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

Monsanto?

[fustakrakich]

I guess we all know how this will go down, considering what happened in France. The FDA will step in and overrule any vote

it's about time

[hguorbray]

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

-I'm just sayin'

but all food is now GM

[sneakyimp]

While I applaud the notion, this all overlooks the fact that pollen from Monsanto's GM crops is wind- and insect-borne to even organic farms.

And what about scientists who say it is harmful?

Re:but all food is now GM

[LifesABeach]

And if your Orange tree is pollinated by one of Monsanto's Frankin Seeds, you get to pay for it. But does Monsanto pay the neighbor if one of Monsanto's Frankin trees is pollinated by a regular seed?

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

[jedidiah]

I don't want to encourage the kind of monopoly that Monsanto represents. Even if Monsanto has salted everyone else's fields, I would still respond to a label that made it clear that the farmer that grew my food retained the right to save his own seeds.

This isn't just about the direct impacts of Monsanto franken-foods on my body or the environment. That's certainly important but it is by no means the end of the issue.

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.

Labelled = Banned

[Cassini2]

As far as the food industry is concerned, labelling is equivalent to banning genetically modified food.

As far as I am concerned, if they can't sell it for what it is, then they shouldn't be selling it.

Re:Labelled = Banned

[reve_etrange]

On this basis, nothing that the government or corporations do or plan should become public knowledge, because "the vast majority of the public are ignorant / misinformed on many issues."

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.

Notme was here.

[muggs]

So, they want to patent the food but not admit it. Sounds like organized crime.

Heath effects is a red herring

[subreality]

... So please stop lending credence to it. The real concern is creating a crop monoculture engineered to meet Monsanto's short term needs (eg to sell roundup-ready seeds every year, then selling the roundup, etc), and not the long-term needs of society or even just farmers.

Re:Glow in the dark corn...

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

How dare individuals presume to obstruct Monsato's right to maximise monopoly corporate profits?

The right to maximise shareholder value is a founding principal of this nation, and trumps any petty indulgence a person might have about selecting what they ingest.

Capitalism defeated Communism, you know. That's why it's more important than the Bill of Rights that you pinkos cling to.

Re:Isn't everything GMO though?

[Galestar]

Why is "natural" GMO acceptable and this not?

1. There are many things they are doing that is not even close to possible via selective breeding.
2. Selective breeding occurs over time, any negative effects (health, environmental) appear gradually (over generations) and can be tracked, studied and mitigated.

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

[ChromeAeonium]

Picking corn to use as an example to complain about genetic alterations, now there's an irony. Do you know how many mutations and genetic alterations are in modern corn varieties (and that's completely ignoring genetic engineering), let alone all the transposons hopping around in there? If I've got, for example, a Country Gentleman sweet corn, a Golden Bantam sweet corn, a Blue Jade sweet corn, and a Ruby Queen sweet corn, just by looking at them you can tell they are obviously genetically different. Is only one corn? By your logic, we shouldn't call anything corn anymore. And why should only changes made by genetic engineering count and not everything else I listed?

Do you know what you get when you add a gene to corn? Corn. It is still corn. It isn't a new species, just a new variety.

Re:I don't care about the harm, it's about choice.

[SuperCharlie]

The FDA does not allow labeling something non-GMO
http://www.organicconsumers.org/ge/nongmolabel112205.cfm

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.