Courts force U.S. reckoning with dominance of GM crops

Paul Voosen, New York Times (Oct. 8, 2009), writes that 90% of U.S. soy and cotton crops are genetically engineered (GM crops).  In addition, 85% of the corn crop is also genetically engineered, and it is found throughout the food system. 

     “These crops are safe to eat. The science on that is unequivocal, even in Europe, where a moratorium on new GM crops has existed for a decade. And by most accounts, GM crops have been an economic benefit to farmers, simplifying field maintenance and reducing the number of hands needed for weeding.

     “But as these crops have come to dominate the agricultural landscape, farmers who eschew their growing -- for ethical, organic or trade reasons -- have found themselves at a loss, frustrated by regulators and the majority of fellow farmers who have accepted GM crops as the new normal. . . . For the past two decades, the government has argued "essentially that there's no difference between a GM crop and its nonmodified sibling," said Alison Peck, a law professor at West Virginia University.

     "’Their arguments all sort of flowed from this presumption -- that these two kinds of crops are fungible,’ Peck said.

     “Two recent decisions out of the Northern District of California are the first-time acknowledgement by any federal entity of a difference between GM and non-GM crops, Peck said. The latest ruling, on the GM sugar beets of Willamette Valley, came down late last month and will move into the remedy phase at the end of this month. Both rulings -- the first, upheld several times on appeal, came down in 2007 -- found the regulatory apparatus used by the Department of Agriculture severely lacking. USDA, along with the Food and Drug Administration and U.S. EPA, oversees GM crops, using jury-rigged laws written well before the invention of biotechnology. Unlike Japan, Europe or even Russia, the United States has never passed legislation on GM crops.”

     USDA came to view GE and non-GE crops as identical, fungible. If the farmer wanted to keep GE-genes out of their field, it was that farmer’s burden to provide for buffer zones and other measures to keep out pollen drift. This could have serious economic consequences for organic and other non-GE farmers.

     To make the point about keeping out pollen, Voosen makes a interesting comparison to cattle ranching. “In the eastern part of the United States, traditionally, farmers have been obliged to fence in cattle. In the West, meanwhile, landowners are required to fence out roaming herds. The same distinctions apply to crops. Europe has been busy erecting a complex regulatory apparatus requiring farmers to ‘fence in’ their GM crops with isolation distances and liability funds. With no regulations, the United States has in effect required non-GM farmers to ‘fence out’ GM crops, placing the economic burden on conventional farming.”

  A copy of Judge Jeffrey S. White order in Center for Food Safety, et al. v. Thomas J. Vilsack, et al., is available here.

USDA/APHIS Comment Period for Proposed Rule on Genetically Engineered Organisms

The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has asked for comment on its proposal to revise APHIS regulations on the importation, interstate movement, and environmental release of genetically engineered organisms (74 Fed. Reg. 2907 (Jan. 16, 2009)).  APHIS requested comment on the following four issues:

(1) Scope of the regulation and which [Genetically Engineered (“GE”)]  organisms should be regulated;

(2) Incorporation into APHIS regulations of the Plant Protection Act’s noxious weed authority;

(3) Elimination of notification procedure and revision of the permit procedure;

(4) Environmental release permit categories and regulation of GE crops that produce pharmaceutical and industrial compounds.

APHIS is planning for April public meeting(s), but the dates of the meeting(s) are yet to be announced.  APHIS is also extending the comment period for the proposed rule until 60 days after the April meeting(s).

Comments may be sent postal or commercial delivery (two copies) to Docket No. APHIS-2008-0023, Regulatory Analysis and Development, PPD, APHIS, Station 3A-03.8, 4700 River Road, Unit 118, Riverdale, MD 20737-1238.  Comments may also be submitted on the Federal eRulemaking portal.

In Lean Times, Biotech Grains Are Less Taboo

       People tend to magnify their concerns over risks when there is no practical cost to doing so. Similarly, when there is no direct burden to them, people tend to take “better safe than sorry” as their overarching principle.

       This approach makes sense in many situations. Unfortunately, this shorthand approach creates the illusion that real risk assessment has been applied. When there is no personal stake in the costs, for example, benefits are overlooked and risks and benefits are not balanced.

       With rising food prices and grain shortages looming, perhaps we will see more balanced assessments of genetic modifications.

     Andrew Pollack of the NY Times wrote recently,

Soaring food prices and global grain shortages are bringing new pressures on governments, food companies and consumers to relax their longstanding resistance to genetically engineered crops.

In Japan and South Korea, some manufacturers for the first time have begun buying genetically engineered corn for use in soft drinks, snacks and other foods. Until now, to avoid consumer backlash, the companies have paid extra to buy conventionally grown corn. But with prices having tripled in two years, it has become too expensive to be so finicky. . . .

Cloned Food - Son of Frankenfood?

From an interesting article in The Economist, Son of Frankenfood?:

“IT IS beyond our imagination to even find a theory that would cause the food to be unsafe.” With that ringing endorsement, Stephen Sundlof, the chief food-safety expert at America's Food and Drug Administration (FDA), this week declared food derived from the offspring of cloned cows, pigs and goats to be safe for human consumption. The decision came just days after the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) publicly reached the same conclusion. . . . [Emphasis added.]

Nonetheless, there seem to be lingering innuendo that cloned food may be unsafe. For example, take the untrue statement from the (inappropriately named) Center for Food Safety, “In January 2008, the FDA essentially told the public that the meat and milk from cloned livestock are safe for human consumption. FDA's action flies in the face of widespread scientific concern about the risks of food from clones . . .” http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/cloned_animals.cfm.

Can anyone think of a remotely plausible theory or scenario that would cause the food to be unsafe?