How a Complete Shift to Organic Farming Led to the Collapse of a Nation | Dr. Channa Prakash

In this episode, we talk about the beginning of the non-GMO movement, sensationalism in the modern world, the collapse of Sri Lanka due to shifting to organic farming, GM research, sensationalism, and activism.

BIO:

Dr. Channa S. Prakash is Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Tuskegee University where he is also a professor of crop genetics and biotechnology. Dr. Prakash’s research expertise is in genetic improvement research on food crops of importance to developing countries. His lab was among the first to develop genetically modified sweet potato and peanut plants and conduct pioneering genomic studies on the peanut. He has been actively involved in enhancing societal awareness of food biotechnology issues around the world. He serves as Editor-in-chief of the journal GM Crops &Food. Dr. Prakash is the winner of the prestigious 2015 Borlaug CAST Communication Award, as according to CAST, he has “arguably done more than anyone else in academia or industry to promote agricultural technologies that can help feed the world’s growing population.” He was also recognized by Huffington Post as among the Top 30 social influencers in biopharma and biotech. He has an active presence on social media (@agbioworld)

TIMESTAMPS

1:28 Ketogeek, Energy Pod intro

5:11 Social, wine pairing, and culinary experiments with Energy Pods

8:02 The world's tastiest S'mores

10:55 Future events for us

15:08 Dr. Chana's biography

17:00 Importance of why scientists need to be more vocal with the public

22:56 Where did the anti-GMO movement begin?

24:48 The food scare and the mad cow disease connection

29:45 Did the anti-GMO activists get anything right in their critique of GM crops?

33:06 How can new students and academics sift through bad information in the Information Age

36:36 How do combat needless sensationalism in the modern world?

39:31 How Sri Lanka collapsed due to the complete shift towards organic farming

47:28 Did the scientists in Sri Lanka push back against this catastrophe?

50:25 How can influencers, key figures in society, and intellects help the public on this matter?

55:51 How can normal people find relevant information in the modern information age?

1:00:41 The difference between how activists and government handles the failure of scientific catastrophes

1:05:06 How did you create GM sweet potatoes and peanuts

1:08:27 Final plugs

LINKS:

Dr. Channa Prakash Twitter: Channa Prakash (@AgBioWorld) / Twitter

Ag Bio World: AgBioWorld - Supporting Biotechnology in Agriculture

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