Project: Archive of Agricultural Genetic Engineering and Society Center Interviewee: Dr. Eric Sachs, Regulatory and Science Policy Lead at Monsanto Interviewer: Matthew Booker, Alison Wynn, and Brad Herring Interview Date: August 31, 2015 Location: North Carolina State University Length: 01:37:20 Learn more at https://go.ncsu.edu/AAGES SEE FULL TRANSCRIPT AT: https://research.ncsu.edu/ges/files/2020/07/Sachs_Eric_20150831_Transcript_FINAL.pdf 00:13 - Please tell us your name, your institution, and your role. 00:26 - What do you actually do? 06:09 - The process you’re describing, taking these opportunities shows a lot of planning and foresight. In terms of thinking about your future career, but also for the company, thinking about the challenges that come up, producing an genetically modified crop, I think that’s interesting. Did you think that anything would be really distinctive about genetically engineered crops compared to other kinds of new technologies that Monsanto had already put out? 07:42 - This is interesting from the companies perspective because Monsanto was a chemical company which was also interested in seeds. In a sense they were potentially harming their own market if genetically engineered crips were to take off. Or was that not something that seemed like a contradiction at the time? 08:40 - What did you want to be when you grew up? 10:38 - Do you think it was just because you were at a famous agricultural school, UC Davis, that led you from your interest in genetics or in science into this form of genetics? Why agriculture is the question. 11:38 - So when you got to Monsanto, this is 1978, you said you were doing lab work. What kind of ideas did you have about your future? 13:48 - So did you have mentors at your career at Monsanto? 15:30 - So, you mentioned the risks. I think one thing I’d love to have in this interview is a sense of how it works to be inside a major company. I think many of us don’t understand that. What were the risks for Monsanto? 17:30 - One of the things that you did while at Monsanto is you participated in the first field trials of a genetically engineered crop. 18:36 - So this is around 1987. What was the actual crop? 19:10 - You pointed out that you had a plan to involve researchers, why? (BT Corn) 22:37 - What do you think gave you the foresight to think about involving all of those people? 24:02 - So that kind of collaboration between the public sector and University researchers, is that a method that Monsanto has continued with? 25:38 - The risk you just described is a pretty big one. 1990’s. Your bosses must have been aware of that risk. How were you able to convince them to take this risk to involve outside researchers? 26:48 - Did you ever think you were going to be fired? 29:19 - The monarch butterflies story was what year? 30:23 - What was it about Monarch butterflies that made it such an interesting story? 34:37 - What was it that made the public think that Monsanto, a private company could help the Monarch butterfly? 36:52 - Was the aspiration to convince farmers to participate? 38:22 - Why do you think that government and Universities took so long in realizing that companies like Monsanto were disseminators of critical information? They were extension agents for farmer’s if you will. 40:27 - Over the course of your career you’ve seen a lot of change in global agriculture. What do you regard as major break points? 45:46 - You’ve described some pretty profound ways that farmer’s relate to the things they grow and society beyond farmers. Some of those cultural changes have unexpected consequences. Have you run into any problems with farmers who now expect there will be no weeds in a crop, or have we come to rely on technologies and their outcomes that were never possible 50 years ago? 51:05 - I want to ask you another question about all of that cultural change. Fred Gould proposed the notion of refuges. That is you set aside a chunk of the crop, and that's a sacrifice zone, high loss. On the other hand the insects do not develop resistance if the models work out. Then the technologies that are used on the rest of the crop can last longer. Have I got that right? 53:48 - That’s an example of a technology that is so effective that farmers can expect zero damage to their crops. We have lived through the success of agricultural technologies that they actually become a problem, at least briefly. That’s a kind of mental shift in the way that you design a technology. Were you familiar with that? 56:20 - This is an opportunity to return to your early career for a moment. If genetic engineering as a tool is only one of many tools that Monsanto uses, and has much in common with other agricultural technologies like chemicals, why do you think is that both the public and the company itself saw something distinctive about genetic engineering as a technology? 57:09 - What is it about GMOs that is so different from these other tools?