just because it was fun. That money is given so that research will lead to innovation
in industry and military applications, and if it doesn't lead to that kind of
innovation, then the money dries up. So, people needed to be comfortable with
what industry and the military were doing with their research, and in my experience,
we weren't even thinking about that. So, I put out a challenge. I was very visible
about it. I went around and debated and talked, and then went into teaching for
the next ten years, particularly about the food system and finally quit at the
university about five years ago, to pursue interests in sustainable agriculture.
AMY
GOODMAN: The governor has signed off on legislation that prevents local communities,
I suppose, like the Bloomington City Council from doing exactly what?
DR. MARTHA
CROUCH: Well, biotechnology is one of those things that the more the citizens
know about it, the less they like it. So, as people become educated, as to what
is actually growing in the fields around them and what some of the risks are.
For example, that there are crops that are being engineered to make pharmaceuticals
like vaccines or industrial chemicals: plastics, precursors, and so forth, that
are being tested in their communities but they don't know where the tests are.
Local communities in California and Vermont, Hawaii, Maine, are starting to enact
legislation saying, we want to have a genetically-engineered free zone around
our community until we know more about it, so our conventional farmers don't have
problems with contamination, that we don't feel that the federal government is
doing an adequate job of protecting our health. Now, that has traditionally been
something local communities can do. You know, the town meeting sort of local protection
of health and welfare. Over the years, the agriculture industry has slipped in
legislation to limit the right of local communities to protect themselves against
technologies and the first was pesticides. I don't know if you know that in most
states, local communities can not ban pesticides or limit their use. Other, you
know, in more strict ways than the State. So, there's precedent for this. The
libel laws against disparaging vegetables or, you know, what got Oprah in trouble
with, with hamburger.
AMY GOODMAN: The vegetable disparagement laws.
DR.
MARTHA CROUCH: The vegetable disparagement laws.
AMY GOODMAN: You cannot diss
a broccoli.
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: That's right. Although we know certain people
have. So, these laws have been on the books for other things. Now they're saying
that local communities in certain states, Indiana one of them -- I think there
are nine other states so far, many more proposing this legislation -- cannot ban
or regulate what kinds of seeds are grown in their local jurisdiction. I feel
this is a terrible assault on local democracy.
AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to
Dr. Marti Crouch, former Professor of Biology here at Indiana University in Bloomington,
Indiana. We're going to break, come back to her. I want to find out about this
Superweed that is taking over Indiana, what it has to do with Monsanto and Roundup
pesticides.
Amy Goodman: We are broadcasting from Indiana University in Bloomington.
Dr. Marti Crouch, talk about this superweed that's taking over Indiana.
DR.
MARTHA CROUCH: Yeah. There's a headline here, "Monsanto's G.E. Crop Spawns
Superweeds Across Indiana." This is interesting because when genetically-engineered
crops were first developed, there was a lot of hype about how they were going
to reduce the use of pesticides, that we were going to be able to get rid of weeds
with safe chemicals, that sort of a thing. And one of the first crops that was
genetically engineered was Roundup Ready. Now Roundup is glyphosate, one of the
most common herbicides, weed killers in the world. And it was patented to Monsanto,
about to come off patent, so they were going to start losing their income stream
from that. And so, they genetically engineered a series of crops to be able to
withstand Roundup. They called them Roundup Ready, so that you could spray the
weed killer over them, they would survive, the weeds would die. And the idea was
that you'd be able to use less weed killer, that Roundup was less toxic than some
of the other ones, and that it would simplify weed management.
Well, in Indiana,
about 5 million acres are now cultivated in Roundup Ready soybeans; about 90%
of the soybean crop. And so, a quarter of our land area in Indiana, and this is
typical throughout the soybean-growing regions, is sprayed with Roundup herbicide,
one, two, three times during a season. Naturally, weeds, being smarter than people,
are learning how to become resistant to the Roundup, as predicted. And this year,
in the last couple of years, there's a new weed in Indiana called Mare's Tail.
It's actually a native plant that has learned how to grow under these conditions,
has become resistant, and is moving very rapidly across the State. Which means
that the Roundup Ready approach doesn't work anymore, unless you mix in different
herbicides. So, now they're recommending that farmers, whenever they see this
weed, and even if they don't, start mixing the Roundup with 2,4-D, which is an
old herbicide that has a lot of evidence now that it's linked to certain cancers,
and reproductive problems, a much more dangerous herbicide. So, the -- and also
because of this, more and more and more of the pesticides are being used, and
as genetically-engineered crops have become more popular, pesticide use has increased
instead of decreased.
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, this issue of using crop plants
for drugs?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: Yes. This is the thing that I never even thought
of 15 years ago when I decided to quit my research and makes me even more confident
that I made the right decision, and that is that now people are making drugs,
pharmaceuticals, in crops like corn, some are engineered into rice, sugar cane,
other food crops. They're in the testing phase. Only one industrial enzyme is
being grown commercially for research purposes, but there are hundreds of tests
of these pharmaceuticals. They include birth control agents, vaccines--
AMY
GOODMAN: Wait, wait. I don't understand. So, do the birth control agent. What
is happening?
DR. MARTHA CROUCH: You take a gene from an organism that makes
a protein that can control conception, and you splice that into the DNA of a corn
plant, and you ask the corn plant to become a factory to make that birth control
agent.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you can have cornfields that sterilize whole communities?
DR.
MARTHA CROUCH: You could. Or that make AIDS vaccines, or that make growth hormone,
or that make plastic precursors. And the idea is factories are expensive, cornfields
are cheap. So you get agriculture to make all of these things that used to be
made in pharmaceutical factories or in industrial factories. Now, these are being
field-tested around Indiana and around the United States and the world in secret
field tests. The locations are not made public. And usually what particular drug
or chemical being made is confidential business information. So, you don't even
know what particular chemical--
AMY GOODMAN: It's proprietary.
DR. MARTHA
CROUCH: It's proprietary. And there's no regulatory agency that has the ability
to test for whether this is already contaminating our food. And a lot of people
think it probably is.
AMY GOODMAN: You're making me think of what we just,
we're following the British elections, but those root pullers in Britain, the
protesters who go out to these Monsanto fields or other companies that are doing
biogenetic fields and they pull the roots as a form of civil disobedience.
DR.
MARTHA CROUCH: Yeah, exactly. Now, some states are trying to deal with this. Hawaii,
for example, has legislation that's going through right now to attempt to force
the companies to say what they're growing and where, so that there can be community
oversight. But in most other places, like Indiana, we're getting these laws that
say the community cannot protect themselves against this. They're taking it out
of our hands.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Dr. Marti Crouch, I want to thank you very
much for alarming us today, former Professor of Biology at Indiana University
in Bloomington, Indiana. She quit her research job, her professorship here at
the university, now is more likely to be found out in the Farmer's Markets of
Bloomington.
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