Full list: Agriculture in the News

by Corin Hirsch
November 8, 2012
Full Article and Videos

While a tide of blue helped push Barack Obama into a second term, legalize gay marriage in three states, and green-light recreational marijuana use in a few others, not all election results were cause for Democratic swooning this week.

In California, voters rejected Proposition 37 — a ballot initiative that would have required mandatory labeling of foods that contain genetically-engineered ingredients. The measure, backed by organic farmers, natural food purveyors and people concerned with what they eat, was defeated by a margin of 53 to 47.

The victory for the No-on-37 supporters likely stemmed from their unrelenting media blitz in the state, such as the commercial above — it implies that the bill would financially burden farmers and result in higher food prices.

It was funded by the Coalition Against the Deceptive Food Labeling Scheme, an apparent coterie of farmers and food purveyors, though one funded by Monsanto Company, Cargill, ConAgra Foods, Unilever, Bayer CropScience, Syngenta  and other firms with significant stakes in genetically-modified crops, herbicides, and pesticides. (Kraft, Coca-Cola, Kellogg Company, Land O’Lakes were also all backers).

In the end, proponents of prop 37 failed to counter the barrage of negative advertising against the measure. For instance, No-on-37 supporters cited its absurdity by pointing out that dog food containing beef would require a GMO label, yet beef for human consumption would not; however, cows have yet to be genetically engineered. (The measure exempted animals fed with GMO-ingredients, and also exempted anything without a current label, such as alcohol and restaurant foods).

Yet the labelling of GMO foods continues to concern consumers. In California alone, supporters collected a million signatures to get it on the ballot, and a slew of national polls by Reuters, MSNBC and other have shown that upwards of 90 percent of people support mandatory labeling. Similar initiatives are inching ahead in Connecticut and Washington state. So with Prop 37 dead in California, will Vermont become the first state to require labelling of GMOS?

Last year, Rep. Kate Webb of Shelburne was the lead sponsor of a bill requiring mandatory labels, the “VT Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act.” Monsanto threatened to sue the state of Vermont if it was passed. Though the bill was approved by the House Agriculture Committee by a vote of 9 to 1, it wasn’t in time to make it to the floor before the end of the legislative session. So supporters need to start over from scratch next year.

And they are. This January, when the legislature slugs back into session, supporters of the VT Right to Know GMO Coalition — including the Vermont Public Interest Research Group, the Northeast Farming Association of Vermont and Rural Vermont — hope to reintroduce a slightly tweaked, but similar, bill.

“I think Vermont has a great opportunity to lead on this issue,” says Falko Schilling, VPIRG’s consumer protection advocate. “We’ve been working with a larger national coalition, and so are planning to move full steam ahead.”

Schilling and others are talking with legislators to craft a new bill in time for the new session. But with some legislators opposed to it — and with Gov. Peter Shumlin on record saying such a bill might not withstand a constitutional challenge — it’s anybody’s guess how stalwart Vermont will be in its support. With the porousness of state borders, a mandatory labelling bill passed anywhere, even tiny Vermont, would have implications nationwide; any company selling food within Vermont’s borders, for instance, would have to comply.

In a fall op-ed supporting GMO labels, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman wrote, “as goes California, so goes the nation.” As Vermont vies with California as a leader in transparency with regards to food, it will be interesting to see if we claim the lead.

By ANDREW POLLACK
November 7, 2012
Full Article

LOS ANGELES — Advocates for the labeling of genetically modified food vowed to carry their fight to other states and to the federal government after suffering a defeat in California on Tuesday.

A ballot measure that would have made California the first state in the nation to require such labeling was defeated, 53.1 percent to 46.9 percent. Support for the initiative, which polls said once was greater than 60 percent, crumbled over the last month under a barrage of negative advertisements paid for by food and biotechnology companies.

The backers of the measure, known as Proposition 37, said on Wednesday that they were encouraged it had garnered 4.3 million votes, even though they were outspent about five-to-one by opponents. They are now gathering signatures to place a similar measure on the ballot in Washington State next year.

Declaring that more than four million Californians are “on record believing we have a right to know what is in our food,” Dave Murphy, co-chairman of the Proposition 37 campaign and executive director of Food Democracy Now!, an advocacy group, said on Wednesday: “We fundamentally believe this is a dynamic moment for the food movement and we’re going forward.”

Still, there is no doubt the defeat in California has robbed the movement of some momentum. Until Tuesday’s vote, labeling proponents had been saying that a victory in California, not a defeat, would spur action in other states and at the federal level.

The election in California was closely watched because it had national implications. It could have led to a reduction in the use of genetically modified crops, which account for more than 80 percent of the corn, soybeans and sugar beets grown in the United States. That is because food companies, fearing that some consumers would shun products labeled genetically engineered, would instead reformulate their products to avoid such ingredients.

With so much at stake, food and biotechnology companies amassed $46 million to defeat the measure, according to MapLight, an organization that tracks campaign contributions. Monsanto, the largest supplier of genetically engineered seeds, contributed $8.1 million. Kraft Foods, PepsiCo and Coca-Cola each contributed at least $1.7 million.

The backers of Proposition 37 raised only $9.2 million, mainly from the organic and natural foods business.

The proponents argued that people have a right to know what is in their food. They said that genetically engineered crops have not been adequately tested and that dozens of countries require labeling.

