" Shane Smith:" "This week on "Vice,"" "genetically modified organisms change the future of food." "We're in a waiting game for our major crops to fail permanently." "We're facing a situation of chemical warfare." "It's only the beginning." "You're saying that you guys made a mistake back then in the '90s?" "As a scientist, absolutely not." "Smith:" "And then, the clean water crisis in India." "(shouting)" "Man:" "It's a crisis for all of us." "Water has been taken for granted." "(thunder crashes)" "(shouts)" "(cheering)" "Inside this door, we've got over 13,000 years of agricultural history." "The water that's released here is untreated." "This is literally sitting contaminated water." "Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, were introduced to the agricultural market in the 1990s." "Since then, GMO crops have been planted on almost half a billion acres of land globally." "GMOs are created by the transfer of genetic material from one species to another, and their introduction to the food supply has created tremendous controversy." "Issues ranging from the ethics of patenting lab-created life forms to concerns over whether they're actually safe to consume have sparked protests around the world." "In fact, some European countries have banned growing" "GMO crops altogether." "So we sent Isobel Yeung to investigate this highly-charged debate over the future of our food." "(wind blowing)" "(snowmobile approaching)" "We're here in the Arctic Circle at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which contains hundreds of thousands of different varieties of seeds from all over the world." "This place has been known as the Noah's Ark of seeds because, in the case of a global catastrophe, this is our last resort for replanting the earth." "400 feet under the earth and built to survive a nuclear attack," "Svalbard collects seeds from all over the planet." "It's here to preserve the bedrock of agriculture... genetic diversity." "The seed bank's director and founder," "Cary Fowler, brought us inside." "So we're just going into the main seed vault in Svalbard." "Um, inside this door, we've got over 13,000 years of agricultural history." "Wow." "This is a lot of seeds." "It's a lot of seeds." "Yeung:" "What was the idea behind building this vault?" "Fowler:" "The idea was really to put an end to extinction for agricultural diversity." "What we really try to do here is preserve options for the future." "Yeung:" "So that's why these seeds are so important?" "To breed the next generation of seeds?" "Fowler:" "That's right." "This is the biological foundation of agriculture." "Yeung:" "What's the worst-case scenario if we start to lose these traits?" "Then we're in a waiting game for our major crops to fail and fail permanently." "So without diversity, we face potential starvation?" "Oh, absolutely, on a massive and, more or less, permanent scale." "Yeung:" "The fear that our agricultural system could collapse may seem like some distant, unthinkable future, but what if we're already on the brink?" "For thousands of years, farms maintained genetic diversity by saving their own seeds." "But today many farmers buy the same seeds from GMO manufacturers." "Dr. Major Goodman, a traditional corn breeder, thinks the widespread monocultures of the same GMO crops, also known as transgenics, could be a disaster waiting to happen." "One of my main concerns with transgenics is that the same gene is being used almost worldwide." "Why is that such a big problem?" "Goodman:" "If something should happen, if one of those families should develop susceptibility to a new disease, we'd be in real trouble." "Yeung:" "So one disease could potentially wipe out all the corn?" "That's correct." "It's just universal." "You don't plant the whole world to one thing." "Yeung:" "But that's exactly what we're doing." "Today, more than 90% of all corn and soybeans grown in America are genetically modified, and just a few large companies control most of the world's seeds, and the biggest of all is Monsanto." "Over the last 20 years," "Monsanto has transformed from a chemical company, known for making Agent Orange, into the world's largest agricultural seed company." "The man most responsible for these advancements is chief technology officer" "Dr. Robert Fraley." "He sat down with us to explain the importance of GMOs." "We have about 7.2 billion people today." "That's going to go to nine and a half by 2050." "That means that we have 35 years to basically double the food supply." "We will need to produce more food than has been produced in the entire history of the world." "That's probably the greatest challenge facing mankind." "And I'll tell ya, I think we can do it." "Yeung:" "Monsanto gave us a tour