nyt: U.S. policies on genetically modified crops, foods anger farmers, consumers

[karla cook]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/dining/a-suit-airs-debate-on-organic-vs-modified-crops.html?_r=2&emc=tnt&tntemail0=y

By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: February 7, 2012

SILENT in flannel shirts and ponytails, farmers from Saskatchewan and
South Dakota, Mississippi and Massachusetts lined the walls of a
packed federal courtroom in Manhattan last week, as their lawyers told
a judge that they were no longer able to keep genetically modified
crops from their fields.

The hearing is part of a debate that is coming to life around the
country, in courtrooms and Occupy sites, in boardrooms and online,
with new petitions, ballot initiatives and lawsuits from California to
Maine.

Last year, according to the Department of Agriculture, about 90
percent of all soybeans, corn, canola and sugar beets raised in the
United States were grown from what scientists now call transgenic
seed. Most processed foods (staples like breakfast cereal, granola
bars, chicken nuggets and salad dressing) contain one or more
transgenic ingredients, according to estimates from the Grocery
Manufacturers Association, though the labels don’t reveal that. (Some,
like tortilla chips, can contain dozens.)

Common ingredients like corn, vegetable oil, maltodextrin, soy
protein, lecithin, monosodium glutamate, cornstarch, yeast extract,
sugar and corn syrup are almost always produced from transgenic crops.

No known health risks are associated with eating transgenic foods
(though many scientists say it is too soon to assess the effects), and
the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as safe.

But consumer resistance to transgenic food remains high. In a
nationwide telephone poll conducted in October 2010 by Thomson Reuters
and National Public Radio, 93 percent said if a food has been
genetically engineered or has genetically engineered ingredients, it
should say so on its label — a number that has been consistent since
genetically modified crops were introduced. F.D.A. guidelines say that
food that contains genetically modified organisms, or G.M.O.’s, don’t
have to say so and can still be labeled “all natural.”

In California, voters in November will decide on a ballot initiative
requiring the labeling of such foods. In October, an online campaign
called Just Label It began collecting signatures and comments on a
petition to the F.D.A., requesting rules similar to those in the
European Union, Japan, China, India and Australia, stating what
transgenic food is in the package. (For example, an ingredients list
might say “genetically engineered corn” instead of just “corn.”) Six
hundred thousand Americans have commented, according to the group.

“You don’t have to be a technophobe or think corporations are evil to
not want G.M.O.’s in your food,” said Ashley Russell, a college
student who attended a rally sponsored by Food Democracy Now after the
Manhattan court hearing.

In traditional plant breeding, plants are bred with related organisms
to encourage certain naturally occurring traits. In transgenic
breeding, genetic material from unrelated organisms can be introduced
to create new traits, like resistance to drought, herbicides or pests.
For the most part, the spread of transgenic seeds into the American
food supply has been purposeful, carried out by farmers and scientists
who see enormous advantages in hardier plants.

In January, Bill Gates devoted most of his annual letter on
agriculture from the Gates Foundation to the need for advanced
technology. He later said that most people who object to transgenic
agriculture live in rich nations, responsible for climate change that
he believes has caused malnutrition for the poor.

For many in the food industry, including big players like Whole Foods,
the dairy collective Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farm, the
inevitability of transgenic food was cemented last year, when the
Agriculture Department deregulated a new alfalfa created by Monsanto,
the largest producer of genetically modified seed in the United
States, despite furious lobbying by the organic industry. Alfalfa,
which has a strong tendency to drift from one field to another, is
grown as feed for millions of dairy cows, making it one of the
country’s largest crops. Transgenic alfalfa cannot be used to feed
cows that produce organic milk.

“We have understood for a long time that there is potential for
contamination of organic food through pollen drift,” said A. C. Gallo,
co-president and chief operating officer of Whole Foods. After the
“disappointing” alfalfa decision, he said, the company decided to
focus more efforts on labeling transgenic food, rather than trying to
stop or slow its arrival into the food supply.

The company, along with others like Nature’s Path, Eden Foods and
Lundberg Family Farms, is a major funder (and customer) of the Non-GMO
Project, a nonprofit verification service that does lab testing and
provides certification for food producers. Organic farmers are
responsible for testing their own crops for contamination, and for
keeping transgenic pollen and seeds off their land. The Agriculture
Department recommends that organic farmers leave a “buffer zone”
between their crops and neighboring farms, but that can prove
expensive and ineffective.

“Pollen and DNA do not play by the U.S.D.A.’s rules,” said Elizabeth
Archerd, a director of a Minneapolis food co-op, the Wedge, that
supports labeling of transgenic food.

That is why farmers like Bryce Stephens of Jennings, Kan., made the
trip to New York last week.

“I don’t raise corn anymore,” he said, because the prevailing wind on
his farm had contaminated his crop with transgenic seed. Without the
resources to devote land to a buffer zone, he said that the alfalfa he
grows to feed his herd of organic bison would soon be contaminated by
his neighbors’ crops.

Like Mr. Stephens, most of the farmers in the Manhattan courtroom were
plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed last year by the Organic
Seed Growers and Trade Association against Monsanto. The plaintiffs,
none of whom use Monsanto seeds, say that they are afraid that the
company will take legal action against them if its patented products
appear in their fields. (Monsanto has asserted its agricultural
patents in hundreds of lawsuits, most of which have been settled.)

But the real issue here is not patent law; it’s contamination. The
point made by the suit is that, according to the regulations that
govern American agriculture, it’s these unwilling farmers who must
prevent Monsanto’s products from trespassing onto their land.

The company has moved to dismiss the suit, claiming that the
plaintiffs lack standing because Monsanto has taken no action against
them. The judge, Naomi R. Buchwald, said she would rule on the motion
to dismiss by March 31.

Increasingly, though, organic and transgenic seeds are coexisting on
American farmland. Last year, the Agriculture Department said crops
would not lose organic status as long as the transgenic content
remained at or below 0.9 percent (the threshold the European Union
uses for imported crops).

For consumers, this means that transgenic ingredients are often
present in the organic staples they pay a premium for.

“That’s absolutely not what organic buyers want, and not what they are
paying for,” Ms. Archerd said.