Mike Mack - CEO, Syngenta HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk. One of the great local challenges of the next

half century will be feeding a human population which is set to rise

beyond 9 billion. Farmers worldwide are facing an enormous productivity

challenge. My guest today is Mick Mack, boss of Syngenta, one of the

world's biggest agribusinesses. He sees the future of farming driven by

bioscience and genetic minipill Asian. How come he faces so much

mistrust and suspicion? -- manipulation.

Mick Mack, welcome to HARDtalk. You work in one of the most important

ASIC businesses known to man, the production of food. What you produce

ends up in all of our stomachs. Therefore, you need to be trusted.

Do you think your business is trusted? Well, we are actually in

the research and develop and industry, and the business of making

pesticides, if I can start off by just talking about what it is that

we do. The business of making pesticides has been around for a

long time. The company itself has been here in existence for 13

years, but our history dates back to the 1750s. You were asking about

whether we are trusted. We have been trusted to do what we do for a long

time. That is the legacy of all of that. Sure, you are a science -based

company, but my point is that what you do is an integral part of and

therefore, literally, what you produce and products that come from

what you produce end up in all of our stomachs, and therefore, people

have to believe that you are responsible, you are safe, and that

that is always your first priority. It is true that we are a regulated

industry, so nothing we sell can be put on the market without the

permission of the governments and the countries that we operate in.

But if I can make a technical point, very little of what we do, when

referring to pesticides, ends up in people's stomachs. It ends up on the

soil to prevent weeds, it ends up on plans to prevent bugs. But the

business of ingesting pesticides is something which is not a normal

procedure. Obviously, we will debate that, exactly how the crop

protection products you make work, and the impact they have within the

food chain. Before we get to that, what you have not mentioned so far

is seeds. Seeds are a big part of your business, and you have clearly

made a strategic decision, going back many years now, to focus a lot

of your R, research and development effort, on

genetically-modified organisms, GMO foods. Why have you done that? Just

to be clear, our seeds business is about $3.5 billion, and about

$700-800 million of that is in genetically modified seeds, but we

have about $2 billion in conventional seeds. But as I

understand it, a lot of your R effort right now is aimed at

expanding your GM business. It is, we spend about $1.5 billion each

year on our R effort, and of that, a lot of that is on GM. Why

are we doing that? There are a number of crops today which are

already genetically modified, such as corn and soy beans. There is a

big opportunity going forward to further technify such crops as wheat

and rice, and that is a big growth opportunity for the firm. Coming

back to that basic trust issue, I am sure you are better aware than I am

that around the world, it is clear that publics do not trust the whole

notion of genetically modified, manipulated foods. They do not want

them. The latest polls in the UK showed two thirds of people have a

negative perception of GM foods. So, you are not trusted. Well, the

business of trust, most of the genetically modified traits are ones

which are valued by farmers, because it enables the farmers to grow their

plants more easily and efficiently, and in some cases at a lower cost.

Consumers do not directly benefit normally, beyond the indirect

benefit they get from lower food costs. Whether you are talking about

the United States, Brazil, Argentina or Europe, the business of asking

them, how are you with GM foods, is something they have never really had

to accept because it does not bring them direct benefit, but that does

not mean they are not benefiting indirectly. So you would argue that

the lack of trust, the apprehension, is born out of ignorance? I would

not call consumers ignorant. Let's not forget that here in Europe,

where it is widely held that the Europeans are not for GM, the fact

is, it has never been brought to them in part because farmers have

never really needed GM technology. In the European Union today, the

really big crop is wheat and the really big Pharma problem in wheat

is disease, fungus, on wheat. There is no genetically modified straight

for that. By contrast, in the United States, where corn and soy bean are

the really big crops, we have technology which directly helps

growers, so it is really different. So, regional differentiation is, and

also, your ambitions differ in different parts of the world. But on

the basic question, there are advocates of GM food, and I am

thinking of Mark Lynas, who used to be strongly against it, but now

campaigns in favour of it, he told me quite explicitly, the scientific

debate over the safety of GM is over, there is no longer a debate,

it is so absolutely clearly proven to be safe. Is that your position?

