Vote NO on CA Prop 37: Mandatory GMO Food Labeling
California Prop 37 is on the ballot for this November. I'm concerned that I'm writing this too late - some of you may have already filled out your early voter / absentee ballots. For the rest of you I think this is bad legislation, and that you should vote no. This is why.
18 years of study : zero cause for concern
The first GMO food product was released 18 years ago. Since then there's been concern, debate, and study about safety and health effects. But that debate is coming to a conclusion in Europe. A decade of EU-funded GMO research shows that "there is little debate in the scientific community over the safety of the products relative to their non-modified counterparts". GMO food is not "safe", because food is not "safe", but all credible evidence indicates that GMO food is no more or less safe than ordinary food. Studies that raise concern tend to be from anti-science groups using deliberate fraud to manipulate the public.
Politically, GMO is starting to look like an inverse of the global warming "controversy". Over the last few decades there's been a growing scientific consensus that GMO is safe and beneficial, particularly among the most qualified scientists, that there's no reason to worry. This concensus is being resisted by an ideologically driven group of liberal activists using scare tactics and bad science.
Supply chains are very long
This is commonly framed as a consumer's right to know, with opponents "trying to hide the truth". The reality is that farmers who grow GMO crops and manufacturers who use their produce don't have anything to hide, because there is no reason to collect it in the first place.
Farmers plant dozens of varieties of crops, GMO and otherwise, based on seed cost and availability, pests, season, climate, and what's already been grown on the land. Many of these crops get piled into a big truck labeled "corn", transported to the same mill, milled by the same machines, processed into the same cornstarch or fructose corn syrup, and mixed into the same cans of soda or baked into the same Twinkies. They don't track which bags were grown in Iowa or Kansas, they don't track whether the corn was harvested from fields 10 hectares or 1000 hectares, and they don't track whether it was GMO corn or regular corn, because there's no compelling reason to keep track of these factors. Corn is corn. It's not realistic to track every silo, truck, and bag of ingredient. It's not realistic to shut down the production line and print new labels every time the upstream farmer changes plots or seeds. There is no reason to care, because GMO food is no different than ordinary food. Suppliers aren't hiding GMO food, they don't know. They don't care. And scientifically, there's no reason for them to care.
Of course if you're making Blue corn tortillas, you have to track which corn is blue corn. If you're making organic tamales, you have to track which corn is organic. If you're making kosher matzoh, you have to track which ingredients are kosher. And there are many companies that care. But there's no reason to have mandatory stamps saying "not blue corn", "not organic" or "not kosher", in cases where it doesn't matter.
The distinction is arbitrary and poorly defined
In general all food plants, animals, fungus, and bacteria have been domesticated by selective breeding which is genetic modification and engineering. The most obvious kind of genetic engineering is transgenics - food containing genes from two different species. Are pluots or Japanese giant raisins transgenics? Bacteria and yeast perform horizontal gene transfer - if we cultivate a brew of yeast for beer or bacteria for cheese is this "transgenic yeast" and "GMO beer"? The entire category of "GMO food" is meaningless - it falls apart when you start looking at it. And whether or not the distinction is clear, there's absolutely no reason to believe that manipulating genes with a bb gun or electricity is any more (or less) dangerous than grafting, cross-pollination, and other techniques.
The law is poorly written by special interests
With so much attention toward Monsanto, and nearly zero attention toward its primary supporters. The largest supporter is Mercola Health, which has a long history of selling quack medical interventions with a sales pitch laced with bad science and conspiracy theories against fluoridation, mammography, vaccination, and dental amalgams. Prop 37 seems like their biggest scam yet - stir up a bunch of unwarranted fear against a harmless issue so that they can scare consumers into purchasing identical or inferior products at inflated prices.
