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Scientists say that gene editing will have profound positive impacts in medicine and agriculture. But what do consumers think? Today's Talking Biotech Podcast talks to agricultural economist Dr. Brandon McFadden, who helps unravel the feelings of the complex consumer.
Talking Biotech is a weekly podcast that uncovers the stories, ideas and research of people at the frontier of biology and engineering.
Each episode explores how science and technology will transform agriculture, protect the environment, and feed 10 billion people by 2050.
Interviews are led by Dr. Kevin Folta, a professor of molecular biology and genomics.
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[00:00:00] Hi
Kevin Folta: everybody. And welcome to another week of the talking biotech podcast. This week, we're going to talk about consumer sentiment. What do consumers think of new technologies and really why does it matter? We're speaking with Dr. Brandon McFadden. He's an associate professor at the university of Delaware in the department of applied economics and statistics.
So welcome to the podcast.
Brandon McFadden: Thanks, Kevin.
Kevin Folta: Thanks for having me. Yeah. It's no surprise you. And I kind of go back a little ways. I used to be a faculty where I was and, or, yeah, I guess. Well, I guess I am . We've worked on a couple projects together. So this is kind of the residues of that. And but tell me a little bit about what an ag economist does.
Brandon McFadden: Yeah, sure. Well, and let me, let me say two on that, Kevin. I think I met you my first semester. And, and, and let me say it was actually pretty nice of you because I was, I was a very junior fresh person. And you took time to meet with me, I think my first semester there to talk a little [00:01:00] bit. So yeah, we've we've known each other for a while, but but what, you know, th the area of ag econ is very broad.
So people study, you know, everything from, you know, rural development, right? Like community development to production And I focus more on consumers. So I do a lot of consumer research food, labeling food, retelling, things like that.
Kevin Folta: Okay. Yeah. So that that's always been kind of I guess you'd say kind of a mystery to most people, like what does an ag economist do?
And, you know, I've seen everything from you know, tell you predict the price of milk to describe the cost of healthcare in rural communities. You know, so when you say broad, pretty broad,
Brandon McFadden: one kind of unknown fact is actually like the undergrad degree in ag. Econ has one of the lowest unemployment rates because of that.
Right. Even as an undergrad with, with that type of training, you can do anything, you know, from selling fertilizer, right. To being a data analyst for a food company. Right. [00:02:00] So yeah, it's, it's broad.
Kevin Folta: Well, one of the things that brought us together was kind of a mutual interest in the science around genetic engineering and me being a molecular biologist.
And you being an expert in economics, kind of made a pretty good team for answering a lot of weird questions. And one of the questions we started to think about a few years ago was around this issue of gene editing. And so could you tell us a little bit about gene editing? What is this gene editing thing and why is it important?
Brandon McFadden: Yeah, so gene editing allows scientists, researchers. It gives them the ability to make very targeted changes to the DNA of living organisms. And, and, you know, when we. Kind of got together and started talking, you know, it was more around GMOs, right. And so this has kind of been the progression of you know, tech, technological change.
And so a technology that's, you know, now more precise [00:03:00] than, than GMOs. And so, you know, we had done a lot of work looking at You know, people's perceptions concerns about GMO's. And so naturally this is now transitioning into research about attitudes, perceptions towards gene edit.
Kevin Folta: So when you say GMOs, you're really referring to transgenic technology, right?
So this other way of genetic engineering as it. So let's just clear up the nomenclature gene editing is genetic engineering as is this transgenic thing, but why is one better than the other? You've kind of mentioned it, but maybe tap into that a little bit. Yeah.
Brandon McFadden: Well, so the way the changes with GMOs were made like this term using transgenesis, as you know, there, there was also the, the foreign DNA had to be inserted in a different technique that often included, you know, so it would include something like using Agrobacterium to, to, to put the foreign DNA [00:04:00] in and that's no longer needed.
You can just make direct changes to the DL. With gene editing.
Kevin Folta: Yeah. So you can make changes without any extra baggage you're basically. Yeah. You're you are creating changes in DNA that could have been installed with traditional breeding just instead of taking five years, 10 years, 50 years, a hundred years.
It can be done in a year or two.
Brandon McFadden: That's right. That's right. And you know, I think another kind of added benefit is been And maybe it maybe I'm wrong about this. You can, you can correct me, but the ability to, you know, along with the gene editing, you know, where it's has been the ability to sequence genomes, right.
