A Taste of Wellness for Savoury and Snacks
Givaudan
Vilsack’s call comes after another year of litigation involving the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), in which the Center for Food Safety among others won federal court cases banning the planting of GM alfalfa and GM sugar beets, both supplied by Monsanto. The Supreme Court allowed continued planting of GM alfalfa while the USDA prepared an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which it completed in mid-December, following years of litigation.
And a federal court in San Francisco has ordered that GM sugar beets be uprooted on similar grounds, although a court of appeals decision has delayed their destruction until March at least.
Vilsack said in the letter that he is confident in the USDA’s regulatory system for approving crop safety, saying that its decisions are science-based and “science strongly supports the safety of GE alfalfa” – although he also acknowledged that farmers of non-GM alfalfa have legitimate concerns about cross-pollination.
“Litigation will potentially lead to the courts deciding who gets to farm their way and who will be prevented from doing so,” he wrote. “Regrettably, what the criticism we have received on our GE alfalfa approach suggests, is how comfortable we have become with litigation – with one side winning and one side losing – and how difficult it is to pursue compromise.
“Surely, there is a better way, a solution that acknowledges agriculture's complexity, while celebrating and promoting its diversity. By continuing to bring stakeholders together in an attempt to find common ground where the balanced interests of all sides could be advanced, we at USDA are striving to lead an effort to forge a new paradigm based on coexistence and cooperation. If successful, this effort can ensure that all forms of agriculture thrive so that food can remain abundant, affordable, and safe.”
Science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety Bill Freese told FoodNavigator-USA.com that he was impressed by what he sees as Vilsack’s genuine concern for farmers, but said GM and non-GM crop coexistence is particularly difficult for alfalfa.
“Everyone sounds reasonable but when push comes to shove, if there’s no liability, it’s just words,” Freese said.
8 comments (Comments are now closed)
Re: Comment posted by Alex Avery, Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issuesute
Wikipedia: "The Hudson Institute's IRS Form 990 for the financial year ending on September 30, 2003 showed total revenue of $9.34 million, including over $146,000 in government grants. Although several of the organizations listed below no longer exist, some of the funding sources listed in the institute's 2002 annual report include:
Ag Processing Inc
American Crop Protection Association
American Cyanamid
Archer Daniels Midland
Cargill
Ciba-Geigy
ConAgra Foods
Conrad Black
CropLife International
DowElanco
DuPont
Eli Lilly and Company
Exxon Mobil
Fannie Mae
General Electric Fund
Heinz
IBM
Lilly Endowment
McDonald's
Merck
Microsoft
Monsanto
National Agricultural Chemical Association
Nichols-Dezenhall Communications Management Group
Novartis
PayPal
PhRMA
PriceWaterhouseCoopers
Procter & Gamble
Sunkist Growers
Syngenta Crop Protection
United Agri Products
Westfield Corporation"
Self explanatory.....
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Posted by Iwona
11 January 2011 | 18h21
Genetic contamination IS a big deal
Genetic contaminaton (of organic stock by GMO stock) IS a big deal - for several obvious reasons:
1. The essential reputation of the organic foods industry is grounded in the purity of its stock and methods. A legal atmosphere that tolerates contamination is an invitation to wage war on the organic industry, while saying "Aw shucks, it's just an act of God." God didn't develop GMO plants and put them in the ground, Monsanto and its ilk did.
2. Because of current patent law (why should life forms be patentable?), organic farmers can be and are sued by GMO producers when their crops are contaminated. This is adding insult to injury - or is it injury to injury - since the contamination is damaging to their business in the first place. Victoms or contamination are just that - victoms.
3. Economic and industry interests aside, we need to preserve genetic diversity, as a buffer against agricultural calamities - both foreseen and not foreseen. Genetic diversity can only help us as a species, it cannot hurt. Elimination of genetic diversity can only hurt us.