The Food and Drug Administration does not require labeling of a food just because it is genetically modified, saying there is no material difference between such foods and their conventional counterparts.

Some backers of labeling will shift their focus to Washington, hoping to get the F.D.A. to change its mind and require labeling.

“We think that attention is now going to shift back to Washington, with a whole lot more to discuss and a whole lot more people interested,” said Gary Hirshberg, the chairman of Stonyfield, an organic yogurt company.

Mr. Hirshberg is also chairman of Just Label It, a group that submitted a petition with more than one million signatures to the F.D.A. asking it to require labeling. So far, however, the F.D.A. has shown little propensity to overturn its policy. And bills in Congress to require labeling have failed to gain much support.

Proposition 37 has no doubt raised awareness, however, which might prompt some consumers to seek foods that do not contain genetically engineered ingredients.

“Everything you buy in the grocery is a vote,” said Sara Hadden of Hermosa Beach, who organized street-corner rallies in favor of Proposition 37. “That’s the vote that really counts.”

One question is whether food firms, having narrowly escaped a disruption of their business on Tuesday, will make changes on their own — like voluntarily labeling or reducing their use of genetically modified crops.

“Frankenfood”, “The Case Against Frankenfood”, “GMOs and Allergies, Irritable Bowels, and Birth Defects”"Bitter Seeds: The Human Toll of GMOs”, “The underlying Weeds: Hooked on Pesticides”, “How to Get GMOs off your Plate”, and “The Anti-GMO Tipping Point”
How Genetically modified (GM) foods are taking over our food industry and wreaking havoc on our bodies, family farmers, and the planet.
April/May 2012
Full series of articles available here.

Support for Proposition 37, which seeks to label genetically engineered food in the state, has plummeted in the last month, a Times/USC Dornsife poll finds.
By Marc Lifsher
October 25, 2012
Full Article

SACRAMENTO — Once riding high, Proposition 37, the statewide ballot measure to label genetically engineered foods, has seen its voter support plummet during the last month, and a new poll shows the high-stakes battle now is a dead heat.

After a barrage of negative television advertisements financed by a $41-million opposition war chest, a USC Dornsife / Los Angeles Times poll released Thursday showed 44% of surveyed voters backing the initiative and 42% opposing it. A substantial slice of the electorate, 14%, remains undecided or unwilling to take a position.

Alfred Ballabio, 24, of Santa Barbara told pollsters he favored the measure because he “can’t imagine people not wanting to know” what’s in their food. But the employee of his family’s Santa Barbara wholesale meat and fish business said he’s concerned that the negative advertising could contribute to Proposition 37′s defeat.

The initiative, if approved, would make California the first state to require labels on genetically engineered crops or processed foods, such as most corn, soybeans, sugar beets and Hawaiian papayas. It would require labels on supermarket shelves, food packages or produce bins.

Proposition 37 spokeswoman Stacy Malkan was unruffled by the poll results and said the campaign plans to launch its own television advertising campaign this week.

“We’re still in the game. Our polls show that when people see our messages — that people have a right to know what’s in their food — the yes votes go back up,” she said. “We’re going to raise as much money as we can to get our message out to voters.”

The opposition campaign is being bankrolled by biotech giants such as Monsanto Co. and food and soft drink manufacturers, including Coca-Cola Co., Pepsico Inc. and Nestle USA Inc. It’s saturating broadcast and cable television with a series of television spots featuring doctors, scientists and farmers criticizing Proposition 37. The spots hammer Proposition 37 for using alleged non-scientific scare tactics, providing confusing exemptions of certain foods and potentially driving up grocery costs.

With $41 million in contributions, opponents have plenty of financial resources to keep pounding voters with negative messages about Proposition 37., while proponents have reported $6.7 million in contributions, most of which has come from organic food growers, retailers and consumer groups as well as Mercola.com Health Resources, a privately held Illinois company that operates a “natural health” website, and Kent Whealy, the founder of the Seed Savers Exchange, a nonprofit organization that seeks to preserve seeds for heirloom plants.

The opposition advertising is paying off, said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and former Republican political strategist. “The challenge for the opposition is to convince voters there are economic consequences involved here. It appears they are in the process of doing that.”

Op-Ed By Ron Krupp
October 24, 2012

Rod Smith
10/3/2012
Full Article

Another campaign against foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) has materialized now that a Washington couple that consumes only an organic, vegan diet has filed an initiative that asks the state’s legislature to require GMO labels on such foods.

The couple, Chris and Leah McManus in Tacoma, Wash., filed the initiative, I-522, after state lawmakers let GMO labeling legislation die earlier this year.

They need to collect about 250,000 signatures from Washington voters by mid-January to force the legislature to reconsider the matter, and should the legislature not enact some sort of GMO labeling law, the initiative then would go to voters in November next year.

Farther down the West Coast, California voters will act on Proposition 37 (Prop 37) in the election this fall (Feedstuffs, June 18). Prop 37 would require GMO labels on certain foods and beverages made with genetically modified ingredients.

Opponents of the California and Washington measures point to how the American Medical Assn., Food & Drug Administration, National Academy of Sciences and World Health Organization have said foods made with GMOs are safe and do not require special labels.

Still, a Los Angeles Times-Dornsife poll shows that 61% of registered voters in California favor Prop 37.

I-522 and Prop 37 supporters maintain that consumers have a right to know if their food contains GMOs.