Food Safety and Local Control

by Ginger Harris

As Sierrans we have heard the plea “eat locally,” because eating locally grown food (a) makes all regions more self-sufficient and economically diverse, (b) helps preserve biodiversity, (c) preserves pastoral landscapes and lifestyles within access of more people, (d) reduces energy consumption associated with transportation and refrigeration, and (e) reduces demand for more highway capacity and pavement (thus reduces limestone mining, cement kilns, and stormwater runoff).

Eating locally can also help protect our health. Scientists are discovering health problems based on the amounts and types of antibiotics, hormones, herbicides, pesticides, and foreign matter (e.g. genes from unrelated plants or species) our food is grown with. (See “Health risks of GE food: Dangers from …transplanted DNA,” by Hugh S. Lehman, Ph.D. atwww.sierraclub.org/biotech/whatsnew/whatsnew_2006-04-12.asp; also www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=SMI20061119&articleId=3912 about Monsanto whistle-blower.) If we buy directly from farmers, we can visit the farm, observe conditions (are animals free-range or confined?), and ask about seed-type, herbicide and pesticide use.

However, eating locally from organic, free-range farms will not necessarily protect us, because farmers who are trying to sustain a healthy family-farm lifestyle or meet the demand for free-range, organically grown, and non-genetically-modified foods are not being protected by public policy. For example, water run-off from a neighboring Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFO) can contaminate vegetables. (See sidebar “spinach.”) Organically grown grain can be contaminated by Genetically Engineered (GE) grain grown nearby and by herbicides used on neighboring fields. The Union of Concerned Scientists’ 2004 survey found traditional seeds of three major U.S. crops (corn, soybeans and canola) were already “pervasively contaminated with low levels of DNA sequences from GE varieties.” Even the Biotech Industry Organization (BIO) now acknowledges widespread contamination of a number of U.S. food crops by Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), dispelling the myth that GMO can coexist with conventional and organic food crops. No procedure will prevent pollen flow across fields. The U.S. government is now discussing how much GMO cross-contamination is acceptable to still certify as non-GMO. (See “A Growing Concern” at www.ucsusa.org/food_and_environment. Also, see Foundation on Economic Trends’ “Statement of Support for Genomics Research and Marker Assisted Selection Technology.”)

How and why is public policy inadequate?

1. The U.S. government refuses labeling of genetically modified food. In 1992 the FDA proposed to treat GE plants no differently from traditionally bred plants (thus no separate GMO labeling) and has followed this no-label policy since. Pages 53–54 of the November/December 2006 issue of Sierra magazine describes food labels of government and private associations.
2. The USDA doesn’t keep track of where GE seeds are planted, not even pharmaceutically engineered seeds that are not approved for human or animal consumption. (See sidebar “Carl Pope to USDA.”)
3. The EPA, FDA and CDC do not test the safety of GMOs even though they’ve been proven to transfer toxins and allergens from one type of organism to another; to subject us to increased levels of pesticides; and to adversely affect ecological relationships. A 1999 article for Environmental Law Institute describes the scuttling of FDA’s 1994 draft GMO notification rule, and FDA’s subsequent continuation of its 1992 GMO deregulation policy of no pre-notification and no safety testing. The Bush administration continues that policy. Also see USPIRG’s April 12, 2005 report “Raising Risk: Field Testing of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S.” atwww.gefoodalert.org/library/admin/uploadedfiles/Raising_Risk_Field_Testing_of_Genetically_Engi.pdf.
4. Politicians at federal and state levels are trying to deregulate GMOs and other unhealthy types of food production. With no hearings in eight years since first introduced, the House of Representatives passed a bill in March 2006 that would wipe out over 200 state laws on food safety without adopting additional federal standards, and would make it costly for states to enact food safety protections, says Consumers Union. Meanwhile, Missouri’s Governor Blunt pushed for making state regulation of GMOs “no stricter than” federal regulation, and removing authority from local governments to regulate GMOs. (See sidebar “GMO and pharm rice,” and www.environmentalcommons.org/gmo-tracker.html.) Missouri’s General Assembly made similar attempts to remove authority from county health departments to regulate health impacts of CAFOs. (See sidebar “spinach.”) Not to mention that this summer the USDA proposed to cut its wholly inadequate mad cow testing by another 90 percent.
5. Despite the evidence, global seed and chemical companies such as Monsanto have persuaded policy makers that GMOs will benefit poor people and won’t harm the environment, and that opponents are technophobic Luddites. (Seewww.ijoeh.com/pfds/IJOEH_1104_Patel.pdf, plus story about Monsanto whistle-blower cited above.) Most transgenic crops introduced into the fields add only two traits, resistance to pests and compatibility with herbicides, hardly the sweeping agricultural revolution touted by life science companies when the GMO era began, says the Foundation on Economic Trends (FET).

Hope amidst gloom: Marker Assisted Selection (MAS)
FET describes how MAS has made gene splicing and transgenic plants (GMOs) not only obsolete but also a serious impediment to scientific progress. Instead of splicing molecules to transfer genes among unrelated species, scientists are starting to use genetic mapping to quickly locate desired traits in related plants at the gamete or seedling stage, then cross breed them using traditional techniques. With MAS, breeding of new varieties remains within a species, thus greatly reducing environmental and health risks of GMOs.

FET warns that continued introduction of GM crops endangers MAS technology by contaminating plant varieties, leaving less pure biodiversity. MAS relies on preserving heirloom varieties and landraces and protecting wild relatives of food crops to ensure that a diverse pool of valuable traits is available to crop breeders. Cleaning up GMO contamination could prove as troublesome and expensive as cleaning up computer software viruses.

In another analogy to computers, FET says plant breeders now talk about sharing genomic information just as Linux and other “open source” computer software proponents successfully share computer code. Thus, sustainable agriculture enthusiasts question the secret patent protection biotech companies now rely on to maintain their control over the world’s seed stocks.

For a good background on GMO issues, see Sierra Club Genetic Engineering Committee’s Report of April 2000 (revised March 2001), “Genetic Engineering at a Historic Crossroads.”