Stephanie Phillips, Associate Editor
Ideology: Environmentalist | Writing From: Portland, Oregon
One of the greatest sources of energy consumption in the human lifestyle is food consumption. All food takes energy and water to grow, energy to harvest, energy to process, and energy to transport.
Considering this, just as it is important to understand the source and effect of the energy behind the light switch, it is important to understand the source and effect behind the food in the local grocery store. The topic of food gets very little play in the United States – we are a very well fed country, with the supply and infrastructure to provide a wide variety of foods to the majority of our citizens. Because of this, we think very little about the politics of food. Yet, it is a highly political world, and continues to get more and more so as technology in production advances.
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
Probably the most controversial food politics issue in the United States right now is the presence of genetically modified organisms in food, and the transparency and ownership issues that come along with it.
I recently read that the Grocery Manufacturers of America estimate that between 70 percent and 75 percent of all processed foods available in US grocery stores may contain ingredients from GMOs. There is absolutely no way to be sure, however, because there is no indication on any labels.
GMOs – a background:
For those not familiar with the GMO issue, for many years now scientists have been able to use genetic technology in agriculture, allowing farmers to design super crops, relieving them of many of the problems that have plagued them for centuries. Crops can now be made able to stand hotter or colder temperatures, resist disease, stay fresh longer and secrete their own insecticides. Frequently, they are built to be immune to popular pesticide products, so that when sprayed with these products, every other living organism is killed and the crop can flourish.
There are thousands of ways to go about altering plant genes. Different genes that express undesirable traits can be removed, or altered. Genes from another plant or another species altogether can be added to a crop’s genetic sequence to improve its overall performance. In general, these practices have been wildly successful and now make up a huge proportion of our conala, corn and soy crops, which are used as the basis for corn products and oils found in the majority of processed foods in the United States. Much of our produce is also altered to resist disease and pests.
Is this bad?
Most scientists say no, as does the US government. There have been no proven harms, in fact generally people don’t even notice. If anything these crops might taste better or have a longer shelf life. After all, farmers have been cross-breeding crops for millennia to improve them – cross breeding different types of apples to improve flavors, breeding different species in hopes that one will be more resistant to certain insects, etc. Many skeptics argue, however, that there is no way to be sure what the long-term effects will be of so dramatically altering natural processes. The scale and breadth of alteration currently going on is unprecedented and could never occur outside of a lab.
Two political issues with GMOs:
GMOs are not necessarily bad or good. However, they are associated with two controversial political issues. These are issues that all consumers should be aware of when forming an opinion on GMO presence in food.
Transparency:
In many countries around the world, the uncertainties associated with GMOs have been dealt with by allowing the consumer to decide what she wants to eat. In the EU, for example, when GM ingredients are present in a food product, this must be clearly indicated in the ingredients list, giving the customer the freedom to decide if this matters.
In the United States, however, the FDA has stated that labeling is not necessary, concluding in essence that GMOs are innocent until proven guilty. Good principle, in general, but maybe not in relation to our food. If there are any effects of these alterations, it is possible we will not know for many years. Those who wish to exercise caution should at least have the right to choose.
The FDA does not forbid labeling of course, but no corporation that regularly uses the technology does it on their own. There is fear of uneducated paranoia and product boycott. There is also fear than an extra expense from labeling will be passed onto consumers. There is so much resistance, in fact, that every local effort to label in the United States has been met with a great deal of corporate criticism, and anti-labeling law campaigns have been funded in great part by GMO giants like Monsanto and General Mills.
Ownership:
Another controversial political issue associated with GMOs is ownership. In order to profit off of this technology, large agro-giants have sought intellectual property ownership rights. For most forms of innovation, this is a basic status quo that has worked well. However, in the world of food politics, ownership over genetic technology requires actually owning life, which has the potential to lead down a slippery slope.
If a company like Monsanto alters a crop’s genes to be immune to a pesticide, naturally they want to be able to profit off of this technology every time it is utilized. Therefore, they seek a patent over that unique technology and sell the seed containing it as a product. With that patent, they then own that entire genetic concept.
The problem with this is that once that seed enters the US food crop supply, it is impossible to isolate. No one can control the wind or the movement of animals transporting seeds. If one farmer enters into a seed contract with Monsanto, for example, over time, his crop will mix with the neighbor’s seed and their neighbor’s seed, etc. Due to patenting laws however, Monsanto continues to own that genetic technology wherever it is used. Thus the second it mixes with the neighbors seeds and becomes present in that seed’s genes, Monsanto owns that seed, even though there was never a contract.
There have been multiple cases where companies have exercised their right over this ownership, testing the seeds of farms nearby to those with contracts, and then suing neighboring farmers for patent infringement – after finding the presence of their unique technology.
Property laws are highly valued in the United States and in Canada, and companies have won lawsuits, forcing farmers to destroy their seed. Over time, if this precedent continues, as seeds continue to mix, genetic modification giants could own the rights to all forms of food growth in the United States, regardless of where it is occurring or by who.
It is important to understand where our food comes from and to form opinions about the impact of what we are ingesting. Personally, I think Genetic Modification is a fascinating science, and on the whole I am not bothered by its presence in some of my food. That said, however, I still want to know. I want the label and the ability to understand what I’m eating. I also want to know how its presence in food is changing the face of farming. Further, I value the freedom to grow a garden and collect the seed from my crops to grow again. I do not believe this right should be owned by a corporation and I would like to see our government act to stop this trend.
