Let's break up the GMO/non-GMO monopoly on our environmental debate

Some environmentalists are rethinking their opposition to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). That's terrific. The line between GMOs and non-GMOs always was the wrong way to describe the problem our food system faces.

The best road forward for environmentalists and sustainable food thinkers is to end the monopoly that the GMO/anti-GMO fight has had on our food system debate. Like breaking up a big corporation so that smaller businesses can thrive, let us break up the GMO debate into its smaller pieces.

The highest-profile recent example of an environmentalist writer rethinking GMOs is Nathanael Johnson's six-month series at Grist. Johnson points out that GMOs are just one contributor to the many ills that have been attributed to GMOs. Hence, a world that had no GMOs would be surprisingly similar to our current world.

GMOs were neither the first, nor have they been the last, agricultural innovation, and each of these technologies comes with its own potential hazards.

This view infuriates some of the most respected people in the sustainable food movement. This week at Civil Eats, Anna Lappé describes Johnson as "meandering about in the woods for the past six months" leading to nothing more than an "attempt at a clever journalistic gesture." I read Johnson's series more favorably, and I'm not the only one. Dan Charles has a nice overview at NPR's Salt. Well, nobody said every post at Civil Eats had to be civil!

After the strong criticism, Lappé then turns to an excellent list of seven real issues at stake.

What’s become abundantly clear is that there are at least seven things we need to get right in agriculture, right now. We need to:

• Reduce reliance on fossil fuels in agriculture;
• Conserve water in agriculture systems;
• Free ourselves from dependence on chemicals, especially those most toxic to humans and wildlife;
• Promote on-farm resilience to climate change;
• Protect biodiversity and the food security it engenders;
• Limit the expansion of confinement livestock operations; and
• Support farmers to learn practices for productivity that don’t come at the high, and rising, cost of inputs such as chemicals, seeds, or technology fees to chemical companies, especially Monsanto.

This is a fine list of seven enterprises that are left behind after we break up the GMO/anti-GMO monopoly on our public debate. In a way, by focusing on seven multi-faceted challenges, rather than on the technical line between GMO and non-GMO foods, Lappé seems to me closer to Johnson than it might appear at first.

What attitude should anti-GMO environmentalists and GMO-tolerant environmentalists adopt toward each other, when they agree on these seven global challenges? I think they each should say, "Hi, friend, let's get to work!"

Distinct viewpoints on GMOs and GMO labeling

The debate over Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is shrill and frequently lacks clarity.

For example, people commonly fail two distinguish two separate issues:

• Is GMO technology dangerous or beneficial?
• Should GMO labeling be mandatory or voluntary?

This scatter plot separates the two issues by putting attitudes toward GMOs on the horizontal axis and attitudes toward mandatory labeling on the vertical axis.

At the top left, most anti-GMO activists are against GMOs and in favor of mandatory GMO labeling.  For example, I recently was asked to lead a discussion for the Northeast Massachusetts Dietetic Association (NMDA) about the anti-GMO movie Genetic Roulette.  I found the film unpersuasive.  It overstated its case, preyed on parents' emotional fears for the health of their children, and misrepresented the balance of scientific viewpoints on the safety of GMOs.  Here is an online review.

At the other end of the spectrum, toward the bottom right, most conventional food industry organizations are in favor of GMOs and against mandatory GMO labeling.  Food industry presentations commonly overstate the necessity of genetic engineering for addressing the world food situation, fail to mention non-technological solutions (such as eating less meat), exaggerate the potential of specific appealing GMO technologies (such as drought-resistant maize), and omit discussion of reasonable concerns that have been raised on particular issues (such as Monsanto's control of the seed industry or the development of glyphosate resistant weeds).

The leading GMO labeling campaign, Just Label It, clearly is in favor of mandatory labeling (and hence clearly is located high on the vertical axis).  But the campaign tries to have it both ways when taking a stance on attitudes toward GMOs more generally.  Sometimes it implicitly endorses the fear-mongering anti-GMO crowd (and so might be located toward the left edge of the diagram).  The campaign should be embarrassed for linking out to the movie Genetic Roulette, whose faults are mentioned above.  At other times, the campaign seems to say, "We don't engage in those unscientific food safety claims; we just think everybody should have a right to know what's in their food" (and so might be located toward the middle, neither left nor right).