And all the information that we're able to gather now.
Kevin Folta: Right? So since we have so much genome sequence, we can identify subtle changes in between two different genomes that maybe show variation that would have taken a long time to find another way. [00:05:00] So maybe a disruptive gene that causes you to be susceptible to a disease.
In one species or one variety that is intact in the other. And now we can recreate that seemed gene variant in something susceptible that is present in something that is resistant and then this way confer resistance without chemistry, which most people are really excited about. So, I guess the other big question then.
So we do we have this new technology. What about the regulatory differences? Is it a big difference between gene editing and old-school
transgenics?
Brandon McFadden: Well, so I would say yes and no. And there's still a lot of gray area in the sense that, for instance, like with even, let's say a labeling, right? So For instance, how labeling would be regulated.
It's not completely clear. You know, we, we now have the national bio engineered food to stay in disclosure standard, which went into [00:06:00] effect January one of this year. So you might see more labels on foods. Saying that the food has bio-engineered ingredients or ingredients from GMO's labels are now mandatory for food manufacturers over a certain size.
So a lot of things in the grocery store, particularly like packaged foods when out carry that label. So for instance, with that regulation, the wording isn't always clear about where gene editing will fall. It kind of. And in my mind, you know, obviously I'm not an attorney. So I, you know, I read the policy documents and regulations and, and glean what I can and what I can glean is that the language, for instance, on that it's is, is soft enough where it could kind of go either way.
It's a kind of a D it depends type of language. And so, you know, I guess it's not completely clear. So the first, one of the first things that popped up was a mushroom that was gene edited that wouldn't brown. So like the white cap mushrooms. And at the time USDA said that [00:07:00] they would not regulate that.
Any differently. Then something bred for conventional standards because there had been no foreign DNA introduced and it was something that could happen over time, you know, theoretically could occur and you know, through conventional breeding. So all that to say is, at least from the things I've seen in red, it's not, it's not.
Kevin Folta: Yeah, that's really the big difference. Right? You have this regulatory difference and that labeling thing, that bio engineered act for all the hassle and fanfare that got back in 2016, or whenever it passed 17, that's your came and went without any real interest. I mean, it, it happened and you never heard anything about it.
Brandon McFadden: Yeah. I mean, you know we, you know, there were, there were discussions, so to give you some background,
Things like public surveys, public polling found, you know, that by and large, a lot of people wanted food. Right. If you just ask them, do you. [00:08:00] That contains GMO ingredients be labeled a high proportion of the population says yes, like, you know, close to 90%. And you know, so a lot of this was used to motivate the need for some kind of regulation you know, to disclose to consumers that the food was genetically modified for.
It had genetically modified ingredients. And and then, yeah, so it got passed and of course advocates for the mandatory. And we're happy it got passed. And one reason it got passed at the federal level to give you even a little bit more background is that it had passed. There were, there had been a lot of state initiatives and state level voting occurring up to this.
And it actually went into effect in Vermont for just a short period of time. And then, you know, a bit of speculation, but what it seems like is that the federal government realized that, you know, a lot of states are trying to pass these types of law. And, you know, for a food manufacturer or just, you know, our food system in general, it's very difficult if every state has different laws.
And so, you know, rather than having kind of this patchwork regulation where every state has a little bit of a different type of standard, you're going to, [00:09:00] so it was, you know, an idea to get everything on the same standard. And so advocates were for mandatory labeling. We're happy, you know, I think that was definitely a win for them right when it got labeled, but then they weren't very happy with some of the disclosure options.
Where things like a QR code, that was kind of the first thing they weren't happy about. You can also disclose with texts or assemble or a web, a web address, but like that symbol hadn't been identified yet when the policy was first when it, when it first passed, they said we're going to allow a symbol, but it hadn't been developed.
And has since been developed when it was, when that symbol came out, advocates for mandatory labeling also weren't happy with that because they thought it was. I guess too appealing and in the way, and allowed and allow food manufacturers to use the word bioengineered rather than genetically modified.
And so advocates for mandatory labeling were also not happy about that. So it's all that to say. There was a little. You know, there, there was definitely some conversations and, and points raised while it was [00:10:00] going well, it was becoming established, but as far as consumers or the public, now, you don't really hear much about it.