of their labs to show us how they plan to feed the world." "Gary Barton:" "So this laboratory here, we're looking at over 12 million pieces of DNA to try to find plants that have the best combination of DNA." "Yeung:" "But what made Monsanto famous was when they genetically modified their seeds." "Their scientists use bacteria to deliver genetic abilities never before seen in any crops." "One trait allows the crop to produce a protein so that when a bug eats that plant it dies, but their most profitable breakthrough was to modify their crops to be tolerant to pesticides, but not just any pesticide..." "Their pesticide." "Announcer:" "Roundup kills weeds where others can't." "Roundup." "Yeung:" "Monsanto crops are now genetically engineered to be resistant to Roundup, or glyphosate." "This means that you can spray Monsanto's pesticide directly onto Monsanto's crops." "And while the weeds around it are poisoned, the plant itself survives." "Since Roundup-tolerant crops were introduced in 1996," "Roundup has grown to be the most widely used weed-killer ever." "A lot of people do say that this is just an ingenious way for Monsanto to sell more Roundup." "I think it's a good thing." "Roundup is one of the safest and most effective herbicides that have ever been developed." "And today there's now biotech crops grown in about 30 countries around the world." "Yeung:" "One country embracing this GMO model wholesale is Paraguay, where the percentage of farmland growing GM soybeans is larger than any other country in the world." "The scale of soy farms here stretches literally as far as you can see." "It's just soy in every single direction." "Yeung:" "GMO soy is booming here, and business at the Monsanto distributer has never been better." "We're just taking a tour around Dekalpar." "They mostly buy from Monsanto, and they distribute to farmers all over Paraguay." "Yeung:" "Wow." "Does everyone in Paraguay grow Monsanto soy?" "(speaks foreign language)" "Yeung:" "Now because the seed genes belong to Monsanto, a farmer is not allowed to replant any of the seeds from last years' crops." "Instead, they have to buy new seeds every season." "Yeung:" "So farmers are buying a lot of Monsanto seeds, and also a lot of Roundup." "Whoa, that's loads of Roundup." "This is all Roundup, Roundup, Roundup." "How much Roundup do you sell every year?" "(speaks foreign language, laughs)" "Yeung:" "We wanted to know whether insect-resistant and Roundup-tolerant crops were working as advertised, so we went to meet up with some soy farmers." "What kind of soy do you grow here?" "Yeung:" "Have you had any challenges using GM soy?" "(speaking foreign language)" "So none of these weeds were here when you weren't using GM?" "Yeung:" "We found these Roundup-resistant super weeds cropping up on all the soy farms we visited." "How many of these do you normally have?" "(speaking foreign language)" "Yeung:" "And it isn't just the weeds that are getting stronger." "In some cases, the bugs are too." "Ooh!" "What are these?" "(speaking foreign language)" "So when did you start getting a problem with these things?" "Yeung:" "To combat these super weeds and pests, farmers are forced to use larger quantities of other, more potent chemicals." "So locals call this thing the mosquito, because it's got a huge wingspan that just sprays huge amounts of glyphosate all over these soy farms." "Even though this GMO system is becoming less effective, it's being implemented over so much land, making it difficult and costly to change course." "Do you feel trapped at all by these GM companies?" "(speaking foreign language)" "Back in the '90s when you guys were applying to the USDA to get Roundup Ready seeds into the U.S. market, you did say in your application that there would not be an issue with glyphosate-resistant weeds." "What happened?" "The important thing to understand is Roundup is still controlling hundreds of weeds." "Now how do we make that Roundup Ready system work better?" "How do we use, you know, combinations of other products?" "So you're saying that you guys made a mistake back then in the '90s?" "As a scientist, absolutely not." "But I'm just wondering why you said in the '90s that you weren't expecting any resistance to..." "I don't know the document you're referring to." "I can simply..." "I can send it to you." "I appreciate..." "It's your application to the USDA." "My... my view of this, as a scientist, is resistance is always going to happen." "Yeung:" "Monsanto's solution to the problem is a new GMO product." "This product contains genes resistant to both glyphosate and a more toxic pesticide that they also make called Dicamba." "We're facing a situation of chemical warfare." "So it's only the beginning." "Yeung:" "Miguel