How is this ALLOWED?

[00:00:00]Who gave the Mars Candy Company the right to edit the genetics of every cocoa tree on Earth?

[00:00:06]>> Probably a corrupt politician.

[00:00:08]>> In the last reel, I told you that Mars is using CRISPR to gene edit cocoa trees. Gene >> I thought that was just for humans.

[00:00:15]>> Editing of cocoa trees is in a different risk category altogether from growing cocoa cells in a tank. Cells >> Even that is risky. Why don't we just let nature do what she does?

[00:00:26]>> in a tank stay in the tank. If something goes wrong, you just shut it down. The problem doesn't escape into nature. A gene edited tree is the opposite. Cocoa is a cross-pollinating perennial that releases pollen year-round for 25 to 40 years. Once a CRISPR edited cocoa tree flowers near other trees, edited pollen enters the regional gene pool through insect pollinators. Yes, >> How much money does Bill Gates have invested into this?

[00:00:50]>> Industrial plantations control their own propagation through grafting and clones, but they don't control where pollen is carried or drifts on the wind. And in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, where roughly two-thirds of the world's cocoa is grown, small farmers routinely plant seedlings from seed pods from their own trees. Carrying >> It just feels like corporations are trying to destroy this planet in the name of profit. But what is profit worth if there's no planet to enjoy it?

[00:01:15]>> Carrying edits delivered by insects from neighboring trees. It's pretty concerning that you can't unwind it this on either pathway once it happens.

[00:01:23]Genetic change is slow on purpose.

[00:01:25]Natural selection filters harmful mutations because not many of those offspring live long enough to reproduce.

[00:01:32]An engineered edit skips that filter entirely. The moment a small farmer germinates seeds from a nearby tree, the edit goes straight into the next generation. Cocoa takes 5 to 10 years to mature and lives for decades. If the edit causes a subtle problem, it gets multiplied across farms for years before anyone notices.

[00:01:50]>> And this is part of what has put a lot of farms out of business because you'll have modified seeds, genetically modified seeds, and they blow into someone else's farm, and then they can have lawsuits to go after them for having their seeds on their land when nature just distributes it as it will.

[00:02:07]>> And by then, the genetics are already embedded across the region. The question is, does anybody have the right to edit genes on all cocoa trees, including trees they don't own?

[00:02:15]>> I mean, how close is this to a crime against humanity, especially whenever it's unelected officials making these types of decisions?

[00:02:23]>> That's what's going to happen. How do the affected countries respond? Well, Ghana exempts most CRISPR edits from regulation entirely. As long as the company just clips out sections of genetic material and doesn't add foreign DNA, there's no application, no risk assessment, no field trial requirement.

[00:02:39]Ghana's own guidance says gene edits present no unique environmental concerns.

[00:02:44]>> What are we doing?

[00:02:45]>> Côte d'Ivoire grows 42% of the world's cocoa. They passed a biosafety law in 2016 with no functioning regulator to enforce it. So >> I swear we're on the the path towards hell, aren't we?

[00:02:56]>> When the two countries that produce most of the world's cocoa, the regulatory answer is either this is exempt or nobody's home. The scariest part of the chocolate story isn't happening in a tank, it's happening in a field. By the time >> And this, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the biggest reasons that I am running for Congress in South Carolina. You see, we no longer care about nature, and instead we have placed profit and making money over nature. And don't get me wrong, making money's fun, it's enjoyable, we all need to do it to survive, but at what cost? If we're completely destroying nature, if we're completely genetically modifying cocoa, which I love dark chocolate, out of existence, then what's it worth? What's it worth to have the entire world, but to lose your soul along the way? On November 3rd, write in Clayton Couturier.