Well, I recall the debate that you had with Mark Lynas on that point. I

do not think anything that I could say to you today is going to put an

exclamation point on all of the people who would be against it, to

say, look, there has not been enough science done, it has not gone into

testing, and the question as to whether it is born out of... There

are still plenty of people who say there has not been enough science

done on it. What we do know is this, that of all of the available science

done by government agencies, there is no link between GM food and

anything having to do with human health. On that point about the

timescale, do you accept the proposition of the geneticist in

Canada, David Suzuki, who has done a lot of work on this, who says, we

have no idea of the long-term consequences of these genetic

manipulations, and basically, unwittingly, we are part of a mass

experiment. Do you understand and accept the logic of that? I

understand that, we always come back to the business of not being able to

prove a negative. The fact of the matter is, this technology was

introduced on a widespread basis in the 1990s, and here we are a

generation later, and there is still no credible evidence that says there

is a problem, or that we should be even exploring it further. One

reason there might be to doubt the credibility of the assurances of its

safety is that other elements of the GM proposition look a bit more shaky

than they did. This technology has been around for the best part of two

decades. Some of the claims that were made about the degree it was

going to boost yields, the degree it was going to remove the need for

pesticides and herbicides to be used in the future, those claims have

proven to be unfounded. I think the claims at that time were

exaggerated, I agree with you. Was your company involved in that

exaggeration? We were not, no. In the 1990s, we came out, the very

first trait we introduced was a Bt trait, for corn. At that time, the

European corn borer in the United States was not controlled at all. It

had only modest control on Bt. So, one thing which was well claimed

was... By the way, this European corn borer was referred to at the

time as the billion-dollar bug. Bt in corn went a long way to

controlling an insect which could not be controlled with pesticides.

So, it is true to say that there was not a big pesticide reduction. But

the control of the pest was substantial. But more to the point,

one of the attractions of the GM case was that it appeared to offer a

way of getting away from the use of all of the chemicals which your

business relies upon. But just look at one study, Washington State

University found that since 1996, with more and more use of GM, the

use of herbicides in the US has actually gone up 11%, at a time when

more and more of the corn and soy production is GM. So, the idea that

GM removes the need for the chemicals is just plain wrong? You

just switched to soy bean, by the way, by the use of herbicides. In

the middle of the 1990s, when the geometrically modified trait came

out, farmers were forced to spray a lot of selective herbicides on to

soy bean, and by going to glyphosate, they were able to change

that. As glyphosate has become more and more resistant, it is true that

we are having to put more and more herbicides on that. There is an

element of that, absolutely true, for sure. So, could it be that when

other countries around the world look at the leadership role of the

United States in adopting GM technology, frankly they are not

impressed by what has happened in the US, and is that why all of your

big ambitions to build your GM business around the world, and yet

we are seeing that some of the biggest potential markets that you

operate in our actually moving in the opposite direction? Lets face

it, GM is not one thing, it is many things. If you want to control a

certain insect, for that to happen, it has to exist in another place.