Kevin Folta: Yeah. Well, it still is a lot of noise being made about it. I know the center for food safety is still going to court and still suing the government over those labels. They want a skull and crossbones on the food and not this bioengineering. You know, waterfall with a two lip and a flying bird. Right.
Which you know, which is really, I mean, it is just shows what a crazy distortion this is. Right. So we were going through all these machinations we have labeling, we have, is this something that's extraordinarily unusual? I don't know that the government knows, I don't know that that scientists know, and we should all know what consumers think.
And so that's the stepping off point for this work. And so why do we even care? What a consumer thinks about a technology and food.
Brandon McFadden: Yeah. So that's a great question. And, and it's, to be [00:11:00] honest, something, even myself, you know, that I struggle with as a researcher, you know, Because obviously as a researcher, I'm not, I'm not trying to necessarily advocate for anything.
But when I look at the evidence, for instance, with Jacqueline modified fluids, or, you know, there's overwhelming evidence that it's safe and you know, this is really what got me into this area originally when I was a PhD student and in my dissertation, I, I did a, one of, one of my chapters of my dissertation was a paper on Perceptions of human actions and, and climate change.
And then the safety of GMOs, because I've always kind of been interested in this inconsistent thinking, right. And we see a lot of scientific evidence, right. To show that human actions are causing climate change. And there's a lot of people that accept that. Right. They accept that. Scientific evidence and they say, okay, I'm going to change my behavior.
Or, you know, I at least believe what the evidence is showing. We, you know, we have [00:12:00] similar evidence for the safety of GMOs, but the breakdown of society who thinks that GMOs are safe is a lot lower than the, you know, the proportion of society who thinks that human actions are causing climate change. And so we provided people with information to see what that did to the release, but all that to say, there's why we, so why should we believe or be concerned about what people think about this technology and food?
One, you know, we want to, in general, my research area, what I'm interested in are things like perceived risk and actual risk and the differences between those and things that lead to people either, you know, not prioritizing to some risks or being too concerned about risks, they shouldn't be concerned about.
But so, you know, that's kind of just on the behavioral front as far as like a food for production front, you know, obviously. If, if there's high a, to a technology that increases production. And then, so that [00:13:00] takes, you know, it effectively takes that technology out of the hands of producers because consumers are so reversed and then they can't grow these types of crops or what have you.
Then it can affect things like the supply of food, the prices of. For a lot of people and particularly for people who might not care so much about GMOs and have less disposable income to spend on food. Right. And it also raises the food prices for those people. So they're there, you know, so there's a lot of layers on why.
And it just kind of depends on how you want to think about it. Or, you know, what the research question is as to specifically what, you know, why we should be concerned or what the motivation is. It's kind of topic driven. Sorry. If I talked in circles there a little bit at the end, but, but all that to say, there are several reasons in my mind Why somebody might be concerned or be interested in researching consumer concern of a food technology?
Kevin Folta: I think it's fascinating because I think consumers are nuts in a lot of ways there. And I don't understand this part [00:14:00] that you can give consumers. A new iPhone and they're thrilled. They don't care how it works. They don't know how it works. It makes magic waves, the waves that come out of your mouth, trans transduced into magical electronic waves that move through space and satellites and come down somewhere else in somebody else's ear, or they turn the key in their car and it starts, or the.
You know, take a pill every morning because their doctor says so, and that technology doesn't phase them at. All right. So what is it about food that creeps people out?
Brandon McFadden: Oh, that's a great question. I'd say it really is. W, and it's not just, you know, that's one thing that's kind of shaken out, right? Is it it's, it's, it's a lot of things.
You know, it's concerns about technology and, and like you said, specifically with food, right. Because, you know, one thing that we've kind of learned from this recent research we've been doing, you know, we know, like for instance, GMOs haven't really been tied to healthcare, but we know [00:15:00] that it's been used in healthcare.
Right. For like producing. But it, it, you know, it's not really on the top of mind of the public in that area. What is, of course, like we talked about is food. And so, you know, obviously, I mean, we individuals have close connections to food, right. We make a lot of decisions about them. It has to do with our human health.
Right. But then, like I said, there's layer. Beyond that. Right? So like things like concerns about a company controlling the food supply or owning, you know, having a patent on something that they see as a living. Right. And so you're right. Consumers are funny in the way. It's a lot of different things. And if you ask, you know, 10 different people, why, you know who saved there are averse to GMOs.
If you asked 10 different people, why you might get 10 different names.
