US votes are getting ready for a food fight.
When Washington voters decide Initiative 522 this northern autumn, they will do more than determine whether to label food that contains genetically engineered ingredients.
They also will take sides in a national battle that has raged for two decades about the benefits and safety of manipulating the DNA of food – something many people view suspiciously but do not really understand.
“There’s a lot of uneasiness among consumers on the topic,” said Amy Sousa, managing consultant at the consumer research firm Hartman Group in Bellevue.
“They don’t like the sound of it but have a difficult time articulating exactly why.”
GMO stands for genetically modified organism. Technically, any plant or animal that has been bred for particular characteristics is genetically modified. The difference with so-called GMOs is that their DNA is directly manipulated by inserting or modifying particular genes. Some call such targeted work “genetic engineering”.
The first genetically engineered food to appear on grocery shelves was a tomato that failed because consumers didn’t buy it.
By contrast, the handful of genetically engineered crops that have been widely adopted by American agriculture – corn, sugar beets, soybeans, canola – are designed to appeal to growers by withstanding certain herbicides or creating their own internal pesticides.
Many of these genetically engineered seeds are owned by chemical companies such as Monsanto and Bayer – which has fuelled some people’s mistrust.
GMO advocates, however, also include powerful non-business players, such as the Gates Foundation, that say the technology can be used to enhance nutrition and other qualities desired by consumers.
To Neal Carter, founder of a British Columbia company seeking regulatory approval for genetically engineered apples that don’t brown, GMOs conceived to appeal to consumers constitute a “second wave”.
“We’re going to see the next generation of biotechnology,” he said.
What he calls his “arctic” apples are a start. Carter grows them at test sites in Washington and New York states but will not disclose specific locations for fear anti-GMO activists could disrupt the work.
“It’s a huge investment, and we can’t afford to let folks know where we’re doing this because of that kind of risk,” he said. He wants to avoid the type of GMO crop sabotage that appears to have happened recently in Oregon, where 6,500 genetically engineered sugar beets were uprooted.
Monsanto has said it also suspects sabotage in the discovery of genetically engineered wheat in Oregon during the spring, which prompted Japan to stop buying a popular Northwest wheat for two months. GMO wheat is not approved for commercial use, and it was found kilometres from where the company tested genetically engineered wheat almost a decade ago.
But the real war over GMOs is happening in the political arena.
The most recent skirmish took place last year in California, where the biotech industry and others spent $US44 million to fight a labelling measure similar to I-522. Labelling supporters spent about $US10 million.
The measure lost, but the idea of labelling GMOs appears to be gaining traction.
Maine and Connecticut recently passed labelling laws, although they are contingent upon other states participating. The grocery chain Trader Joe’s in December said its private-label products contain no GMOs, and Whole Foods earlier this year said that within five years it will require suppliers to label products with genetically engineered ingredients.
The Hartman Group advises clients, which regularly include major food companies such as Kraft Foods, General Mills, ConAgra Foods and Kellogg’s, to discuss the matter openly.
“Trying to suppress labelling and skirt around the issue is not a sustainable approach, especially as more and more food retailers get on board with crafting their own position,” Sousa said.
People who oppose GMOs want labelling because they say genetically engineered crops have not been studied or regulated enough to know whether they are harmful.
They also argue it would be hard to return to non-engineered crops if damage is discovered later. And they point to dozens of other countries, including Japan and those of the European Union, that ban or label genetically engineered food.
“We already have the right to know as Americans what the sugar and fat content is, whether flavours are artificial or natural, whether fish is wild or farmed, what country our fruit comes from – and we have a right to know whether our food is genetically engineered,” said Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs for PCC Natural Markets, which helped write I-522 and led signature-gathering for the measure. It garnered about 100,000 more signatures than were required.
Source:http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/gmo-labelling-debate-erupts-us-050107142.html