So, what is the portfolio, the arsenal of GM products that you

have, and where are the crops that are grown? Today, the big crops in

Asia-Pacific are such things as rice. The things which afflict Weiss

are different from the things which afflicts soy beans. So, let's go to

the specific country. I say, let's look at the mindset, what is

happening around the world. Let's look at Mexico, where I believe they

have just decided to stop growing GM maize. Peru, Bolivia, where they are

moving away from GM. India, a moratorium of ten years on GM

production. And China, which has just announced that it is going to

be putting much more focused on traditional science and plant

breeding, much less reliance on a future in GM. By the way, Mexico

never went to GM for the first time in much of their white corn

business. Peru has never had GM, neither has Colombia. But you have

spoken about Latin America as a huge part of your business. I am saying

that Brazil and Argentina, the two really big countries in Latin

America, have flocked to this. If you are talking big countries and

big markets, you must be worried that the Indians and the Chinese are

much less interested in GM today than it seemed they would be even

five years ago. First of all, I agree with you that in India, there

is a big movement going on, part of it and out of concerns about

multinational corporations, let's not kid ourselves. Here is a place

where you have got a lot of smallholder growers, who have huge

amount of pressure. Unless there is stewardship of this thing, the

business of controlling the multitude of insects in India is

going to be difficult. The same for China. Today, it is clear that China

understands GM technology. We have a research centre, a GM research

centre in Beijing, and we know factually from working with the

Chinese, at the Chinese Agricultural Academy, that they care great deal

about this, but they want to be sure about the science. I come back to

the idea of trust and perception. You talk about the benefits, and you

have focused on Africa, saying you believe GM can do so much to help

drug resistant crops and everything. I look at groups like the Alliance

for Food Safety in Africa African Biodiversity Network, all of these

groups who are dead set against seeing you expand your GM business

in their continent. I was just in Africa two weeks ago. What I tell

them there and what I will tell you here is that GM technology is just

another tool in the tool box. It is not a silver bullet. If the world

woke up tomorrow and said absolutely positively we are not go to do GM,

we are still going to have to do food, we are still going to have to

control pests and care a great deal about the size of the farm. I think

if I had an ideal world, it would be not to table the GM discussion, but

to say, there is a GM discussion, but let's also talk about the

billion hectares which is being used for farming. We want that to become

2 billion, or do we want to have more sustainable, intensive

agriculture in the 1 billion that we use today? I will get to that in a

moment, the question of intensification. Before that, one

last question about GM, which brings me perhaps to the nub of the issue

about your relationship with the public on this issue. In the United

States, where GM crops have been grown for a long time, you and other

industry members have fought tooth and nail to prevent food labelling

which tells American citizens that GM foodstuffs are in any particular

product. You have fought a multi million dollar campaign in

California against labelling, and in Washington state and elsewhere. Why

are you so frightened of the public being informed by label of the

presence of GM? I am not. So why did you spend millions on a campaign to

prevent it? First of all, Syngenta did not participate in that campaign

in Washington. In California, the industry-wide group spent $46

million. So, in effect, because you are a member of the industry... $46

billion, to stop the public knowing that GM food was in their products.

The food companies, which are indirectly our customers, and the

farmers, where really clear in their minds eye but having state-by-state

labelling regimes would be very, very counter-productive. I generally

don't think that these food companies are against labelling.

There's not a provision right now. Let me just quoted the words of the

man who changed from being an anti-GM and pain to being on your

side. He looked at the campaign, your industry in the USA, against

labelling, and he said this has to be the worst PR strategy ever, an

industry using every tool to stop people knowing where their own

products are being used. All I can tell you is the business about

having come in the United States, when you go down the avenue of

California desert this way, Oregon does this way, Nevada desert this

way, it would wreak havoc on the economics of the current system. I

don't think the members of my industry and the food companies are

completely opposed to labelling, as such, but if you do it one state at

a time, it would be economic suicide. You don't think the

anti-labelling campaign has been a mistake? I think the federal

government hoop resides over the label, what is the nutrition, the

ingredients, if the federal government wants to involve itself

in saying, I want to declare GM on this, I'm not against it. Unlike

most new industry, you are pro a nationwide, cross the USA, labelling

saying it's a GM product. I don't believe it's the end of GM and on

the label. Because GM is not a safety matter, it had no business on

the label. That is how it all started for them if they took a

different position in the 1990s, we would be in a different place. I

don't think the presence or absence of it will be lethal to the

technology. Let's lift our eyes to a wider horizon for that and your

belief in intensification leading to much more productive agriculture, to

feed the 9 billion this planet is going to have before very long. As

part of that, you are very big in the developing world, 90 countries.

In the Wall Street Journal you wrote this, of Africa, the agricultural

transformation in Africa must be African owned, and African lead.

