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“My grandmother was from northern Alberta, and she had a grace that she would say before meals: ‘God bless all the hands that helped prepare this food, starting from seed.’ Since she herself was a farmer I think she had a pretty good idea of who all those people would be. But I grew up in an urban environment, so my connections to where my food comes from and how it starts are much more remote. I think it’s very important to know how new varieties of crops get created in the first place, and biotechnology is one of the ways we can use to do that.”

 — Christina Holmes, IDRC awardee.

Christina Holmes’ professional interests and motivations are complex, but it all comes down to the inescapable fact that, as she puts it, “everyone has to eat.” Today she is focused on answering the simple question: Where does our food come from?

Holmes was a 2004/05 recipient of IDRC’s Canadian Window on International Development Award, given to graduate students undertaking research on common issues affecting Canada and the developing world.

Born in Bangkok, Holmes grew up in Victoria and earned BA and MA degrees at the University of Victoria, both in anthropology. She has always had a strong interest in applied research. Her MA thesis investigated women’s views on genetic testing for susceptibility to hereditary breast and ovarian cancer, and measured their satisfaction with counselling services in British Columbia.

Seeds, science, and sustenance

Her doctoral research has combined her interest in tackling practical problems with her training in anthropology. She began this project at the University of British Columbia, but decided to follow her advisor to Dalhousie University, where she is now completing her PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies.

Her thesis topic – Seeds, scientists, and sustenance: engineering value-added crops in Colombia and Canada – is laden with social, political, and ethical import. How exactly is genetic engineering research carried out, particularly as it relates to food?

She explains her widening interest: “My Master’s thesis involved a new technology, genetic testing. Useful as it may or may not be, however, genetic testing is likely to affect only a small number of people. On the other hand, how food gets produced and the technologies that are being used to change it are likely to affect a greater number of people.”

Pursuing a development mandate

A common view of genetic science is that it is essentially corporate-based and driven by profit. Holmes suspected, however, that the truth is far more complex. She wondered what this kind of science looked like when carried out in diverse settings, specifically in public rather than in private venues.

She began her research in a regulatory environment – a Canadian government laboratory that was using genetic engineering to develop regulatory knowledge for plant-based pharmaceuticals. She asked: What exactly are these scientists doing? What special challenges do they face?

All the while she was aware of another common rationalization for genetic research. “The developing world kept coming up as a justification for this new technology – that is, to help feed poor people.” She then became determined to find out what genetic research looks like when it is impelled by a development mandate.

Fieldwork in Colombia

Hher fieldwork in Canada and Colombia was made possible by the IDRC award. It took her to the nonprofit Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical – CIAT (international centre for tropical agriculture) in Cali, Colombia. CIAT conducts research aimed at reducing hunger and poverty and preserving natural resources in developing countries.

At CIAT, Holmes drew upon her anthropological training in participant observation. “I had gone back and taken courses in genetics and plant breeding and biotechnology, so I knew how to conduct standard laboratory procedures. That knowledge made it easier for me to shadow researchers and to participate in their daily routine, in order to understand how their everyday work fit into the wider projects of the institution. I also interviewed other plant breeders, molecular biologists, government officials, and activists.”

Among the frustrations Holmes encountered in Colombia was the debilitating shortage of scientific resources. CIAT itself is relatively well-funded, equipped, and supplied, but conditions at one Colombian university laboratory that she visited were such that “if the fridge was broken, fixing it was a real problem.” These practical limits, she found, make the actual doing of science much more frustrating.

Other challenges also impeded research efforts. “In terms of working in the field with small-scale farmers, some of the countryside remains off limits. It is particularly difficult if you’re trying, for instance, to do participatory work as a plant breeder.”

Discovering diversity

Holmes has found that her research brings joys as well as frustrations. A special pleasure was working in the Spanish language, which she began re-learning eight months prior to leaving for Cali. “The first few months in Colombia were very difficult since people had to be incredibly patient with me. But I loved working in Spanish. I felt that my brain was going at an incredible rate, trying to do two things at once.”

And what has she concluded from her studies? For one thing, the diversity that she suspected in genetic research is indeed the case. “Even though genetically modified objects are discussed in the media as though they are more similar to one another than to other plants, they are not equal. The research, the purposes, the starting materials, the end products all vary. There is no single ‘magic bullet’ to solving the world’s plant breeding issues.”

What lies ahead

In addition to crystallizing her findings in her PhD dissertation, Holmes looks forward to teaching what she has learned. In January 2007 she will present a course at Dalhousie titled Plants and People: Food, Agriculture, and Biotechnology. In the longer term, she says: “I would love to go back and do research in Colombia – I love the country and this research has given me a keen interest in plant breeding in general. Whatever happens, I will always see the tropical products I buy in the supermarket in a different way.”

Patrick Kavanagh is an Ottawa-based writer.

2006-09

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