LOGAN PRATHER/THE ITHACAN ECOLOGY ACTIVIST VANDANA SHIVA (left) and University of Minnesota professor Philip Regal talk during the intermission of Ithaca Forum, a panel on genetically modified foods Sunday in Clarke Theater.

By Ellen R. Stapleton Assistant News Editor

Mix together the coordinator of the Safe Food Campaign and Organic Consumers Association in Ithaca, a former plant researcher at Cornell University and the author of “Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply,” and the result is a heated debate on genetically modified foods.

Associate Professor Jill Swenson and Assistant Professor Anthony “Skip” Tenzcar, both television-radio, brought six international experts on biotechnology to Clarke Theatre Sunday afternoon for the filming of the first-ever Ithaca Forum, a new Ithaca College Television show. The subject of the inaugural panel discussion was Genetically Modified Foods: A Meeting of the Minds.

Genetically modified foods may benefit large industrial farms in the United States, but they may also cause problems for rural farmers in Third World countries, said panelist Vandana Shiva, director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy.

“Technocrats in this country have started the introduction of genetically modified food on large-scale, industrial farms where it could work fine,” Shiva said. “But on small farms they will not. The problem is with experts ... who think the world stops with the United States.”

Shiva, who grew up in the Himalayan mountains and is also a physicist, ecologist and activist, said rural farmers are being forced to spend most of their money on chemicals, which crushes the farmers’ incomes and restricts bio-diversity.

Ralph Hardy, president of the National Agricultural Biotechnology Council, argued that farmers should have access to the best-possible seed, which can be achieved through genetic engineering. These seeds would produce higher yields, he said.

With the world’s population expected to increase from six to nine billion people in the next 15 years, Hardy said genetically modified foods could help alleviate food shortages by creating stronger plants that could grow under poor conditions and need less fertilizer.

Panelist Anatole Krattiger, an international consultant with bioDevelopments LLC, a company that transfers agricultural biotechnology to developing countries, held up two ears of corn, one half the size of the other.

Krattiger claimed the smaller ear was produced on an organic farm in Africa, while the larger one was produced with the help of genetic modification in the United States.

He said this proved the United States has the most productive agricultural system in the world.

After the forum’s intermission, Shiva, who called the United States’ system inefficient, brought out an organically farmed ear of corn larger than either of Krattiger’s.

Tony Del Plato, coordinator of the Safe Food Campaign and Organic Consumers Association in Ithaca called for a moratorium on genetically modified foods.

Del Plato, also a shareholder in Moosewood Restaurant, a restaurant in the Dewitt Mall that specializes in natural foods, said genetically modified foods have been incorporated into the market too quickly. Farmers and consumers are at risk because there are not enough regulations to evaluate the safety of genetically modified foods, he said.

Philip Regal, a professor of ecology, evolution and behavior at the University of Minnesota, agreed that safety is an issue.

“I am concerned with the regulatory bodies and the education of genetic engineers,” he said. “Are they pushing things through and gambling?”

Shiva said genetic engineering of food should be explored, but only after more risk assessment, research and regulations.

Del Plato also said biotechnology was another example of imposing the “corporate structure onto the natural world.” Six major corporations control the genetically modified food process, he said.

Krattiger complained that the anti-corporate lobby has been energizing the anti-biotechnology movement because the biotechnology is only available through a few corporations.

After the three-hour filming enede, junior Anna Ehrlich, who was in the audience, said she was impressed with Shiva’s speeches.

“Her position as a powerful woman on a mostly all-male panel was amazing,” said Ehrlich, who is also vice president of the Ithaca College Environmental Society. “Her main point at the end was that nature is more powerful than us and that corporations need to be connected to nature.”

Sophomore Erica Bergman, an ICES member who also attended the forum, said she was impressed with the passion each panelist displayed.

More than 30 students served on the crew for Ithaca Forum, which will air as an hour-long episode sometime during the spring semester on Ithaca College Television. It was held before a studio audience of 200.

Tenzcar, who spent last academic year developing the idea of the show, said he wanted to capture the intellectual curiosity and spirited discussion that distinguish Ithaca. He plans to schedule a second forum for February. The title of the next forum has not yet been released.

“The footage was quite good and the discussion was excellent,” he said. “I think it was a learning experience for [the crew]. Transforming a theater space into a television studio is something we have never done before.”