Some environmentalists have more unpredictable views, some of which are summarized in a recent article by Monica Eng.  In the lower left corner, the maverick farmer Joel Salatin takes a delightfully market-oriented approach to revolutionizing the food system, so he doesn't think it's the government's business to make labeling rules mandatory.  In the top right corner, Mark Lynas, a former anti-GMO activist turned pro-GMO zealot, surprised the audience at a recent conference by favoring mandatory GMO labeling. 

For myself, I am a soft GMO critic.  For a long time, I've been covering concerns about monopoly control of the seed industry, about glyphosate resistant weeds, and inadequate FDA review of some proposed new technologies such as GMO salmon.  But I have no fundamental objection to GMO technology in principle.  With adequate review from federal agencies, as more beneficial new seeds come down the pike, I may have to go on the record in support of future GMO technologies.  With regard to mandatory labeling, I think it is not enough to say "people are curious about this issue so labeling should be mandatory."  If I broadly thought GMO technologies were systematically dangerous, I would favor not only stronger labeling rules, but also stronger regulation.  Mandatory labeling is not the right policy tool if you believe there is a safety problem, and mandatory labeling is hard to justify if you think there is not a safety problem.

Monsanto invests in decision-making data tools

At Modern Farmer yesterday, Dan Mitchell explains the new Monsanto purchase of the Climate Corporation:

Monsanto is hot to expand further into data services for farmers. Toward that end, the company on Tuesday morning announced that it will acquire The Climate Corporation for $930 million. Climate Corporation underwrites weather insurance for farmers, basically in real time, using some of the most sophisticated data tools available to determine the risks posed by future weather conditions and events.

In Tufts research on "golden rice" in China, the procedure for parents' informed consent was flawed

In research in China on genetically modified "golden rice," Tufts researchers did not provide adequate information to parents whose consent was requested for their children's participation, according to information provided by Tufts University this week.

The rice contains beta carotene, a precursor to vitamin A.  The research by Tufts professor Guangwen Tang and colleagues studied whether the new rice could make a difference in actual vitamin A status in children.  Vitamin A deficiency is a leading preventable cause of blindness in children.

Tufts conducted internal and external reviews of the research, following public criticism of the study in 2012.  In its statement this week, Tufts concluded that there was no safety concern, but there were flaws in informed consent procedures:

While the study data were validated and no health or safety concerns were identified, the research itself was found not to have been conducted in full compliance with IRB policy or federal regulations. Reviews found insufficient evidence of appropriate reviews and approvals in China.  They also identified concerns with the informed consent process, including inadequate explanation of the genetically-modified nature of Golden Rice. The principal investigator also did not obtain IRB approval for some changes to study procedures before implementing the changes.

The Tufts statement puts to rest the suspicion by some GMO supporters that the criticism of the informed consent procedures was merely an invention by anti-GMO activists or by Chinese officials who had developed regrets about having approved the research.  On the contrary, the Tufts statement confirms that informed consent procedures were inadequate.  The university announced several changes to human subjects review procedures and will not allow the principal investigator to conduct human subjects research for two years.

Dan Charles reported on this controversy for NPR this week.

Although golden rice is an important high-profile line of research, I consider the two most important strategies for improving vitamin A status in children to be supplementation and increasing dietary diversity through ordinary fruits and vegetables, neither of which requires GM technology.

What is your general view about the safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)?

The public debate over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is shrill.

GMO opponents are very tough on occasional environmentalists who express a public view that GMOs might be safe or useful.  GMO supporters belittle the serious concerns that critics have about corporate control of the food supply and shortcomings in the U.S. approach to safety testing.

For rhetorical purposes, most writers on this topic spend all their ink criticizing the errors their opponents make, while carefully avoiding committing themselves to the sometimes untenable implications of their own side's position.

