Oregon's GMO Labeling Battle: One Week to Go

First of all: please vote.

Second? Vote, dammit!

Okay, now that we have that out of the way: My family voted last week, as we usually do, sitting around the dining room table after dinner with the voter's pamphlet and our ballots, pointing at the ridiculous pictures ("Look, a pirate's running for Representative. Awesome!"), decoding the screamy endorsements then dropping our ballots off at the local public library. So now I'm going to jump into the fray and tell you why I voted for Measure 92 to require labeling of products containing genetically modified ingredients.

Luckily we only watch television shows online, so aren't subjected to the overwhelming barrage of ads talking about how the earth is going to spin backwards on its axis and life as we know it will end if the measure does or does not pass. (Though the barrage of ads for pharmaceuticals, cars and cleaning products have nearly the same deadening effect.) And since I'm not going to out my family members here, I'll just talk about my own reasons.

My first reason is, of course, a selfish one. I want to know what goes into the food I buy and feed my own family. For me, labeling will help me make decisions about which products I want to buy and which I'd rather not purchase. Labels like "certified organic" and certification from the Non-GMO Project help me to know what I'm thinking about buying, but getting those certifications is voluntary and costs a lot of money. Companies that don't want to disclose that information simply don't have to, hiding behind other labels like "natural" or "sustainable."

Now, my own feelings about what I feed my family shouldn't be the standard for the rest of the world (though everyone would be so much better off if they'd just listen to me), but, as is pointed out in a Washington Post article titled "The GMO Debate: 5 Things to Stop Arguing About," there's my concern that the use of genetically modified crops in agriculture has caused an increase of tsunami-like proportions in the use of pesticides, and that "we need to start building more transparency into our agricultural system so consumers can vote with their wallets for the kind of system they want to see." Amen.

Further, an article by Tom Philpott in Mother Jones magazine said that in a just-released paper published in the peer-reviewed Environmental Sciences Europe, by Chuck Benbrook, research professor at Washington State University's Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources, "GMO technology 'drove up herbicide use by 527 million pounds, or about 11 percent, between 1996 (when [Monsanto’s] Roundup Ready crops first hit farm fields) and 2011.'" The article continues: “But then weeds started to develop resistance to Roundup, pushing farmers to apply higher per-acre rates. In 2002, farmers using Roundup Ready soybeans jacked up their Roundup application rates by 21 percent, triggering a 19 million pound overall increase in Roundup use."

And “by 2011, farms using Roundup Ready seeds were using 24 percent more herbicide than non-GMO farms planting the same crops," Benbrook is quoted as saying. By that time, "'in all three crops [corn, soy, and cotton], resistant weeds had fully kicked in,' Benbrook said, and farmers were responding both by ramping up use of Roundup and resorting to older, more toxic herbicides like 2,4-D."

All those pesticides don't just disappear in a puff of non-toxic smoke. They're seeping into the soil and the groundwater, washing into our rivers and streams, being blown by the wind and carried by birds, insects and passing traffic and ending up in the oceans. Not to mention that genetically modified crops can cross-pollinate with organic crops of the same species, potentially costing organic farmers their certification, as well as a loss of income from that contaminated crop.

If I can help to stem this tide of pesticides and other damages by filling my grocery bag with products that don't contain genetically modified organisms, then I'd like to do that. But first those products would have to be labeled, wouldn't they?

More reading:

"More Money, Fewer Facts: Final Week of Oregon's GMO Labeling Race" by Hannah Wallace truth-checks some claims being bandied about in commercials and materials.

Top photo from Oregon Right to Know.

Getting Schooled

"Cucurbits were bottle-necked a long time ago."*

- John Navazio, senior plant breeder, Organic Seed Alliance

There were moments during last week's Organicology conference, as when I heard the comment above, that I felt like I was seriously in over my head. And not just because there were seminars titled "Fertilizers and Amendments for Organic Farming: Making Sustainable Choices" and "Sustainable Business Performance Measurement Tools and Reporting."

Fortunately for me, there were other topics available, too, on organic seed production (with seed guy and rabble-rouser Frank Morton, left) and the farmer-chef connection (with the irrepressible A. Boutard).

But it was definitely targeted to those seriously committed to organic and sustainable practices, with the initial keynote from Claire Hope Cummings, author of Uncertain Peril: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Seeds.

The second was from writer and journalist Paul Roberts (right), whose book The End of Food says that, because living systems can't be industrialized or commodified, our current food system is doomed to fail. And I loved it when he tweaked this very committed crowd when he stated that there has to be room to acknowledge those who may not be completely organic in their practices but are moving away from conventional methods, like the farmer who has reduced his use of pesticides and fertilizers by 70%. You could have heard a pin drop!

The final word was left to Vandana Shiva (top and left), a leader in the struggle for global justice and author of Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace, as she laid out the case against the corporatization and privatization of our genetic heritage as it is expressed through seeds and culture. She believes that the ability of farmers to save their own seed is absolutely necessary for local, sustainable economies to be nurtured. And you should have seen some of the grown men crowding around after her talk and getting their "fan boy" pictures taken with her!

After three days, all I can say is that there are some truly exciting people on both sides of the plow, the pen and the plate, and I hope to be letting you know more about them in the near future. In the meantime, I'll pass on a few of my favorite bits from my notes:

• At breakfast the first day, I knew it was a different sort of gathering when I saw hot maple amaranth and a tofu scramble on the steam table.
• Spinach plants mature and can bolt quickly because of daylight, not heat (though heat can facilitate the process)
• Flowering plants arrived much later than other types (like ferns) but evolved much more quickly because of their ability to produce seeds
• The number of silks on an ear of corn is equal to the number of kernels on that ear, and the silk is the stamen of the plant, (i.e. a hollow tube that carries pollen)
• Seed companies grow little or none of their own seed, though they may do trialing (or testing) of the seeds they sell
• All canola labeled "non-GMO" is contaminated with genetically modified organisms
• According to Ken Roseboro of the Non-GMO Project in Eugene, "92% of soybeans, 73% of corn and 87% of cotton is GMO"
• The key to sustainability is developing relationships. With food, that means seed growers building connections with farmers, who connect with food producers and consumers who then connect to their larger communities and the world.

Too pie-in-the-sky? If you believe these folks, not if we take it one decision at a time, one day at a time.

* "Cucurbitaceae is a plant family commonly known as melons, gourds or cucurbits and includes crops like cucumbers, squashes (including pumpkins), luffas, melons and watermelons. The family is predominantly distributed around the tropics, where those with edible fruits were amongst the earliest cultivated plants in both the Old and New Worlds." - Wikipedia