What on earth, then, is your company doing pouring billions of dollars

over the next ten years into Africa? To build your business and

your profits? In all of the countries that we operate in, we

operate in more than 90 countries, we believe that there needs to be

African owned and lead but in South Africa, they are South African and

in Kenya, we are Kenyan. We opened an office in Nigeria a few months

ago and we will be Nigerian there. You are a multinational corporation

based in Switzerland. Yes, but the business of making agriculture more

productive, it's principally regulated, the industry, so when I

think about where Nigeria can go, with my discussions with their

ministers, they see a big opportunity in price, and I mean the

Nigerians, if they have a vision of how they want to make the rice crop

productive, we can help. David Spielman of the International food

policy Institute in Washington says the problem is the way you operate

actually militates against flourishing local suppliers. Why?

Because you overseas, the chemicals, which protect the crop, and nurture

it, you encourage farmers to sign onto advisory packages for which you

get a fee. It's a completely dominant business that you run from

selling the seeds to the harvesting of the crop. And, by doing it so

efficiently, over such an international scale, you are driving

out local business. I don't know him. I think that line of argument

is nonsense, frankly. If you look at the productivity of agriculture

today, it's a fraction of what it is in the more developed countries and

its half of the world average. If these African nations want to get

more productive, they'll have to use more technology. Define what you

mean by counter-productive. Going back to the African argument about

real agriculture efficiency and diversity, you are comparing apples

and oranges for the blue can't have an American-style agricultural

system in Africa. It is entirely different for them the numbers of

people dependent on the land is much greater, it's not a mechanised way

the USA is. And you are bringing the mentality of the USA Prairie to it.

I completely disagree. I don't know where the word miracle came from. No

one said anything about mechanisation. I was just in

Vietnam. We go on to rice paddies, a family of four can have a perfectly

prosperous farm with one third of Hector and they their field their

fault, and use some of the best herbicides we have and the best

insecticides. And they get it in small sachets, so it's not about

getting big schemes. You can have perfectly productive agriculture on

a small-scale business and this'll be the thing which needs the

breakthrough in Africa. Not about getting big and getting more

productive. And again, you need to be trusted by the people you're

selling your products too. Are you selling, for example, a pesticide to

these emerging economies, the very chemicals which are so controversial

because of the impact for example upon the bee population? Sure. It's

a specific active ingredient. It's one of the most modern chemistry is

in the world. And it's also banned by the European Commission. Wrongly

banned. In your view. I'm talking about the trust the perception

issue. Here you have a chemical. You sold around the world of vast

profits. The Europeans have decided it's potentially dangerous and they

have banded because of its impact upon the bee population. You are

telling me that's the kind of chemical you are now wanting to sell

around the world? Absolutely, we are selling it with confidence and we

are selling it because it works. If you read the University of Dundee

research, how can it be so confident about its long-term impact on the

Beeb population which is so important to the food cycle? Every

study which has been done by the industry and by science, which gave

us the freedom to operate and the licence... You don't have that in

Europe, because we stop selling it. They took a highly theoretical study

and they applied wrongly the precautionary principle and they put

a two-year ban on it, which I think, we have already been supported by

French farmers unions, a number of companies, and farmers, and don't

forget, we have member states saying this is at a rubbish. The business

about whether or not it was appropriately banned, the jury is

very much out on this. We don't, for a minute believe it. Wouldn't it be

wise to stop selling it until a jury gives you the OK? Absolutely not

full service nothing to do profits for worst example of the

precautionary principle. The chemical is used in Canada, where

there are no issues and Australia where nobody issues. -- the issues.

We are the largest sunflower seed company in the world. Syngenta has

12,000 beehives. We put the chemical on our sunflowers and the bees are

fine. I want to end with this thought. You told the New York Times

four years ago, the generally held view that natural is always better,

is mistaken. I don't necessarily think you're willing that particular

argument. I think we have a lot more work to do. I talk to high school

kids and put it to them, do you want arsenic on your vegetables? What

about spraying nicotine? When you use some really clear examples, with

them, which says, just because it's natural, doesn't mean it's good.

People get killed from natural substances. It happens all the time,

so the business of taking a manufactured substance, typically

born of what occurs in nature to begin with, and perfecting it is

something laudable. We have to lend their but thank you very much for

being on HARDtalk.