I think it would help if people paused the rock-throwing and reflected on what broad general statements they could support and defend under scrutiny.  I suspect that this reflection would make people more aware of the weaknesses on their own side and more willing to listen to multiple points of view on this divisive issue.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Biotech rider is "very, very bad government"

Senator Jon Tester and Mother Jones journalist Tom Philpott summarize the problems with the new Senate rider that protects Monsanto technologies from particular consequences of review in the courts, on the TakeAway on National Public Radio today.

Senator Tester says in the audio below, "Congress screwed up....  This isn't the way our government is supposed to work."

As Tom Philpott, food and agriculture correspondent for Mother Jones, explains, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has to approve genetically-modified crops before companies could sell the seeds to farmers. In 2008 and 2009, the Center for Food Safety, along with other environmental groups, sued the USDA in federal court, claiming that the USDA approved two genetically engineered crops without a detailed environmental impact statement.

The Center for Food Safety won the suit in both cases, but the rider on this year's continuing resolution would bar environmental groups from suing the USDA for these purposes.

As with the proposed genetically modified (GM) salmon (covered earlier on this blog), my view is that GM supporters and opponents alike should speak up for adequate democratic review of these policies.  For GMO supporters in particular, it is foolish to try to slip these policies through Congress as riders to unrelated essential legislation.  A key part of the argument in favor of GM technology is supporters' claim that our government is capable of giving these technologies a scientifically credible, independent, and skeptical review.  It is unwise for Monsanto to protect its GM technologies from review by proving how easily our federal government can be manipulated.  This is the same government on which Monsanto and all other GM supporters depend to reassure the consuming public about the safety of GM foods.



Update (same day). Agricultural economist Darren Hudson says pretty much the same thing I do about this rider. I came across his post on a link from Jayson Lusk's blog.

Expiration of first-generation Roundup Ready soybeans

The patents for Monsanto's first generation of pesticide-resistant soybeans will expire in 2014.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have for many years been protected by patents, which allow one company to forbid farmers from saving and growing a particular type of crop seeds.  Without patent protection, farmers will be able to grow the pesticide-resistant soybeans, called Roundup Ready soybeans, without paying royalties and licensing fees to Monsanto.

For example, the case of the farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman was argued before the Supreme Court last month, receiving a lot of attention.  Bowman had purchased commodity soybeans, meaning non-brand-name soybeans ready to be used by food manufacturers.  A substantial fraction of his commodity soybean seeds did indeed have the Roundup Ready trait, merely because most U.S. soybeans have this GMO trait.  After patent protection expires in 2014, a farmer such as Bowman would be free to do as he likes.

Monsanto will still use patents to protect the company's new line of GMO soybeans, called Genuity Roundup Ready 2 Yield.  There had been some fear that Monsanto would use patents on specific seed varieties to extend the protection of first-generation Roundup Ready technology, but -- if I understand this Monsanto press release correctly -- it appears the company plans to let this first-generation technology really enter the public domain without any trickery involving specific seed varieties.  Monsanto does not plan to require farmers to destroy unsold seeds from the final patent-protected harvest, but instead the farmers may go ahead and save those seeds for the first legal non-licensed planting.

We should not exaggerate the importance of this news.  The change makes little difference for organic farmers or for people who have broad food safety concerns about GMOs.  If anything, wider availability of inexpensive Roundup Ready seed could worsen the problem of new weeds that are resistant to glyphosate (the generic name for Roundup).  The end of patent protection could in principle lead to new university-based crop breeding programs that seek to make seed technology more freely available, although I wonder if U.S. universities have lost the capacity to do so without corporate financial support. 

Yet, for some people who follow the ferocious public debate about GMOs, the end of patent protection seems like a big deal.  It helps to weaken the perceived linkage between the two distinct concepts, "GMO technology" and "corporate control of the food system."

December issue of the Friedman Sprout

The December issue of the Friedman School's graduate student publication, the Friedman Sprout, came out today.  It includes articles on the local Slow Food chapter, how to survive a New England winter, craft ideas, and book reviews.  I was interviewed for an article on the Prop 37 vote in California over GMO foods.