Other supporters - Nature's Path Foods, Lundberg Family Farms, Amy's Kitchen, Clif Bar, Annie's, Inc. - will benefit greatly from the public fear they're promoting have added loopholes to make sure that the GMO scaremongering labeling will not apply to them. Part G says that "Certified Organic" crops grown from GMO seeds to avoid the label. Part A says that animals raised on GMO feed and treated with GMO drugs don't require a warning. Part D allows alcohol distilled from GMO grain to be sold without the label. Part H says that all restaurant food, and other "processed food prepared and intended for immediate human consumption" does not require labeling. As if GMO only becomes dangerous when it sits in a box for a while. Part I exempts "medical food". Part B is a "don't ask don't tell" law - food produced "without the knowing and intentional use of genetically engineered seed or food" doesn't require the warning. Healthy consumers need warnings to make informed choices, but the people who drafted Prop 37 want to "hide this information" from consumers with allergies, compromised health, or weakened immune systems.
The exemptions are what's most revealing to me. Legislation against serious health concerns like toxic metals or pesticides don't have exemptions for "don't ask don't tell", or if you're painting something really nice. This looks like an attempt at regulatory capture; a law drafted by one group of special interests to impose unnecessary, arbitrary, and unfair government regulation over their competitors.
Scattered shots
I've been debating this issue over the last year with people who I respect, some of whom are undeniably much smarter than me. I'm going to put those arguments and my responses here, so that they don't end up in the comments.
Arguments against GMO go beyond direct health and safety. GMO crops are also bad for the environment.
I'm addressing health and safety concerns because the ads being run are making those claims. The Prop 37 campaign reminds me a bit of the Prop 8 campaign - lots of scaremongering about risks, and when you point out how there's either no evidence of those risks or some evidence that it's good suddenly the argument changes to a completely different set of charges, while the false claims continue to be repeated to people who don't know better.
Anyway, the opposite is correct. The EU study generally found that conventional farming uses "unselective pesticides" resulting in "chemical soil sterilisation". GMO farming of selectively resistant crops can decrease the need for pesticides and lowers the demand for fertilisers, especially in irrigation runoff. GMO "allows farmers to use reduced- or no-tillage systems", which reduces erosion. GMO also has a massive impact on greenhouse gas - reduced tillage or no-tillage systems means less tractors burning fuel, and "increase[s] the amount of organic carbon in the form of crop residue that is stored or sequestered in the soil".
GMO crops are tolerant to higher levels of pesticides, which are bad for you.
One GMO crop is more tolerant to pesticides. But there's no evidence that this toleration results in higher levels being sprayed, and existing regulations already limit pesticide exposure. Studies show that for Roundup, no adverse health effects would be expected from an individual eating a lifetime of food derived entirely from glyphosate-sprayed fields with residues at their maximum levels. Other GMO crops are engineered to contain natural resistance, so they don't need to be sprayed in the first place. BT corn is engineered to produce Bacillus thuringiensis, a natural protein produced by bacteria. "Bacillus thuringiensis … has no known mammalian toxicity." Some GMO potatoes are engineered to produce Lectin GNA, a natural protein produced by snowdrop bulbs. "Lectin GNA does not have any known mammalian toxicity." Other GMO products are engineered to be less toxic. Milk that doesn't trigger milk allergies, for example. I'm not saying that all GMO food is safe. I'm saying that if one particular food is unsafe, you should warn people about that food. Not everything in its whole broad category.
We can't identify any health problems now, but what if if some massive health problem is discovered 20 years from now?
We're questioning whether GMOs cause health problems, and this argument's premise is that GMOs cause health problems. This is begging the question.ianvasshas made similar arguments against same-sex marriage. What if " passing legislation permitting gay marriage in the US now will be the direct cause - 200 years later - of a massive war in which 90% of the world's population is destroyed and most of the land is made unlivable"? That would be bad, but there's no evidence that this will happen, so let's not freak out just yet.
GMO seeds make farmers beholden to Monsanto
What seeds to buy and plant is a complex decision based on soil, climate, and other factors. It seems naïvely paternalistic for people like you and me to tell professional farmers that they're going to make bad decisions based on more experience and information than we have. Farmers purchase seeds from multiple kinds of seeds from multiple seed dealers seed dealers. That's not a dependancy, that's an ordinary B2B transaction. Buying Microsoft software makes businesses beholden to Microsoft, and I think that's bad, but I don't think that every product produced with their software should include a mandatory label. If my accountant wants to use a Microsoft computer to do my taxes, I'm pretty sure he knows his reasons better than I do.
