b'SINCE YOU ASKEDBY: NIELS LOUWAARSNATURALNESS - WHO ISFOOLING WHOM?T he word natural has a positive sound also plant breeding is nothing more thanor planet. Culture may also claim that in consumers ears, especially whenapplying what we observe in nature. Eventomato is an essential part of Italian cuisine, it refers to food. But is it? Do claimstransformation and CRISPR-Cas, bothbypassing the fact that tomato originated in about naturalness have any ground? Thetechniques based on studying bacteria, arecentral America, pretty far from Italy. And, term is used haphazardly in marketing andmerely the application of such knowledge.finally there may be psychological condi-comes up in several policy debates, cur- So, all our food is natural. tions such as neophobia, or technophobia, rently of course in the area of New GenomicSo, whats the problem? The problem isthat are the underlying argument for many Techniques. The word techniques alreadythat neither of these outcomes seem to satisfywho misuse the precautionary principle in appears to indicate non-naturalness, but isus, mainly because with neither statementthe debate, that can be the basis of strong it, or is it just a human construct? you can claim a particular value, somethingrejections of certain food. In the breeding All our food is natural, or none is.that marketeers would like to do, or thattechnology debate, the border that some Apart from hunter-gatherers, who collectedyou can build a particular world view on. Inpeople want to draw is: the integrity of food from nature, all our food has gainedorder to do so, you have to create a distinc- the cell, that IFOAM leads its followers to increasing distance from such berries andtion somewhere along the line from no-techreject any breeding technique that operates roots collected from nature. Already cook- to hi-tech. Any such distinction is a humanin the cell, such as mutation breeding, trans-ing such natural products, or fermentingconstruct. Using chemically produced nitro- genesis and genome editing. Then there is (sorry beer, cheese and sauerkraut lovers)gen to supplement soil fertility; heating milkalso the end of the germline argument challenge the purely natural nature of theto 72 degrees Celsius to avoid food risks;against hybrids, that the biodynamic sector product since we change them chemicallyirradiating plant tissues or using CRISPRlikes to avoid. Such arguments are close to with such human interventions. And fewand Cas to edit DNAwhich of these inter- the naturalness concept for consumers. consumers, at least those in the cities, haveferences cause unnaturalness? Where do weThe NGT discussion is mainly about no idea that agriculture itself (ploughing,draw the line? Despite the greyness of suchthe perception of naturalness (next to con-weeding and crop protection) to keepborders, people appear to have very strongcerns about power in the food chain), but I 100,000 plants of the same species happyideas about where they draw the line, refusewonder how many discussants realize that. and healthy on a single hectare is a fightto use some of these techniques and/or dis- So, lets delete the word natural from the against nature rather than letting natureallow others to use them.discussions around agriculture and food go its way. There is a wide range of food rules inand in marketing, instead talk about what And of course, in our own area:many religions, many of which have soundreally matters: impact on environment and domestication of crops and animals, andfood safety background, at least at the timehealth and things like food security.subsequent breeding are all human inter- that they were proclaimed. Less strict cul-ventions that have made our current cropstural drivers include the origin-rules ofNiels Louwaars is the Managing Director at unrecognizable when compared to the wildproducts to be real (Cognac) or that slowPlantum. This article does not necessarily reflect ancestors. Crossing distant relatives, mutat- food and local-for-local is healthy for bodythe views of all Plantum members.ing, rescuing embryos, transformation and genome editing are techniques that we are mastering now. So, our crops are a long distance away from the wild ancestors, agriculture itself is unnatural, and industrial food process-ing transforms harvested materials, such as oat milk, cell-cultured or vegan meat, or Mars-bars, into high-tech products. So, the verdict is that none of our food is natural.However, you could also say that natural should also refer to products and processes where we, humans, have learnt from nature and apply such knowledge to produce food. Now were talking: agronomy is nothing more that transforming such knowledge of natural processes to produce crops; food processing, including fermenta-tion (phew, beer lovers) andlo and behold 58ISEED WORLD EUROPEIEUROPEAN-SEED.COM'