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Posted by Cassandra
11 January 2011 | 15h27
Genes do not compromise
"Compromise"? "Celebrate" agriculture's "diversity"? Oh, PLEASE! One can almost smell the desperation in Vilsack's (nee Monsanto's) new attempt to shut the conscious consumer the hell up.
Genes do not compromise. The ones that can best propagate themselves given the environmental matrix in which they land, win. And the American government is doing its utmost to create a matrix in which GE takes all. Damn the end results to the consumers, the environment and even the engineered life forms themselves - increasing profit and control for the gene "owners" is ALL that counts.
If we really wanted to make food abundant and affordable, we would focus on developing low-impact organic farming (think Fukuoka's methods), putting our unemployed population to work on clean farms, eating more veg and a lot less meat (or none at all), and consider keeping our population in balance with what sustainable farmland can reasonably supply.
But of course, pouring huge quantities of scarce tax payer dollars into propping up a system that uses prodigious quantities of non-renewable energy resources to figure out how to produce new crops that are hugely energy-intensive, and which spin off all sorts of problems that are incredibly difficult to manage, is just so much easier.
Or, maybe not? At any rate, despite Mr. Vilsack's politically-correct politspeak, there will be no compromise from THIS organic consumer!
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Posted by Informed consumer
06 January 2011 | 19h13
Label it?
@JohnieBlueShoes: In the US, the law has consistently been that labels should be used when they address scientific valid concerns, i.e., sodium and fat content, etc. And it's long been known that if labeling were used to address everyone's political interests, consumer packaging would not be large enough to address all of them. For instance, some people might want labeling to inform them if the food was produced with migrant labor. From a standpoint of safety and nutrition, such information is useless.
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Posted by Bahnstormer
05 January 2011 | 22h33
Label it!
If DNA is the script of identity than we're not really talking about "Alfalfa" are we. It may look like it, but in reality it isn't.
Proper naming issues aside, just label it as GMO-alfalfa (or corn, soybeans, whatever) and let the consumer decide.
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Posted by JohnieBlueShoes
05 January 2011 | 22h13
Naive, or fan of Euro-style regulation?
Is Vilsack naive enough to believe that the opponents of biotech will actually compromise, and that farmers will like the result? Or is he secretly a fan of Euro-style regulation, which panders to artificial perceptions of consumer fears? It's either one, or the other, or both.
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Posted by Bahnstormer
05 January 2011 | 21h14
compromise?
The real issue is the GMO corporation's cowardly approach to GMO labeling. If GMO food is so safe and beneficial as purported by GMO advocates, then labeling it as such should be a marketing benefit!
Let the real stakeholders, the consumers, decide if they want to be part of a long term genetic experiment. Label your "special " food Mr. Vilsack, and that would be a step in the "compromise" direction to help improve the well-deserved draconian reputation of Monsanto's legal tactics.
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Posted by Marco Aurilio
05 January 2011 | 20h59
Liability + zero tolerance = biotech loses
This entire "debate" about "genetic contamination" is a sham deliberately created by the organic industry.
In no other area has the organic industry ever had a "zero tolerance" standard. Never. Organic crops are allowed to contain up to 5% of the non-organic allowable pesticide residue and even with that standard no organic certifier routinely tests for pesticide residues. It's mostly symbolic.
But with "genetic contamination" (pollination for God's sake!), they suddenly want 100% testing and strict zero or near-zero 0.1% tolerance? Liability for what, Mr. Freese?!
"Waiter, there is DNA in my arugala and chromosomes in my steak!"
The highly profitable organic food industry in league with anti-corporate enviro groups have concocted this entire non-issue -- a non-issue now justified by the US Secretary of Agriculture looking for a "compromise" in the form of planting trial lawyers and "gene sniffers" in every field and food processing plant in North America.
I'll pass on that, thank you very much.
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Posted by Alex Avery, Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues
05 January 2011 | 20h31
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