GMO gives advantages to big agribusiness, which is bad for small farmers in developing countries who can't compete
The opposite is correct. The best study I can find is the EU economic performance report, which found that "Benefits from growing GM crops mainly derive from increased yields, which are greatest for small farmers in developing countries". GMO allows "reduced- or no-tillage systems, reduced production risk, convenience, reduced exposure of farmers and farm workers to pesticides". Especially important in countries that don't have the same worker protection and compensation laws.
This stands to reason. "The adoption of GM-crops can reduce production costs by reducing pesticide use, labour and fuel costs." If you can grow food that's naturally resistant to pests, you don't need spraying equipment. You don't need to purchase drums of pesticide. You don't need to hire people to do the spraying, and you don't need to make sure they're doing it correctly. "Even with seed costs of GM crops being higher than for their conventional counterpart, total farm benefits are higher for GM crop adopters, amounting to about $7 billion (5.23 billion €) globally per year."
GMO crops promote monoculture farming which is fragile and unsustainable
The opposite is correct. There are literally hundreds of varieties of corn, wheat and barley that farmers can choose from. And if you take one of those varieties and genetically modify it, you have even more varieties. Monoculture was a problem with the Irish potato blight, or the Gros Michel banana, because those crops weren't resistant to pests and farmers didn't have any other options. GMO adds more options - options that are more resistant to pests.
Just give me the choice to buy the food our species evolved over centuries to eat.
You've got it backward. None of the foods that we eat today resemble the roots, grubs, berries, and game that humans ate 200,000 years ago when we reached anatomical modernity. The food we eat today is already heavily modified, and substantially different from "the food our species evolved over centuries to eat". For most foods such as beef or corn it would be more fair to say that *we* evolved *them*. For example maize was domesticated 7000 years ago, well after the modern human genome had evolved, by people who had no contact with Europeans until quite recently. The corn genome has been extensively modified by humans over the last several thousand years, and we're continuing to modify it today using better techniques.
Customers have a right to be informed, so that they can make good decisions
Customers have a right to relevant, meaningful information so that they can make informed choices. Customers don't have a right to demand trivial information as a way to harass businesses that they don't like. Companies can already decide to purchase products that proudly advertise "no GMO", "kosher" or "vegan". But mandatory warning labels are reserved for products with demonstrable risks - peanut allergies, carcinogenic activity, flammable liquids, etc. There is no reason for mandatory labels saying "GMO" any more than mandatory labels saying "treyf" or "contains animal products". If your candy bar doesn't say "kosher", it's probably not kosher. If it doesn't say "vegan", it's probably not vegan. And if it doesn't say "no GMO", it's probably got some GMO corn syrup in it.
We need to "tip the balance of power back to us rather than Monsanto"
This framing reminds me of the Tea Party, who "want to tip the balance of power back to us rather than The Government" using an unconnected laundry list of "The Government's" misdeeds to resist anything that "The Government" does. What Pollan's article calls "Big Food" is a broad spectrum of mostly unrelated businesses. The laundry list of misdeeds that Pollan and others raise - “pink slime”, irradiation sterilization, antibiotic resistance, animal cruelty - have nothing to do with GMO. Most aren't even in the same industries or companies. Even when it's the same organization, you're not going to stop Obama's indiscriminate government drone strikes by defeating Obamacare. Some of what the government does is good, and some of it is bad; effective change starts with recognizing the difference. Likewise, some of Monsanto's decisions actually do protect consumers and help the environment. This is one of those decisions. Big organizations make lots of decisions, some good and some bad. Effective change starts with recognizing the difference.