Finally! Such a good article Ms. Philips, I’m so glad to see this kind of level headed reasoning here.
I think bio-engineering our food is an inevitable outcome and not necessarily a bad one but there are some caveats — I am especially disturbed at absolutely huge companies like Monsanto literally patenting life. And I think we (the US) should definitely start labeling our foods better.
I don’t really expect there to be any major problems with genetically altered food stuffs (in fact I think there are some serious benefits). And it’s so great to see a conversation about GMOs that doesn’t devolve into some tinfoil hat convention, mumbling drunkenly about hormones and pesticide. I think our habit of consuming essentially non-food items (twinkies anybody?) and passing them off as real food is more worrisome than eating a tomato designed to last a bit longer.
Getting into the madness of our food industry is another topic, however
Anyway, great article. Glad to see it.
It is a decent article that touches on the high-points but doesn’t reflect the fact that GMOs exist solely for the profit of multinational chemical/Agricultural corporations. No farmer, housewife, greengrocer, chef or consumer asked for them, wanted them or wanted to pay for them.
Certainly the hundreds of thousands of peasant farmers who committed suicide after buying into Mosanto’s GMO nightmare and losing their ancestral farms and watching their families starve to death as the plants from the miracle seeds withered in the drought as the farmers who kept to traditional methods and seeds did well at first until their crop was contaminated with the pollen from GM plants.
nosmokes,
What about the MILLIONS if not BILLIONS of poor third-world people saved by genetic engineering when Norman Borlaug invented his disease resistant wheat?
nosmokes – “hundreds of thousands of peasant farmers who committed suicide” ????? Do you have any back up for this claim?
“the plants from the miracle seeds withered in the drought” The modified seeds/plants are significantly more drought resistant, I doubt this claim also.
GMOs exist solely for the profit of multinational chemical/Agricultural corporations. No farmer, housewife, greengrocer, chef or consumer asked for them” GMO plants exist because demand for food from the world’s limited arable land far outstripped supply. The large corporations you disdain have provided a product that keeps food prices lower and feeds STARVING people the world over.
It is unfounded claims like yours that cause confusion and resistance to increasing yields from present land. Increased yield is the only answer to feeding a rapidly increasing population, especially in the developing world. Check your facts.
Also, labelling of GMO is impossible as the food transportation chain is at its maximum right now. Creating a segregated transport chain for non-GMO is a pipe dream that can not occur.
Dear Stephanie: My gasoline, and now my food. There used to be a free and open market in these things(with no worries!) and somehow our Grannies and Grandpees survived to old age. But now with all of the manufactured worries(the Earth is warming!, the Earth is warming!) and “Somebody engineered my food!” I can’t eat an Arby’s without wondering if it’s bad for me. Please–you can have smoking, everybody knows that kills you. But lay off my gastank and my dinner table.
Would that your energies and concern would be turned to our real enemies!
As to a “GMO,” I simply cannot abide one more three-letter concern. DDT, ABC, NBC, CBS, FAA, DOT, ATF, CNBC, FTC, BBC, AIG, AMC, AC/DC, EPA, DNA, FBI, CIA, DEA, DFW, LAX, NRA, NASA, SAT, IRS,
News flash…..
If anyone actually cared if they were eating genetically modified food, it’d already be on the label. If genetically modified food harmed even one person that resulted in a lawsuit with a large damage award or settlement, it’d be on the label already.
If you have to mandate that they put a label on it, it seems that there could be three reasons why something ought to have a label and doesn’t. One is that the product is harmful, but people are ignorant of that fact, buy it anyway, and thus never know they’re eating a harmful food. The other is that it is actually harmless, the entire discussion is a waste of time, and putting a label on the product would be a waste of money and create unnecessary and unwarranted skepticism about their product, giving them an unfair position against their competitors. The third is the one you seem to suggest, that it is unknown if there are any long-term effects to this technology, and as such, they choose to leave out any explicit labeling as to not create panic.
No matter what, there will be a social cost to requiring labeling and enforcing that requirement. Will there be any gain? If you’re really right that it is unknown whether these things are harmful, I find the argument that there will be any gain to labeling as entirely unpersuasive. If nobody knows whether anyone has been harmed by the food OR NOT, even if everyone knew exactly what they were eating, there’d be absolutely no gain in utility, because they have no way of knowing if the fact that their food has been modified is good, bad, or indifferent.
The only people who are pushing for this (to my knowledge) are the organic food makers, who, of course, want to create a giant corporate enterprise just like their competitors. Requiring labeling on genetically modified food *might* encourage some people to have an irrational fear of the food, and thus choose an organic food instead. Of course, organic foods are more expensive, and the producers of organic food hope to gain from this irrationality. Since all demand is based, initially, on consumer preference, if they can get the government to require labeling, they’re hoping it will increase consumers’ preference for their goods.
So, while it may seem virtuous for us college students to protest and scream “Label the food,” ultimately, the only reason anyone gives a rat’s ass is because just like the same huge corporations who make our food (Tyson, for example), other large food interests (the organic farming movement) wants an unfair advantage against their competitors.
So, this is just another example of crony capitalism and corporatism at its finest. The organic food corporations love the fact that a young, college-educated woman is labeling herself an “environmentalist” and is thus arguing for a policy that will enhance their bottom line. Do you think they care if you want the label on their competitor’s food or not? Hell no. They just want to pad their pockets….and here you are making it easy for them.
Grassroots effort, big corporate profit. That’s their dream, and you’re handing it to them on a silver platter.