Kevin Folta: I think I have a hypothesis on this [00:16:00] too. And that if you are a big fan of Dan Conaman and how he talks about the system, one system, two, thinking that the emotional side of your brain is the one that responds to things like messages about food that.
We think about the cultural aspects and the social aspects and the feelings that we have around food. You know, you say, what do you feel like eating? Not what nutrition are you lacking? And so it, there's an emotional side to this. Whereas with medicine, it's very much a cognitive thing. You're looking for a solution to a problem that you're having.
You know, insulin coming through a recombinant DNA, nobody cares. It doesn't seem to matter. And so that's my hypothesis. I don't know if that makes any sense.
Brandon McFadden: It does well, and you're, and you're right about the emotions. For instance, there's some researchers at the university of Toronto who have a paper and they looked at people who they called absolute.
Moral opponents essentially say, you know, there, there [00:17:00] essentially is a group of consumers of the public who, you know, no matter how high the benefits are, no matter how low the costs are, they're just unsupportive of the technology. Right. And so they turn them, I think there's like moral absolutes, but what they found was that that group was more likely to be disgusted by the technology.
So was, you know, so all that to say it's, it was, it was a moment. Right. The people that were just completely against the technology, we're more likely to have emotional response to the technology as well. And if you look at some of the communication that comes out from opponents of the technology, it's usually You know, it's, it's, it's usually means or, you know, images that they've made that really invoke discussed.
And so, you know, I think you're absolutely right that there's an emotional component there and, and, and it's emotional and this, and this perceived risk that they really don't understand or can control and, and, you know, to build on [00:18:00] that, you know, example of asking people why they don't eat it, you know, I know there was a video.
Oh, some years back about GMOs. I think it was a Jimmy kennel, Kimball skit where they, you know, do the man on the street and ask people questions. And they went to a farmer's market and asked people they eat GMOs. And they said no. And they ask why. And you know, several people said, I don't know. Yeah. I just know I'm supposed to have.
Kevin Folta: Yeah, no, that's exactly it it's been made to be a a negative technology and there came up, you know, the reasons for that are many and maybe a great topic for another podcast, but we know where we got, how we got to that. We know that it was a communications foible and on the part of many companies that were promoting the technology that ignored the consumer.
And so we try to rephrase this around gene editing to get it right. So we're speaking with Dr. Brandon McFadden at the university of Delaware. This is a talking biotech podcast. We're talking about consumer attitudes towards gene editing. This is collaborative talking biotech podcast. We'll be [00:19:00] back in.
And now we're back on collaboratives talking biotech podcast. We're speaking with Dr. Brandon McFadden. He's a socio professor at the university of Delaware. And. An ag economist and Brandon and I have been working together for a few years now on answering some questions about genetic engineering, but mostly now in the area of gene editing, but more importantly, how to consumers feel about it because.
If we understand how consumers feel about a new technology, the messaging around it can be better crafted. And so whether you're the company that's producing, the gene edited seeds or government and charged with regulating them or a consumer who just is concerned about their food, it helps us communicate.
To those groups and from those groups to accurately give information to consumers. So in the recent work, you did some survey work. So could you tell us a little bit about the surveys maybe where they were held and who is actually [00:20:00] serving.
Brandon McFadden: Yeah. Sure. So yeah, this project that we're working on, it's several collaborators joy rumble Dr.
Julia rumble from Ohio, the sorry, the Ohio state university. Katie Stouffer, Dr. Katie Stouffer from university of Florida and Kevin. Also at university of Florida. And we started this project. It began with focus groups. And so doctor Dr. Rumble was in charge of writing these interviewer you know, the interviewer guidelines for this.
This was kind of her baby on the project. But the thing that was really interesting, that popped out from these focus groups and when we conducted these focus groups and one in each census region. So there was one in Philadelphia. One in Dallas, one in Columbus, Ohio, and then went to San Francisco. There really interesting thing that kind of came out of that for me was the first, you know, just the first question after essentially introductions was, you know, what, what are your thoughts about gene editing and.[00:21:00]
By and large at every location. The first thing that came out of participants mouths were it was about the medical side of gene editing and thoughts about that. And in food would, you know, they would move on to food at some point, but there was generally a focus first on healthcare, health and medical applications.
And then also more of a discussion around that than food. So, you know, we kind of found that very interesting, because as I said earlier, that wasn't necessarily the case. For GMOs. Even though there could be health or, or, or food applications, you know, there's much more of a focus in the public's mind on food, but we're not finding that with gene editing.