Fine, but I still want mandatory labels
I get that you want mandatory labels, and the other side doesn't want mandatory labels. The problem is that they've got science on their side, and they seem to be making more sense right now. You don't need to have an airtight case, you just need to make more sense than the other guys.
18 years of study : zero cause for concern
The first GMO food product was released 18 years ago. Since then there's been concern, debate, and study about safety and health effects. But that debate is coming to a conclusion in Europe. A decade of EU-funded GMO research shows that "there is little debate in the scientific community over the safety of the products relative to their non-modified counterparts". GMO food is not "safe", because food is not "safe", but all credible evidence indicates that GMO food is no more or less safe than ordinary food. Studies that raise concern tend to be from anti-science groups using deliberate fraud to manipulate the public.
Politically, GMO is starting to look like an inverse of the global warming "controversy". Over the last few decades there's been a growing scientific consensus that GMO is safe and beneficial, particularly among the most qualified scientists, that there's no reason to worry. This concensus is being resisted by an ideologically driven group of liberal activists using scare tactics and bad science.
Supply chains are very long
This is commonly framed as a consumer's right to know, with opponents "trying to hide the truth". The reality is that farmers who grow GMO crops and manufacturers who use their produce don't have anything to hide, because there is no reason to collect it in the first place.
Farmers plant dozens of varieties of crops, GMO and otherwise, based on seed cost and availability, pests, season, climate, and what's already been grown on the land. Many of these crops get piled into a big truck labeled "corn", transported to the same mill, milled by the same machines, processed into the same cornstarch or fructose corn syrup, and mixed into the same cans of soda or baked into the same Twinkies. They don't track which bags were grown in Iowa or Kansas, they don't track whether the corn was harvested from fields 10 hectares or 1000 hectares, and they don't track whether it was GMO corn or regular corn, because there's no compelling reason to keep track of these factors. Corn is corn. It's not realistic to track every silo, truck, and bag of ingredient. It's not realistic to shut down the production line and print new labels every time the upstream farmer changes plots or seeds. There is no reason to care, because GMO food is no different than ordinary food. Suppliers aren't hiding GMO food, they don't know. They don't care. And scientifically, there's no reason for them to care.
Of course if you're making Blue corn tortillas, you have to track which corn is blue corn. If you're making organic tamales, you have to track which corn is organic. If you're making kosher matzoh, you have to track which ingredients are kosher. And there are many companies that care. But there's no reason to have mandatory stamps saying "not blue corn", "not organic" or "not kosher", in cases where it doesn't matter.
The distinction is arbitrary and poorly defined
In general all food plants, animals, fungus, and bacteria have been domesticated by selective breeding which is genetic modification and engineering. The most obvious kind of genetic engineering is transgenics - food containing genes from two different species. Are pluots or Japanese giant raisins transgenics? Bacteria and yeast perform horizontal gene transfer - if we cultivate a brew of yeast for beer or bacteria for cheese is this "transgenic yeast" and "GMO beer"? The entire category of "GMO food" is meaningless - it falls apart when you start looking at it. And whether or not the distinction is clear, there's absolutely no reason to believe that manipulating genes with a bb gun or electricity is any more (or less) dangerous than grafting, cross-pollination, and other techniques.
The law is poorly written by special interests
With so much attention toward Monsanto, and nearly zero attention toward its primary supporters. The largest supporter is Mercola Health, which has a long history of selling quack medical interventions with a sales pitch laced with bad science and conspiracy theories against fluoridation, mammography, vaccination, and dental amalgams. Prop 37 seems like their biggest scam yet - stir up a bunch of unwarranted fear against a harmless issue so that they can scare consumers into purchasing identical or inferior products at inflated prices.