DOJ drops case against Monsanto

The Department of Justice has dropped its anti-trust case against Monsanto for anti-competitive behavior in the seed market.  The company is very happy.

I imagine that DOJ staff are disappointed that their efforts in recent years to ensure competitive ag-sector markets have come to very little.  Here is the section on the seed industry from DOJ's May 2012 summary of its field hearings:

Genetically Modified Seeds. The rise of genetically modified seeds generated intense and extensive discussion. Many farmers spoke about the high price of genetically modified seeds, restrictions on the use of genetically modified seeds, and a dearth of choices of genetically modified and conventional seeds. For example, during the public comments in Iowa, there was testimony that “many farmers say that the prices they’re paying are indeed out of hand for seed,” that “farmers say that their choice, their seed options are dramatically reduced, especially in the way of conventional corn and soybean varieties,” and that “farmers fear that the best and newest genetics will only be introduced with expensive patented traits stacked into them.”56

A farmer echoed these comments, asserting that the advent of genetically modified seeds “has reduced my options for non-GMO seeds” and “increased my costs to raise corn.”57

Participants argued that seed traits or “nature” should not be patentable. They asserted that the current patent landscape stifled innovation and competition.58 Many also voiced philosophical objections to the patenting of seed technology and lamented that licensing restrictions imposed by seed companies upset centuries-old folkways. As one rice and soybean farmer put it, “We lost the thing [that as] farmers and inhabitants of this planet . . . is most precious to us, and that is the intellectual property rights to our food.”59

Other participants extolled the virtues of genetically modified seeds, including, they stated, higher yields and less environmental impact. One crop farmer summarized, “The use of GMO seeds makes economic and agronomic sense and provides efficacy with less trips across the field, less fuel, and a safer environment for us farmers, our families, and the environment.”60

Here is the American Anti-trust Institute's 2009 summary of the leading competition concerns (Update 12/2/2012: AAI receives support from DuPont, a Monsanto competitor), Monsanto's 2009 response (.pdf), and a 2010 article in Choices Magazine by agricultural economist GianCarlo Moschini.

Survey says more than three quarters intend to vote "yes" on California Prop 37 GE labeling proposal

According to a new poll (.pdf) conducted during September 20-27 in California, 76.8% of respondents would vote "yes" on Prop 37 -- calling for mandatory labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods.

This estimate is much higher than I would have expected.  The survey report, by Jayson L. Lusk and Brandon McFadden from Oklahoma State University, has several interesting features. (Lusk keeps a lively blog, where he discussed U.S. Food Policy's earlier post on Prop 37.)

First, among those intending to vote "yes," 71% said their motivation had to do with the right to know what is in their food, while 16% listed food safety concerns.  It is reassuring that comparatively few respondents listed food safety concerns.  In my opinion, food safety concerns are not the most sound reason for supporting biotech labeling.

Second, the survey included some sharp questions about whether people would still favor mandatory labeling even if it made food more expensive.  Sensibly, fewer than half of respondents would support mandatory labeling if it led to price increases of more than 12%.  That would be a very large price increase!  More than half of respondents would still support Prop 37 if there were smaller price increases.  To me, although the median price point seems high, this again suggests that the respondents perceived the essentials of the economic tradeoffs implied by the proposition.

To put the price increase issue in perspective, Dan Sumner and Julian Alston recently estimated (.pdf) that Prop 37 could lead to $1.2 billion in new costs on California food manufacturers for labeling, segregation, and monitoring.  (Sumner and Alston served as my hosts and mentors during a terrific sabbatical year at the University of California in 2010-2011, though nobody should assume they endorse or are to blame for any opinions offered in this blog!).  I suspect that Sumner and Alston's cost estimates imply a food price increase far smaller than 12%.

Here is one more very interesting thing about Sumner and Alston's paper.  They believe that mandatory labeling "would reduce choices by driving some food products containing GE ingredients from the market."  In this view, the label would influence manufacturing methods, and many food manufacturers would use a label that says "made without GE ingredients."  Their colleague at UC Davis, Colin Carter, believes that many food manufacturers would find it impossible to source non-GE ingredients and that most conventional (non-organic) food would be labeled "may contain GE ingredients."