Lovera is the former head of Paraguay's GMO regulation agency." "Lovera thinks the GMO soy model is a good deal for Monsanto, but a bad deal for all small farmers." "The traditional farmers have very, very little possibilities of using any of these soybeans." "This model is actually producing large-scale inequality." "What are you doing to support small farmers?" "The benefit to the small farmer, in every case I've ever seen, has been disproportionately greater than to the large farmer, because they don't have as many alternatives to begin with." "So you're saying that your products are helping small farmers as much as they're helping big agriculture?" "Actually, more." "And if you give a small farmer a better seed, they'll grow a better crop." "Yeung:" "But the seed's high cost makes it impossible for the small farmers to turn a profit on the amount of land they own." "In fact, taking Paraguay as a case study, 80% of the farmable land is now owned by less than 2% of the farmers." "And additionally, those who grow non-GMO crops are now boxed in by more and more spraying." "This lady says a lot of these crops are damaged when they fumigate the fields right next to her, and the corn doesn't develop as it used to." "(speaking foreign language)" "(speaking foreign language)" "Yeung:" "With fewer small farmers growing crops that people eat directly," "Paraguay has had to increase its food imports by nearly 300% in just 10 years." "It used to be the case that most of this food that we're seeing sold here would come from small subsistence farmers." "Now, most of this food is imported." "It comes from various parts of South America." "Now hunger in Paraguay has doubled in the past decade." "Monsanto's claim was that they want to feed the world, so we spoke to Dr. M. Jahi Chappell, director for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and an expert on food security." "Monsanto claimed that they're helping to improve food security." "Is that the case?" "No, not in any meaningful way." "The problem with the global food supply is not a lack of food, and it's certainly not a lack of soybeans or a lack of corn, which are the two main genetically modified crops in the world." "Why are companies like Monsanto targeting those monoculture crops?" "Oh, it's immensely profitable for the industrial food system to sell more really low quality, low-health food to the world as opposed to growing the diverse crops we need to really all be healthy." "How do these big multinational agricultural companies get into these developing countries in the first place?" "Chappell:" "The fact that Monsanto's net worth is several times the total GDP of a lot of countries makes it really easy for them to come in and propose, "This is the scientific solution to your problems."" ""If we increase our soybean exports in Paraguay," ""then everyone will be better off." But it's not actually reality." "Yeung:" "And it isn't just developing countries that Monsanto is pushing around." "They've amassed an incredible amount of influence in the US." "We met with Senator Jon Teste, a farmer from Montana." "Tester removed language that had been inserted into a U.S. spending bill that would have protected Monsanto seeds from legal action." "Not only does this ignore the Constitution idea of separation of powers, but it also lets genetically modified crops take hold across this country, even when a judge finds it violates the law." "There was evidently somebody that put that language in." "Now, nobody took credit for it." "I'm assuming that they put it in at Monsanto's behest." "Do you think it's the case that the U.S. government has been helping the biotech industry?" "I think there are people within the Senate and within the House that absolutely do that." "This is a different way of doing business for agriculture, and I always get really nervous when farmers have always had control of their seed from the beginning of time, and the seed will have to be bought every year" "by the farmers from an agribusiness company." "So I think, as we move forward, we need to do it cautiously, and we need to know what we're getting into." "Yeung:" "Shortly after this interview was shot, the World Health Organization declared glyphosate, the key chemical sprayed on these crops, a probable carcinogen to humans." "Dr. John McLaughlin was on the team that reached this conclusion." "Why are you coming out and saying glyphosate could cause cancer?" "One of the main reasons for a difference is just that there's more evidence that accumulates over time." "And I think it's an important message to get out." "Why don't we do these studies and begin to better understand whether there are such health effects?" "Yeung:" "So Monsanto's