And so the focus groups, you know, and since then we've done subsequent surveys to try to understand more about how to communicate. To the public and really more is we're trying to figure out how the community, the public would prefer to be communicated with about these types of issues. And so that's kind of what we're focusing on now, and we've done some stuff [00:22:00] also around this new labeling that's occurring and what it might mean for gene editing for consumers,
Kevin Folta: I guess.
So the thing I think about is where did they get the. Sentiments. Because when I, when, when I was, I went to one of the focus groups, I think Philadelphia and I could not believe the answers that I was hearing. It was completely different than what I would have anticipated. And I just remember the whole time almost laughing all the way through, because the answers were totally different.
Where are, where are people getting? This is, you know, it was my big question. And so where are people hearing about gene editing associated with. Human health. If they're not listening to this podcast,
Brandon McFadden: you know, I, that's a great question. And, and one way, you know, so we we've published a paper and GM crops and food journal, GM crops and food about, about this question and, and that came from the focus groups.[00:23:00]
And and one, one thing we say in that paper, Is, you know, so how could that happen? Well, you know, there was a, there was a researcher in China who I think it was, was it just one child or was it twins? I can
Kevin Folta: call twins.
Brandon McFadden: And I believe what he did was he, gene edited them to be immune to HIV. I think.
That's
Kevin Folta: all right. Yeah. He edited out the CCR five receptor, which is the cellular receptor that allows docking and entry of HIV. So these two twins upon birth are immune to.
Brandon McFadden: Yeah. And he made this announcement on YouTube. So he made a YouTube video, you know about this project and what he did and released it to the public.
And, you know, so one thing we did real quick was just look at like Google search terms, right? For gene editing, what you see is, has never been higher than after that video. So I, you know, I think that's part of it is that was the [00:24:00] kind of the public's introduction to gene editing in a way, because it took off the news stories that you know, and everything else.
And then, you know, this thought of. You know, genetically engineering people you know, cut, cut a hole. And w and we found that too. Right. And the focus groups, like in general, people were positive about it. And a lot of, in a lot of aspects, right. The ability to cure diseases and the ability to prevent diseases, but then the conversations did often then go to, but I don't want.
You know, people that have the ability to make their kids taller or have a certain eye color. And so, you know, it progressed quickly from, you know, current concerns about disease, to concerns about designer children,
Kevin Folta: right. Kind of moving from therapeutic to. Yeah, that's right. And that's always been something that, that has been battered around.
And the funny part is, is I was doing another podcast. I do the science facts and fallacies podcast every Friday with Cameron English. [00:25:00] And we talked about gene editing and gene editing ethics. And I said, you know, come to think of it. Would it be the worst thing in the world to live in a world of smart, beautiful people,
Brandon McFadden: but, you know, There, there are real like, you know, so I'll give you an example, like this close to home for us, we, we have a couple friend, right?
So they the, the husband's mom passed away from Huntington's. Right. And so like they've started a foundation and they are helping to fund the genetic research for parents to see if they're likely to pass it on. And if so, then they're helping fund the IVF because they can you know, their, their thought is we can try to, you know, we can remove this disease.
If we can think about how, how who's, who has the ability to pass it on and if so, how we can get around that. Right. And so we, we, there's a lot because of the technology, the innovation in technology, we're now [00:26:00] seeing ways that we can identify diseases and, and, and take them out of the population. And I think that's very attractive to people.
So, you know, cause we've all got a family member or a loved one at some point that has had a terrible disease. Right. And so I, I th I think that just hits and again, so that, that becomes an emotional issue. Right. We don't want our loved ones to have to go through these things. And so I think that really drives home you know, in a positive way for, for the public.
Kevin Folta: Yeah. It's, it's really interesting how we think of that because I'm like, you I've let think of that. And I go, this is a really great move because if we do this, we can remove those genetics from the population. But if you listen to the last part of that sentence, we can remove these genetics from the population.
You start starting to sound like a little eugenics there, and we're trying to make decisions about. Genetic variations in the human gene pool. We want to [00:27:00] keep in the human gene pool and I can see how that gets people a little bit nervous. But at the same time, when you're talking about Huntington's disease or cystic fibrosis or, you know, whatever you, you start to get to the point where you can pick out, you can identify these rare genetic variants.
