I-522 ~ Written Interview by DBP

[wakeflood]

The whole topic of companies going out of business because of relabeling is pure hyperbole. Stuff happens all the time that gets passed on to consumers at the checkout line and we shrug, if we even notice at all. It’s not forcing anyone to change their proprietary recipes or anything of that level of issue.

You can have reasons for being against this but please do us all a favor and ditch the “sky’s falling” part of the argument.

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[JoB]

i want to know about my food..

if it is distributed under a license held in San Jose, California .. i want to know if it is produced and packaged there or somewhere else.

that lack of that information on store brand products keeps me from buying many that i probably otherwise purchase..

but i want to know where my food is grown and where it is packaged before it reaches me.

it really is that simple.

i also want to know how it is grown..

since we now know that GMO products require more not less pesticides to produce..

GMO labelling will give me useful information about how my food is grown and whether i might be incurring increased risk from pesticide exposure.

I will admit i am not your average consumer. I am that woman who stands in the aisle reading packaging labels and putting most of what she considers back on the shelf for the next customer..

but to me, GMO labeliing provides useful information that i will use to choose which products i purchase..

I am all for 522

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[blbl]

I never said the sky is falling, wakeflood . That’s hyperbole. But to deny that labeling will not have an impact on small farmers, retailers and shoppers is complete denial. Businesses go bankrupt all the time over things like competition. And this results in biased, unfair competition.

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[wakeflood]

Blbl, you have exactly zero data that would indicate that the costs associated with potential relabeling would result in any bankruptcies. If you or anti-522 Supporters did, it would be plastered all over the place. It isn’t, and you don’t.

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[JoB]

blbl..

tell me how labeling is going to have an impact on small farmers who are currently fighting in the courts for the right to grow non-GMO labeled seed in their fields?

have you visited our local farmer’s market lately? Business must be good because there are now 2 egg vendors and more than 2 meat vendors and ….

that’s healthy competition.

When you have a choice, you can choose to spend more for food you believe to be healthier for you and your family…

the impact of I522 is far more likely to be felt by agribusinesses that fear they will lose business due to the choices consumers will make due to labeling than on small farms who have already figured out that their ability to compete requires competing in a specialized market.

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[VBD]

JoB, you are correct that the effects of this would not be felt much by farmers. There would be some effect to food producers if there is decreased demand for their products. Distributors would have increased work in segregating inventories to assure Washington labeled food really gets to Washington. Importers would have a tough job tracking down internationally approved affidavits. These tasks would all add some costs.

By far, the biggest effect would be to retailers, since they are the ones who would be on the hook for compliance. Grocery stores would have to check each item they stock to be sure it’s properly labeled, or that there is correct documentation available to show the food does not need a label. THAT will be quite a feat!

So JoB, why do you think it’s a good thing to use retailers as disposable pawns in the fight against big agribusiness?

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[VBD]

As for the method proposed by I-522 giving information about the food; it really doesn’t.

I-522 has it completely backwards. It makes the assumption that all food is guilty until proven innocent. A very bad way to approach the issue.

Compare it to gluten. Some people have real or perceived, issues with gluten and choose to avoid it. Food producers have responded to this new demand, and provide information about gluten content. So food will be labeled as “gluten free”. The same thing is going on with GE and organic foods. As a response to a market demand, food producers will label foods as “GE free” or “organic”.

What I-522 is trying to do is make all the NON-GE-free food be labeled as being possibly GE. Not that it actually DOES contain GE derived ingredients, only that it hasn’t been certified to NOT have them

That is like mandating that all food that is not proven to be gluten free be labeled as “may partially contain gluten”. It’s useless and silly.

Why would anybody think this is a good idea?

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[wakeflood]

I’ll take this opportunity to clarify where I’m at on this – not that it matters a wit to anyone, independent thinkers that we all are! :-) but my comments could have been interpreted as being pro/con/undecided.

I want to know what’s in my food. I want to support small business at the expense of big agra as I feel strongly that reduction of diversity of suppliers is as risky as eliminating genetic diversity in our food chain over time. Big Agra does both. And as I said before, I’m more concerned about the Round Up Ready issue than I am about GMO’s as a potentially harmful food source, with the issue of enforced use of GMO’s not withstanding.

I also am a fan of well-written and functionally executable law. It’s one of the (several) reasons I have a deep-seated dislike for Eyman’s initiatives. They are hastily conceived and poorly written, which leads to difficult and sometimes downright harmful execution.