Another important finding from Lusk and McFadden's report is that many consumers do not understand which foods contain GE products.  I think that if Prop 37 passes (a) GE-free foods will be labeled GE-free, (b) foods that contain GE ingredients will be labeled "may contain GE ingredients" and (c) consumers will be much better informed.

In my view, the strongest case against Prop 37 is subtle.  If consumers care about genetic engineering, then voluntary GE labeling should be widely promoted.  But, if government scientists are not persuaded that GE foods are dangerous, then one could argue that the government should not make GE labeling mandatory.

Incorrect reports say that California's Prop 37 has zero tolerance for accidental GMO content

California voters are considering a ballot initiative to require mandatory labeling for foods that contain Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) ingredients.

A recent Oakland Tribune editorial against the initiative gets key facts wrong. The editorial, which was widely published in other newspapers, claims that the proposal has a zero-tolerance for accidental GMO content in foods that aren't labeled as containing GMOs. Such a policy would force producers of essentially non-GMO products to use the label "may contain GMOs," simply out of fear of litigation.  But the editorial is mistaken. The initiative rightly allows foods that do not intentionally contain GMOs to carry a "non-GMO" label.

The initiative has several moderate and reasonable features.  For example, it would require genetically modified animals -- such as a fast-growing genetically modified salmon -- to contain a "GMO" label, but it would not require such a label for ordinary beef that had been fed genetically modified corn and soybeans.  A farmer or food manufacturer would not have to do any fancy testing to prevent accidental contamination with GMOs (for example by drifting seeds from a neighboring field, or from GMO-containing dust left over on farm machinery).  It suffices for the food producers to claim in writing that they used crop varieties and food ingredients that they reasonably believed were not genetically modified.  For example, a food manufacturer purchasing non-GMO corn would have to get the supplier to sign such an affidavit, but would not have to do scientific testing.  Some anti-GMO advocates might have wanted stricter rules, but there are good common-sense reasons why the initiative took these positions.

In this context, the Oakland Tribune editorial is particularly disappointing.  Whether you support or oppose GMOs, it is important to explain the initiative clearly so that our democracy can function as well as possible.

The Tribune editorial echoed a point that was also made in a recent working paper by the highly esteemed agricultural economist Colin Carter and several coauthors.  They wrote:

The California initiative would implement a zero-tolerance policy for accidental presence of small amounts of GM substances, even if the U.S. government has approved the GM material for human consumption.

But, after reading the text of the initiative, this seems incorrect. I wrote Professor Carter to ask about this, and his brief response by email while traveling made several good points in opposition to Prop 37, but didn't really back up this claim that the initiative takes a zero-tolerance position on accidental contamination.  Essentially, opponents fear that firms will anticipate legal problems and prophylactically label their products with "may contain GMO" labels, but I cannot really find a reasonable basis for that fear in the initiative itself.

Here's a subtle but important point.  A food manufacturer with a complex ingredient list, including corn or soybean ingredients from commodity sources, may have to use a "may contain GMO" label, but that's not a policy error.  Given that most U.S. corn and soybeans are produced with GMO varieties, it really is true that such products may contain GMOs, so the label is correct.  A food manufacturer who has made reasonable effort to use non-GMO ingredients is permitted under this initiative to use a "non-GMO" label.  I really don't see any part of the initiative that requires these essentially non-GMO foods to be labeled as "may contain GMOs" merely out of caution.

There are good reasons why some people will oppose this California Prop 37.  GMO technologies may well not be dangerous to humans.  Or they may have some risks and tradeoffs, just as non-GMO foods do, that are worthwhile because of the production advantages from the new technology.  Or, as economists in particular are likely to point out, it may be that a well-crafted voluntary labeling regime would have functioned as well as mandatory labeling without as much burden on society.  Still, opponents should make those points clearly rather than mischaracterizing Prop 37.