And then I did a podcast on this a few months ago. Gosh, her name escapes me, but she was brilliant. She was a modern genetic counselor who uses genomics of parents to make predictions about the children and can counsel them on potential problems. They may have. Going forward or, or, or other this may inform other decisions parents to be may make.
And so this is this is where we are with this new frontier and some folks really get nervous about it. But in this focus group, I couldn't believe how many people were excited about the, at least the positive side of.
Brandon McFadden: No, you know, I think that's a great point, you know, a concern about how the technology is [00:28:00] used and you know, this is something I grappled with a lot as a social scientist, you know, like even in the behavioral stuff, I do that's even about food choice, right?
Like the behavioral stuff, the way I look at it, the behavioral economics, it's almost a way of like using marketing concepts. T two. And instead of using marketing concepts to like, you know, increase the profit for affirm or market share for affirm it's to increase the welfare of society. So I'll give you, I'll give you an example.
So like a study that looks at and public schools, if, if they, you know, if the consumption of chocolate milk is too high and therefore, you know consumption of of added sugars is too high that, you know, like a behavioral. Finds that, oh, if you just put, you know, the regular standard milk, that's not chocolate in the front, people are more likely to grab it.
Students are more likely to grab it. Then if you put the chocolate milk in the front, right. It's just more convenient. Right. And again, this is something that [00:29:00] marketers have known forever. Right? You go to the cash register, there are lots of convenient purchases for you there. Right. And so, so we kind of know these human behavior, you know, they're likely to occur.
And so it's using it to say, well, something's got to go in the front of that milk case. Right. Something's got to be there. So you might as well put the healthier option in front. Right? So that's an example of like, well, something's got to go there anyway. So we might as well use some research, behavioral research to nudge people in the direction that makes you know choices best, but.
But so that, you know, all that in general makes me a little nervous, right? Not even just this eugenics piece that, you know, we kind of have, you know, we have this responsibility, but, but you know, that's the issue with any technology. Right. What I often say when this type of stuff comes up is like, you're, it's kind of, it's really a subjective question, right?
It's it's it's is it good or bad? So is the internet good or bad? Right. Well, it can be used for great things. It can be used for terrible things. [00:30:00] And so, and that's where I get the concerns about eugenics, but, and this is where this technology is a little different than others is. I don't think there's as much under, I think there's a lot more weight put on the bad things that could happen rather than the good things.
Kevin Folta: No, I agree. A thousand percent and the worst part is the good things are amazing. And when you're looking at right now, people walking the face of this earth who have been cured from sickle cell disease, this is a such a powerful technology that can do good. That it is a moral imperative to use it. I would say it would be unethical to not use it because you have the ability to do something good.
It, even though there's some level of risk, of course, there's always some level of risk. You can't have no risk. The good outweighs the bad so much that you have to do it. And so it's, it makes this a really interesting question going forward for ethicists, [00:31:00] but more importantly, I think it means that we need to be better at not just training students to be good scientists, but to be good.
And to be excited about making good decisions that will help humanity. Maybe what, what it means is that we're turning into a you know, I hate to say it, given that we're trying to develop a community of people who care about each other and want to use good technology to get there. I don't know if that makes any sense.
Brandon McFadden: Yeah, I think it does. And, and, and I agree with it, but, you know, and I think that's, I think a lot of people do public research and things like this because they are interested in the social good. Right. Because. You know, I don't know if a lot of people know this, but if you're an academia often you could get there's more lucrative opportunities out there often.
But I feel like a lot of people go into academia and public research because they want to do good. Right. And, and, and, you know, this brings about really another talking point that maybe we should explain too, is that at least in food, [00:32:00] Thus far with things like GMOs, the regular regulatory burdens have.
So like earlier I talked about the public concern about control of the food supply, things like that. So what that also somewhat means, right? Is that the public. Prefer that institutions, public research institutions own this type of technology. And the case is a lot of it's often started or, you know, the concepts are in the public domain, but they have to move to a private company at some point to get through the regulatory burden regulatory burdens, because they are so costly.
And so, you know, that's a whole nother issue, but, but all that to say is, I agree with you that I agree with you that we need to probably start doing some AB you know, what historically has maybe been thought of as like leadership type training and do more, you know, maybe think about like some integrity Type training, but, but I also take your point about not wanting it to feel too [00:33:00] much like a religion, you know?