I suspect that 522 will need to be resurrected in some other form which addresses the issue in a more functional way than it is currently written. These things, if they’re really worth doing, are worth doing right. And each time this issue gets public discussion, it forces the supporters of Big Agra to realize that consumers A)Have an issue with something they’re doing that isn’t going away until it’s addressed somehow and B)These things will eventually affect their earnings and power in the marketplace.

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[TanDL]

Follow the money…

http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/10/17/no-surprise-whos-secretly-funding-washington-states-gmo-labeling-initiative?cmpid

Apparently people (you know… “we the people”) don’t want to be part of this vast experiment, until a few more years of research has been conducted on the safety of GMO’s. I say that because there’s sure a lot of money being spent to defeat this legislation across the states, so I can only assume that big agri-corps feels threatened by the possibility that “we the people” would like to know what we’re eating. Yes, the proposed law in this state is imperfect, but I’d rather have this imperfect law so that I have a good assumption of what I’m eating, than no law at all with that information hidden from me. We may all be uninformed, unscientific, irrational people, but we’re still “we the people” and should be able to reasonably discern what’s in our food by reading labels if we choose to do so.

And sorry, but I don’t see that adding a note to a label will break farmers. Food labels change all the time.

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[VBD]

If you follow the money, you need to follow BOTH sides. The side with a potential to lose; the conventional food industry, is against it. Those with something to gain; PCC, Whole Foods, and organic food producers, are in favor of it.

There is nothing sinister about trying to protect your interests. That’s how our political system works.

However, basing your vote on whether or not you like the supporters of an initiative is like basing your opinion the validity of global warming on whether or not you like Al Gore.

The best thing to do is ignore the propaganda on BOTH sides, and just read the initiative. It’s all there.

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[TanDL]

I have read the initiative and I’m fine with it. And by the way, I have no problem with the major brands… I eat a lot of them. But I do have a problem with them not disclosing who they are and why they are putting up millions to defeat this measure in our state.

Not a level playing field? Let’s let “we the people” decide what’s a level playing field and what’s not. That’s called capitalism and a free market based on consumer choice via awareness.

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[VBD]

So TanDL, from your interpretation of the initiative, do you think my conclusion in post #82 is wrong, or do you actually think it is a reasonable way to label foods?

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[DES]

First I want to correct some factual errors I made in my original post (#69). 1) Regarding the enzyme the Roundup inhibits I stated it does not inhibit the human version, humans don’t actually have that enzyme at all, but the idea that Roundup does not do the same to us as it does to plants is still true. Also Clearfield corn, for example is not GMO, but is resistant to the imidizolinone class of herbicides. It was developed using chemical mutagens to increase genetic diversity of plant cells in tissue culture which were then grown into whole plants. Mutagenic breeding as this technique is called is NOT considered genetic engineering and is not dealt with by I-522 2) I stated that there are naturally evolved Roundup resistant crops. That is not true and I was referencing incorrect information. However, using superweeds as an example, it is certainly possible that a crop plant could evolve its own resistance. #0 I implied that Cry protein (Bt) crystals kill insects and that is incorrect, there is a more complicated biochemical mechanism, but the Cry proteins do in fact kill insects by acting with high specificity in the insect gut.

@JoB- GMO crops actually reduce the amount of pesticide sprayed relative to other conventional crops. Bt for example has the plant make what would otherwise be an organic pesticide so that farmers do not need to spray as many additional pesticides. With Roundup Ready, farmers do spray more Roundup which is actually a relatively benign herbicide to the environment and humans, but very effective against weeds. However, because Roundup is so effective, they spray less volume of and fewer other herbicides. Superweeds are definitely an environmental concern that has come from widespread planting, though. As another example, fungus resistant potatoes would need many fewer fungicides. On the environmental front, drought resistant varieties mean farmers can use less water growing crops, other traits require less fertilizer etc.

This brings me to one of my personal hangups. That is what is the GOVERNMENT’S role in mandating disclosure of non-health related (e.g. environmental, religious, corporate ethics) information? You may hate Monsanto but does the government have an obligation to tell you Monsanto made seeds that led to that ingredient? What about Monsanto’s Non-GMO seeds, are they OK or should the producer of seeds for every ingredient in your food be disclosed? If you do want that I-522 is horribly deficient. We accept “apples” as an ingredient in store bought pie, whether it is organic or conventional. We do not require the label to say, Granny Smith, Honeycrisp etc., since GMO ingredients are really just another variety why do we need a warning label? Couldn’t private groups such as the Non-GMO Project(and like Kosher food labeling), do this. Organic is also a default Non-GMO label and honestly if you have eaten non-organic food that has corn, soy, canola oil, cottonseed oil or sugar from beets in the past 15 years, you’ve eaten GMOs. If pretty much everything in the grocery store, then has GMOs the choice really is “May contain GE ingredients” or organic.