Other supporters - Nature's Path Foods, Lundberg Family Farms, Amy's Kitchen, Clif Bar, Annie's, Inc. - will benefit greatly from the public fear they're promoting have added loopholes to make sure that the GMO scaremongering labeling will not apply to them. Part G says that "Certified Organic" crops grown from GMO seeds to avoid the label. Part A says that animals raised on GMO feed and treated with GMO drugs don't require a warning. Part D allows alcohol distilled from GMO grain to be sold without the label. Part H says that all restaurant food, and other "processed food prepared and intended for immediate human consumption" does not require labeling. As if GMO only becomes dangerous when it sits in a box for a while. Part I exempts "medical food". Part B is a "don't ask don't tell" law - food produced "without the knowing and intentional use of genetically engineered seed or food" doesn't require the warning. Healthy consumers need warnings to make informed choices, but the people who drafted Prop 37 want to "hide this information" from consumers with allergies, compromised health, or weakened immune systems.
The exemptions are what's most revealing to me. Legislation against serious health concerns like toxic metals or pesticides don't have exemptions for "don't ask don't tell", or if you're painting something really nice. This looks like an attempt at regulatory capture; a law drafted by one group of special interests to impose unnecessary, arbitrary, and unfair government regulation over their competitors.
Scattered shots
I've been debating this issue over the last year with people who I respect, some of whom are undeniably much smarter than me. I'm going to put those arguments and my responses here, so that they don't end up in the comments.
Arguments against GMO go beyond direct health and safety. GMO crops are also bad for the environment.
I'm addressing health and safety concerns because the ads being run are making those claims. The Prop 37 campaign reminds me a bit of the Prop 8 campaign - lots of scaremongering about risks, and when you point out how there's either no evidence of those risks or some evidence that it's good suddenly the argument changes to a completely different set of charges, while the false claims continue to be repeated to people who don't know better.
Anyway, the opposite is correct. The EU study generally found that conventional farming uses "unselective pesticides" resulting in "chemical soil sterilisation". GMO farming of selectively resistant crops can decrease the need for pesticides and lowers the demand for fertilisers, especially in irrigation runoff. GMO "allows farmers to use reduced- or no-tillage systems", which reduces erosion. GMO also has a massive impact on greenhouse gas - reduced tillage or no-tillage systems means less tractors burning fuel, and "increase[s] the amount of organic carbon in the form of crop residue that is stored or sequestered in the soil".
GMO crops are tolerant to higher levels of pesticides, which are bad for you.
One GMO crop is more tolerant to pesticides. But there's no evidence that this toleration results in higher levels being sprayed, and existing regulations already limit pesticide exposure. Studies show that for Roundup, no adverse health effects would be expected from an individual eating a lifetime of food derived entirely from glyphosate-sprayed fields with residues at their maximum levels. Other GMO crops are engineered to contain natural resistance, so they don't need to be sprayed in the first place. BT corn is engineered to produce Bacillus thuringiensis, a natural protein produced by bacteria. "Bacillus thuringiensis … has no known mammalian toxicity." Some GMO potatoes are engineered to produce Lectin GNA, a natural protein produced by snowdrop bulbs. "Lectin GNA does not have any known mammalian toxicity." Other GMO products are engineered to be less toxic. Milk that doesn't trigger milk allergies, for example. I'm not saying that all GMO food is safe. I'm saying that if one particular food is unsafe, you should warn people about that food. Not everything in its whole broad category.
We can't identify any health problems now, but what if if some massive health problem is discovered 20 years from now?
We're questioning whether GMOs cause health problems, and this argument's premise is that GMOs cause health problems. This is begging the question.ianvasshas made similar arguments against same-sex marriage. What if " passing legislation permitting gay marriage in the US now will be the direct cause - 200 years later - of a massive war in which 90% of the world's population is destroyed and most of the land is made unlivable"? That would be bad, but there's no evidence that this will happen, so let's not freak out just yet.
GMO seeds make farmers beholden to Monsanto
What seeds to buy and plant is a complex decision based on soil, climate, and other factors. It seems naïvely paternalistic for people like you and me to tell professional farmers that they're going to make bad decisions based on more experience and information than we have. Farmers purchase seeds from multiple kinds of seeds from multiple seed dealers seed dealers. That's not a dependancy, that's an ordinary B2B transaction. Buying Microsoft software makes businesses beholden to Microsoft, and I think that's bad, but I don't think that every product produced with their software should include a mandatory label. If my accountant wants to use a Microsoft computer to do my taxes, I'm pretty sure he knows his reasons better than I do.
