Battle Brewing Over Labeling of Genetically Modified Food

gollum123 writes with this excerpt from the NY Times: "For more than a decade, almost all processed foods in the United States — cereals, snack foods, salad dressings — have contained ingredients from plants whose DNA was manipulated in a laboratory. Regulators and many scientists say these pose no danger. But as Americans ask more pointed questions about what they are eating, popular suspicions about the health and environmental effects of biotechnology are fueling a movement to require that food from genetically modified crops be labeled, if not eliminated. The most closely watched labeling effort is a proposed ballot initiative in California that cleared a crucial hurdle this month, setting the stage for a probable November vote that could influence not just food packaging but the future of American agriculture. Tens of millions of dollars are expected to be spent on the election showdown. It pits consumer groups and the organic food industry, both of which support mandatory labeling, against more conventional farmers, agricultural biotechnology companies like Monsanto and many of the nation's best-known food brands like Kellogg's and Kraft."

Comments

it's about time

[hguorbray]

see Food Inc and other documentaries about the pernicious effects of agribusiness

-I'm just sayin'

Re:but all food is now GM

[HomoErectusDied4U]

I agree, it's too late. For example, two out of five different local organic farmers' corn I purchased at the Madison (Wisconsin) Farmers' Market last year came up positive for B. thuringiensis toxin genes. This is not an isolated case; the peer-reviewed literature is replete with examples of transgenic introgression into 'natural' populations. If you want to read more about this, you can start with this nearly-decade old paper that's been cited hundreds of times: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14526376

Re:but all food is now GM

[Sebastopol]

Elbert Dallas Thomason

http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Monsanto-Beats-LA-Farmer.htm

Why would a mysterious agriculture department sprout up months after Monsanto threatens a local farmer and illegally takes samples of his crops?

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-18563_162-4048288.html

Or going after the infrastructure that non-Monsanto farmers require to make a living:

http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-videos/6-must-see-videos/12161-monsanto-vs-seed-cleaner-moe-parr

Are you defending Monsanto, or just pointing out that the 400+ patent violation cases instigated by Monsanto that are in the judicial system (as of 1999) and are NOT public record don't count as "monsanto up and suing people"? We can't tell if they are cross-pollenation cases becasue they aren't public record due to uncertain influence of Monsanto at the local level:

http://grist.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/cfsmonsantovsfarmerreport1.13.05.pdf

I agree that contract violation is illegal (saving seed and all that). Have you stopped to consider why they sign these contracts that don't allow them to save seed, and force them to buy more each year at increasing prices? Jeez, I'd have to have a gun pointed to my head to sign something so ludicrous. /sarcasm

I also agree that it should be illegal to extort people into having no choice but to buy from Monsanto or go broke. Because I'm sure you can google, and I'm sure you can find limitless cases where Monsanto bullies and threatens farmers.

Re:Labelled = Banned

[TubeSteak]

That's not entirely true. Look at High Fructose Corn Syrup. It has been labelled as such (vs. real sugar) for a while, and there are technically alternatives, but all of the big name sodas (and a whole slew of other products) still use it.

The USA structures its agricultural subsidies in favor of corn and its import tariffs against cane sugar.
That's why everything in the USA has HFCS and it's not pervasive anywhere else in the world (AFAIK).

If we 'normalized' our corn subsidies and removed our cane sugar tariffs, HFCS would dissappear from the American market.

Re:It is labeled if you know what to look for

[ukemike]

Tell me then, where can I freely, and relatively easily find food products that do not contain genetically UNmodified corn or soy? Have you ever called up General Mills to ask them about the corn that was used in a particular box of cereal? Seriously?

Your statement that this information is "non-essential" is strange. Why would knowing if our food has been soaked in Roundup be non-essential? Roundup ready crops have been modified to be resistant to the broad-spectrum herbicide Roundup. They were created basically for the purpose of selling more of Monsanto's best selling herbicide. Roundup is toxic, it is an endocrine disruptor, and it damages DNA. In addition is has a profound negative ecological impact. You also ask "why single out one thing and ignore the rest?" Well because direct manipulation of genetic code is very new, very radical, only sparsely tested, and has become unavoidably widespread in very short time. Each of those criteria is worthy of making an exception and forcing monoplistic predatory corporations to disclose what they are feeding to the public. Oh and this is not an individual issue, it is societal. When some of these crops turn out to be really bad, all of society will have to bear the medical costs.