Good week for Nina, she got the National Medal for Science yesterday
Prof Fedoroff is a prominent biologist and an advocate of genetic engineering of plants and animals, in particular for food crops to improve yield and nutritional quality.
She is the author of Mendel in the Kitchen
A very interesting, shorter article on the issue appears in the current issue of Penn State Science Journal, here is a link to the online version
The most interesting point she makes is on how little people, including environmentalists opposing genetic engineering of food, know about the origin, history and conventional engineering of food, especially plants.
The article is fascinating and I recommend reading it. I have not read "Mendel in the Kitchen", it sounds interesting, as long as you avoid the rather irritating WSJ review...
Official PSU blurb on State Dept
Why are environmentalists "little people"?
They are not.
Look at how the clause is structured: it parses to "how little people know"
- "including environmentalists..."
ie Nina discusses how extensive genetic modification of food crops have been using traditional breeding methods and modern techniques like mutagens, as opposed to direct genetic engineering; and she discusses how poorly this is known, even among interested parties like environmentalists.