Cause I that's, so that's all often a tongue in cheek statement that I make that sometimes I do even in academia. Right. I, I feel like sometimes I was, I was raised in a church as a kid and. I kind of left that because of actually some of the behavioral issues that I saw like in group think and self-serving bias is the things I think by and large, it actually got me very interested into studying social interactions and.
And sometimes I do worry, like do, did I trade one religion for another and the new one being academia. Right. And we don't want it to be like that. And, you know, and I mean this, like, even things like you know, if you know, researchers who are really into environmental research, right? Like. Or whatever it is.
At some point you can start feeling like there seems to be some motivated reasoning going on here, right? Like it's not just a search for truth. It doesn't feel like sometimes, like, it seems to be a little motivated in the reasoning. And so, I mean, that's something, that's something I also worry. [00:34:00]
Kevin Folta: Yeah, I guess the good ones though, do check themselves against that.
I think that that's the, that's the beauty of that and yeah, I get where
Brandon McFadden: you're going though. No, and that's what I'm saying is like how, how, how do you get academics better at interacting, engaging with the public about the site? But this is, this is the difficult thing too, is because often academics aren't necessarily the best communicators, but talking about it in a way that is meeting people where they're at.
And instead of more of saying, right, this is, you know this has come down on high from on high. And so therefore you must believe.
Kevin Folta: Well that, but that's the way we've done it for all these years. Right. And that's the way, I mean, I had one colleague who I saw stand in front of a room full of people. Talk about this very subject.
And when asked, well, how do you communicate this to the public? Has quotation was if they're too stupid to understand it, then that's their problem.
Brandon McFadden: And that, and that, and that's the issue is at [00:35:00] some level, it starts to feel like it's just a way for someone to look down their nose at someone else. Right.
I've got the Mo you know, I've got, I've got the intellectual superiority. And, and, and you're in your right. And that's what we're as, particularly with this project that we were talking about earlier, that we're, we're trying not to do it. And it's more about meeting people where they are, you know, it doesn't matter who I talk to and how crazy their beliefs are.
No crazy subjectively to me. In general, everybody's got the same goals. Everybody wants to be a positive contribution to society. They are concerned about their family. They are concerned about their loved ones. They, you know, concerned about their pets, right? Is their health, their health, well, you know, their community.
Yeah. The goals are in general. All of our goals are the same. There are a lot of things that go on that put people in different places in life. And so, yeah, we've got to start communicating science in a way that's meeting people where they are rather [00:36:00] than commuting catering to them. As though they're already at where we want them to be.
Kevin Folta: Sounds exactly like like a good plan. And when we do want to communicate with people, what is the best way to be doing that? I mean, is, is there any real prescription that we've learned that we could tell people in our field or scientists, science, maybe listening, here's some tip that maybe would be a good way for you to connect.
Brandon McFadden: Yeah. Well, so one thing I really was just describing is that generally we have very similar values in life. Even if someone disagrees with you about a topic, they might even. So for instance, take something like food in general, people want food to be available for others. They want prices to be low, right?
So. So, you know, thinking about like they have that goal. Right. But then there might also be this other thing about what we should avoid GMOs. Right. So I think one trying to connect on those big values and say, you know, well, let's think about how our values are [00:37:00] similar. And we both want people to be able to afford food and have food available.
And this is, you know, something that's been talked about for a while, right. Connecting on values and trying to understand. The person you're communicating to, again, meeting them where they're at understanding what's important to them and where their values. Right. Right. And, and trying to connect how, whatever the technology is, might be beneficial to those values.
You know, some other things that have been talked about and we've tested some of this are things like a narrative. So for instance, like with gene editing, And particularly specifically to citrus greening, which Kevin, do you want to give a little background on sexual screening? I
Kevin Folta: can give a little bit.
Yeah. So citrus is infected since 2005. I bacteria that's spread by an insect and it causes a one way decline in that. In general, I mean, there's some unusual cases where they've reversed it, but, or whatever, but in general, this is a [00:38:00] one-way trip and it's caused a 50% decline in the citrus production in Florida.
And it's now been detected in Texas, Arizona, Florida, and California. And so what it really means is less and less orange juice or fewer oranges and higher prices. So that's citrus greening in another.
Brandon McFadden: That's right. And so the big concern, you know, at the beginning to the, the spread was incredible.
