Ronald Herring is a professor of government and the director of the Program on Nature and Development at Cornell University, New York, and a panelist at the Global Food Systems Forum. He specializes in agrarian reform, political ecology and development, and social conflicts around science and genetic engineering.

In his Food for Thought lecture below, Ron discusses how the genetic engineering of crops has become a proxy for much larger ideological and political debates. He explores the consequences of limiting this technology for poverty alleviation, global trade, and the environment.