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In art, Hell is always more fascinating than Paradise. Even in Jeroen Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights Adam and Eve are depicted as not much more than a timid couple on a clean-cut lawn, whereas his vast depiction of Hell includes a variety of vibrant monsters praying on a frightened human kind. Where monsters have always truly fascinated us and inspired many great artists, we prefer to keep them at a safe distance. Monsters - hybrids of humans, animals and plants - represent the biologically impossible, more elusive and scary than anything mechanical. Genetic modification, or manipulation as some call it, seems to be the big green monster of our time. However, without hybrids, there would have been no life on earth, and without genetic modification many crops would have ceased to exist.

Food for thought when discussing questions as: What are the consequences of the domination of the human species over planet earth? Are we able to control the consequences of our own existence? But also: how to feed 9 billion people in 2030?

Professor Louise O. Fresco is President of the Executive Board of Wageningen University and Research. From 2006 to July 1, 2014 she was University Professor at the University of Amsterdam specialized in the foundations of sustainable development in an international context. Since 2000, she has served as Assistant Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome.

New Dutch Masters
A series of six interactive lectures on global issues and innovative leadership
by leading Dutch figures in the fields of politics, business, civil society and culture.