response is that you guys have been cherry-picking your data, that this is inconsistent with decades of previous studies, and that it's an agenda-driven process." "What do you make of that?" "It's a rock-solid process." "Classifying anything as a carcinogen is a warning flag for all of us." "Yeung:" "As genetically modified crops continue to spread across the world, they have become staple ingredients in a lot of our processed foods and in the feed for our livestock and poultry." "While the European Union and many other developed nations have laws requiring foods with GMO ingredients to be labeled, the U.S. has no such law." "If companies like Monsanto are so very proud of this, they ought to label it for the consumer, just like they do in Russia and China." "This is our food supply." "This is about what we're feeding our kids." "And I think that gives the consumers the ability to make a decision on what they want to buy on a supermarket shelf." "And that's the way it should be." "India is the largest democracy on earth." "It has an advanced and growing economy, a highly-educated population, and cutting-edge technological capabilities, such as space and nuclear weapons programs." "But like many countries around the world," "India's still struggling to provide for its poor, particularly when it comes to sanitation and clean water." "In fact, a recent UN report predicts that, globally, without dramatic change in the way we manage our water, in only 15 years 40% of the world will not have adequate access to usable water." "So we sent Tania Rashid to India to find out just how bad the problem is there." "(horns honking)" "Rashid:" "We're in Meerut, a small town in northern India." "There's all these open gutters everywhere and you can smell the shit, brown water, and it's in the corner of every alleyway." "It's in open-air sewers like this where India's water crisis begins." "(man speaks)" "Rashid:" "There's no sewage here?" "Man:" "No." "Can I see your bathroom?" "This is the toilet." "So, basically, someone poops in here and then it goes straight outside." "The poop flows in out of the toilet into these open gutters." "(woman speaks foreign language)" "Rashid:" "They're pouring water out from within the building, and she literally just scoops it out." "To deal with these gutters running through their streets, locals hire manual scavengers." "(Geeta speaks foreign language)" "Rashid:" "This is literally sitting contaminated water, and people are breathing and smelling this every day." "(speaks foreign language)" "Rashid:" "From here, the water drains, untreated, directly into local waterways." "One of the most polluted is the Yamuna River, a vital waterway that runs directly through New Delhi." "So that is where the sewage comes out." "All the human waste is dumped into this river." "The Yamuna River is considered one of the holiest rivers in India." "People come to pray here, people come here to cremate dead bodies." "They offer blessings." "The stark irony of it all is there's so much waste." "The water that's released here is untreated, so it's literally contaminated water." "People are consuming it." "People are bathing in it." "To find out how widespread this problem is in India, we spoke with Sunita Narain, director of the Centre for Science and Environment, an NGO focused on sustainable development." "About 80% of the sewage that is generated in our cities, 80%, is untreated, and it is disposed of in our water bodies, whether it is our rivers, our lakes, or even ground water." "Without a reinvention of the way we do sewage management, our rivers cannot be cleaned." "As an Indian, this is an issue that really does pain all of us." "It's unacceptable as human beings." "You do not have health security and water security, so the connection between water and sanitation is critical." "Rashid:" "And as we're to find out, it's not just the lack of infrastructure for toilets that is having a profound impact on health." "In many parts of India, open defecation is widespread." "(gagging) There's human waste everywhere." "You smell it, you can feel it." "It goes up your nose, and it just turns in your stomach." "Because less than half of the households in India have access to toilets, open defecation has become a hot button national issue." "(shouts in foreign language)" "(crowd shouts)" "Dr. Shashi Tharoor is a former minister of state and member of India's parliament, who's long been a crusader for better sanitation in his country." "We were able to grab a moment with him during his busy day here in New Delhi." "Being a country with more temples than toilets is certainly a bit odd." "In some people's mindsets, they simply haven't grown up being used to using a toilet." "We've seen a