GMO gives advantages to big agribusiness, which is bad for small farmers in developing countries who can't compete
The opposite is correct. The best study I can find is the EU economic performance report, which found that "Benefits from growing GM crops mainly derive from increased yields, which are greatest for small farmers in developing countries". GMO allows "reduced- or no-tillage systems, reduced production risk, convenience, reduced exposure of farmers and farm workers to pesticides". Especially important in countries that don't have the same worker protection and compensation laws.
This stands to reason. "The adoption of GM-crops can reduce production costs by reducing pesticide use, labour and fuel costs." If you can grow food that's naturally resistant to pests, you don't need spraying equipment. You don't need to purchase drums of pesticide. You don't need to hire people to do the spraying, and you don't need to make sure they're doing it correctly. "Even with seed costs of GM crops being higher than for their conventional counterpart, total farm benefits are higher for GM crop adopters, amounting to about $7 billion (5.23 billion €) globally per year."
GMO crops promote monoculture farming which is fragile and unsustainable
The opposite is correct. There are literally hundreds of varieties of corn, wheat and barley that farmers can choose from. And if you take one of those varieties and genetically modify it, you have even more varieties. Monoculture was a problem with the Irish potato blight, or the Gros Michel banana, because those crops weren't resistant to pests and farmers didn't have any other options. GMO adds more options - options that are more resistant to pests.
Just give me the choice to buy the food our species evolved over centuries to eat.
You've got it backward. None of the foods that we eat today resemble the roots, grubs, berries, and game that humans ate 200,000 years ago when we reached anatomical modernity. The food we eat today is already heavily modified, and substantially different from "the food our species evolved over centuries to eat". For most foods such as beef or corn it would be more fair to say that *we* evolved *them*. For example maize was domesticated 7000 years ago, well after the modern human genome had evolved, by people who had no contact with Europeans until quite recently. The corn genome has been extensively modified by humans over the last several thousand years, and we're continuing to modify it today using better techniques.
Customers have a right to be informed, so that they can make good decisions
Customers have a right to relevant, meaningful information so that they can make informed choices. Customers don't have a right to demand trivial information as a way to harass businesses that they don't like. Companies can already decide to purchase products that proudly advertise "no GMO", "kosher" or "vegan". But mandatory warning labels are reserved for products with demonstrable risks - peanut allergies, carcinogenic activity, flammable liquids, etc. There is no reason for mandatory labels saying "GMO" any more than mandatory labels saying "treyf" or "contains animal products". If your candy bar doesn't say "kosher", it's probably not kosher. If it doesn't say "vegan", it's probably not vegan. And if it doesn't say "no GMO", it's probably got some GMO corn syrup in it.
We need to "tip the balance of power back to us rather than Monsanto"
This framing reminds me of the Tea Party, who "want to tip the balance of power back to us rather than The Government" using an unconnected laundry list of "The Government's" misdeeds to resist anything that "The Government" does. What Pollan's article calls "Big Food" is a broad spectrum of mostly unrelated businesses. The laundry list of misdeeds that Pollan and others raise - “pink slime”, irradiation sterilization, antibiotic resistance, animal cruelty - have nothing to do with GMO. Most aren't even in the same industries or companies. Even when it's the same organization, you're not going to stop Obama's indiscriminate government drone strikes by defeating Obamacare. Some of what the government does is good, and some of it is bad; effective change starts with recognizing the difference. Likewise, some of Monsanto's decisions actually do protect consumers and help the environment. This is one of those decisions. Big organizations make lots of decisions, some good and some bad. Effective change starts with recognizing the difference.
Fine, but I still want mandatory labels
I get that you want mandatory labels, and the other side doesn't want mandatory labels. The problem is that they've got science on their side, and they seem to be making more sense right now. You don't need to have an airtight case, you just need to make more sense than the other guys.