April 2023 - 12

duets
BY PETER KONJOIAN AND SARAH DAVIDSON EVANEGA
Biotechnology's Place
in Feeding the World
us understand the challenge
agriculture faces in educating
the public, and the reverse
perspective - how agriculture
is learning from consumers.
Sarah: Thanks for the
Peter Konjoian is president of Konjoian's Horticulture
Education Services Inc. His career spans four decades
as a commercial grower, researcher and consultant.
Sarah Davidson Evanega is the lead of stakeholder
communication at Pairwise. Konjoian can be reached at
peterkfes@comcast.net.
T
oday's guest is Sarah
Davidson Evanega.
Sarah is the lead of
stakeholder communication at
Pairwise, a food-tech startup on
a mission to build a healthier
world through better fruits
and vegetables. Previously,
she was on the faculty at the
Boyce Thompson Institute
for Plant Research in the
section of plant breeding and
genetics at Cornell University.
During that time, she served
as the founding director of the
Alliance for Science, a global
communications initiative
focused on improving public
understanding of agricultural
biotechnology.
Peter: Hi Sarah; thanks for
joining us. Let's begin with
a recap of your work for the
Alliance for Science at Cornell,
as it paved the way for your
current work at Pairwise. Help
12
APRIL 2023 GPNMAG.COM
invitation to join you in
Duets, Peter. Our work at the
Alliance for Science was very
much focused on helping
people navigate the topic of
agricultural biotechnology.
Some forms of ag biotech
like genetically modified
organisms (GMOs) had suffered
from a lot of misinformation
over the past decades in
spite of the fact that many
applications of biotechnology
will be critical in our quest to
ensure nutritional security in
a rapidly changing climate.
We built a coalition of
champions from around
the world who were driven
to help dispel myths and
misinformation, to elevate the
voices of underrepresented
people - such as farmers
in lower and middle income
countries - and help people
understand the science and
the critical utility of agricultural
biotechnology.
Peter: I attended a seminar
you presented a couple years
ago on the topic of GMOs
and feeding the world; your
message changed me. Since
then, a colleague of yours
at the Alliance for Science,
Patricia Nanteza, joined me in
this column to discuss her work
in Africa. Her call to the world
community is " please let Africa
decide for herself regarding
GMO technology and its value
to smallholder farmers. "
Describe the global challenge
we face in feeding ourselves.
Sarah: Patricia's message
is an important one. Most of
us reading this article are well
fed and comfortable. But as
Patricia reminds us, the actions
of those of us in the West can
have implications for other parts
of the world. The decisions we
make in the supermarket in the
U.S. have an impact globally. We
need to be cognizant of that. We
in the U.S. can also learn from
other cultures and embrace
their consumption of nutritious
foods that are underused
in the U.S. - where we
over-consume a lot of
unhealthy, empty calories.
Peter: So, one myth is that
a Western diet is by default
a healthier diet than those in
other countries. The unhealthy,
empty calories you cite ... that's
a pivotal message, loud and
clear. One career focus of mine
is helping small greenhouse and
farm operations compete in an
environment where achieving
" scale " is, in my opinion,
overemphasized. Adding an
exclamation point to this is
Patricia stopping me dead in
http://www.GPNMAG.COM
April 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2023