study in the northern city of Uttar Pradesh." "A large number of toilets are built, and 67% of the toilets have never been used." "And people are continuing to live near those toilets and go out into the fields." "It's habit to some degree." "For generations, I guess, they found it comfortable and pleasant to be communing with nature." "So you have open defecation that puts toxins into the ground water, which in turn affects the water kids drink, and the food that grows that they eat." "Rashid:" "When you combine the effects of untreated sewage with open defecation, the impact on India's clean water supply is profound." "Today, 92 million people in India do not have access to clean drinking water." "India's bad water and poor sanitation is a major reason why more than a million children under five die there every year." "To find out more about the biggest treat this water has on children's health, we went to speak with the head of pediatrics at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences," "Dr. Vinod Paul, an expert on newborn health in South Asia." "(man speaks foreign language)" "Rashid:" "As dangerous as this situation is, pollution and sanitation are not even the biggest factors leading to the shortage of clean water here in India." "We spoke to Dr. B.D. Tripathi, a professor of environmental sciences at Banaras Hindu University who has spent years studying the decline in India's holiest river, the Ganges, or Ganga in Hindi." "Rashid:" "Over the last 40 years, India's population has doubled in size from 600 million to 1.2 billion." "In that same time span, more than 30 million water wells and pumps have been constructed, which are draining India's water table." "(Tripathi speaking)" "Rashid:" "Clean water has become so scarce that millions of people now depend on water trucks for their basic needs." "Here, you can see firsthand what a water shortage really looks like." "(speaking foreign language)" "(Rashid speaking foreign language)" "(speaking foreign language)" "(people shouting in foreign language)" "Rashid:" "Unfortunately, during the chaos of filling their jugs, this water becomes contaminated as well." "So what you're telling me is that this is contaminated?" "(Kaur speaks)" "'Cause it touches the dirt." "Yes." "As they siphon off the water, the dirty tubes inadvertently pollute the entire tanker, because the ground here is covered in human feces," "(Kaur speaks)" "(woman speaking foreign language)" "(Rashid speaking foreign language)" "(speaking foreign language)" "Jan Eliasson:" "In India, the challenge may be sanitation and open defecation." "In rich countries, it will be taking care of our resources, which is the difference between life and death." "Rashid:" "Jan Eliasson is the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations and former chairman of Water Aid Sweden." "We spoke with him about the serious problems with water management emerging around the world." "The problems of India may seem far away to many, but it's a crisis for all of us." "We have to realize that we are in the same boat." "Water has been taken for granted." "We live in a world where, in the next 10 years, almost two billion people will be living in regions with absolute water scarcity." "Two-thirds of the world population will live under water stress conditions." "This is a global reality that we have." "Rashid:" "Severe problems with water affects almost every region on earth." "In Australia, South Africa, and Brazil, it's severe droughts." "In Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, it's inefficient diversion of water to agriculture." "In Peru, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and China, they battle widespread pollution." "Here in the U.S., we're depleting some of our most vital water sources, like the Ogallala Aquifer, which supplies water for eight states in the heart of America's breadbasket." "Or in California." "After four years of drought, and heavy aquifer depletion, the state imposed its first ever mandatory water restrictions." "And last year, more than 400,000 acres of farmland went unplanted." "We have a very dramatically dangerous situation right now, a new dimension which is creeping into the water equation, and that is the fact that if you have finite resources, and there's competition about these resources," "there is also a risk that water scarcity could be a threat to peace and security." "(people shouting)" "History's full of stories where you fight about resources, but fighting about water is fighting about our survival." "If we don't deal with this problem with responsibility, at this stage, this problem will grow into a disastrous situation later on." "I think it's time for us to wake up." "(birds screeching)"