Like at one point it was 90% of something that they acreage in Florida. I mean, it's, it was crazy. And so there were real concerns that, Hey, we're not going to have any essentially citrus production in the U S possibly. I figured this out. So not even like to what Kevin said, higher prices, things like that, but also like imagine that we no longer have domestic production of something.
Right. And so in this study, we just showed us a clip from CBS that a new story about this, right. There was really, we, we describe as a narrative. So narrative being kind of telling a story, right. And. And it [00:39:00] told the story and it showed farmers and what they were going through and how devastating it was.
And it made this you know, it made this very salient that, Hey, this is a bad thing, this disease, and, and it might literally wipe out the citrus production in the U S now communication, like that's very effective, right. In the sense that people, you know, stories. Matter stories your age or connect with people, but not only that, but it's not just describing, Hey, it's got this technology that can stop this disease.
It's giving people some context right. Of why it's needed and that, and that's the thing that's going to be missing from, you know, food labeling of food, kind of, you know, perceptions of it currently is, you know, just kind of been told it's bad. There's been no context on like, why it's needed. Right. And so describing the problem and why the solution is needed is a good way to communicate as well.
But in general, I would say, you know, kind of the big things that have been put forth recently, or, you know, over [00:40:00] the past five years have been things like connecting on values, using narratives. And, and to me, when I hear both of those things, I hear, I hear meeting people where they're at and I hear giving people content.
Right.
Kevin Folta: That's it. I mean, we talk about this a lot in my training sessions that we talk a lot about, you know, the common values and common ideas, but really what it boils down to is find the unifying information, the places where you agree and how this technology can help solve big problems we all care about.
And that's been, if you go back through the talking biotech podcasts, I start every podcast with, tell me about the. And this one we didn't, because we'd a little bit different, but in most of them, it's, you know, let's describe a problem to solve and then let's come up with technology to solve it. And when you introduce it that way, you're not doing something because it makes a company more money or because it, you know, as the primary goal or increases something for farmers, you're solving something that [00:41:00] people can.
And so as we communicate this to other people around gene editing, it's important for us to do that. You know, here's the problem that we need to solve and here's how gene editing can help us do it. And I really think that that those are the kind of the you know, magical shownotes here that will help us all be better communicators based on this kind of research
Brandon McFadden: that what you said earlier, like that companies were bad at communicating to the end consumer, you know what you were just saying?
It made me think about. And, and, you know, providing people more context is that's part of the issue is that, is that they weren't the, they weren't really the consumer for the companies that were selling the technology firms that produce GMO seed were very good at communicating to the growers and the growers understood the benefit.
And that's why we see, you know, high, high proportions of, of acres of, for things like corn, soy and cotton planet to GMO varieties is because. You know, producers have challenges in this technology solves those challenges. [00:42:00] Where the communication broke down to was, you know, to the food consumer. Right? So that, that, that information was very salient to the producers.
And that's what, you know, we've seen wide wide adoption. And, and the issue is like you mentioned earlier, We might use iPhone to not know how it works, but we don't necessarily care. And that's the issue with food that is difficult for somebody to wrap their mind around is because you eat food, you know, three times a day, you know, every day.
And so this is a. A decision that's made very often, yet only about 2% of the population that are involved with agricultural production. So there's a big disconnect, right? Between like kind of the, the challenges of the food, you know, food producers or ag producers are facing farmers and, and what the food consumer is facing.
Right. And. And there and there's that the communication needs to close that gap.
Kevin Folta: That's a really good [00:43:00] point to go out on it's it's about closing that gap and about trying to help consumers understand where it is based upon values-based discussions that all of us should be engaging as scientists. So you know, Brandon, thank you very much for joining me today.
And if people want to follow you on social media, where can they find you? On
Brandon McFadden: Twitter at McFadden ag. Econ.
Kevin Folta: Yeah. So that's M C F a D D E N. Aggie con.
Brandon McFadden: That's
Kevin Folta: it. Well, Brandon. Well, thank you very much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. And as time goes on, let's do this again, because it's really important for the listenership here to understand what we're learning about consumers and what they really care
Brandon McFadden: about.
Absolutely. It was a lot of fun, Kevin.
Kevin Folta: And for everybody listening. Thank you again for listening to the talking biotech podcast. If you haven't noticed, if you go to iTunes and you look at the top podcasts in the life sciences, we're up there, that means the talking biotech podcasts, but you as the listener are making that happen.
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