About cost. I think it’s hard to predict anything about cost to consumers, grocers, etc right now. But do keep in mind that IF people flock to organic to avoid GMO ingredients, organic prices will likely increase with increased demand, so the debate at the register is not just conventional foods, which is why PCC Markets and whole foods are backing I-522. We also have to look at the cost to the state for monitoring and enforcement. Salaries for a dozen or more inspectors, vehicles for them to drive to every grocery store in the state, laboratory testing of random samples, administative costs (a couple of salaries, office space, computers), legal costs for prosecuting violations, etc will cost millions of dollars. Where do we get the money? Tax increases (without income tax that pretty much means property or sales tax increase)? Do we cut other state services? My biggest personal issue with cost is that we get practically no information for the money. If we got real info that could help us make informed decisions about particular traits, then maybe it is worth the cost.

Finally, the exemptions. I-522 exempts all restaurants and cafeterias, all alcohol and all meat even if raised on GMO feed. There are no GMO hops, but if there were you would never know because of the alcohol exemption. You have no idea what your eating at a restaurant or what your kids are eating in their school cafeterias. So does I-522 really fulfill your “right to know?

That is the end of my diatribe. I really do not intend any aggression to anyone here, this is a pretty good debate.

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[wakeflood]

DES, I have a question regarding something you wrote. Why isn’t mutagenic breeding considered genetic engineering? Surely this is a gray area? Is it based on the notion that mutation is a naturally occurring event during breeding and the mere facilitation of it using chemicals doesn’t violate some arbitrary notion of “engineering”?

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[VBD]

Wakeflood, according to I-522, it’s not a gray area at all. Genetic engineering is very narrowly defined. From I-522, section 2:

“(3)(a) “Genetically engineered” means any food that is produced from an organism or organisms in which the genetic material has been changed through the application of: (i) In vitro nucleic acid techniques including recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid techniques and the direct injection of nucleic acid into cells or organelles. In vitro nucleic acid techniques include, but are not limited to, recombinant deoxyribonucleic acid or ribonucleic acid techniques that use vector systems and techniques involving the direct introduction into the organisms of hereditary material prepared outside the organisms, such as micro-injection, macro-injection, chemoporation, electroporation, micro-encapsulation, and liposome fusion; or (ii) fusion of cells, including protoplast fusion, or hybridization techniques that overcome natural physiological, reproductive, or recombination barriers, where the donor cells or protoplasts do not fall within the same taxonomic family, in a way that does not occur by natural multiplication or natural recombination.”

There are hundreds of “un-natural” hybridization and cross breading techniques that would not qualify as genetic engineering. You are correct in implying it appears somewhat arbitrary. It is.

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[wakeflood]

Thanks for that clarification. I have to say that this particular discussion reminds of the exchange between Roy and Dr. Tyrell in Blade Runner…

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[DES]

Hi wakeflood,

I would say both you and VBD are correct. The legal definition of Genetically Engineered is crystal clear as VBD wrote. In simpler terms as you alluded to it basically means that you can muck with an organisms genome in any way you wish as long as you are mucking with the DNA that is already there. When you introduce a “new gene” from somewhere else you have now genetically engineered that organism.

I would say that if your objections to GMOs/GE foods are moralistic in that you question humans’ role in altering another organisms genome then mutagenic breeding vs GE is definitely a gray area.

On the other hand humans have been genetically modifying organisms for the past 10,000 years by selective breeding. The ancestor of modern corn is a plant called teosinte which still grows in Mexico. Dog breeds are another prime example, cattle -compare Texas longhorn to Belgian Blue, the variety of heirloom tomatoes you see at the farmer’s market etc are all based on genetic varietion that has been captured by conventional breeding. This is why most scientists don’t see much difference between GMO and non-GMO varieties, especially given that each GMO variety is extensively tested before it hits the market. The same is not true for conventionally bred crops which can also cause problems for example read this story: http://boingboing.net/2013/03/25/the-case-of-the-poison-potato.html

It is not that GMOs are completely without risk or don’t present ethical quandries, it is just that those risks and quandries are the same as for all other foods and labeling GMOs, particularly with a blanket statement as proposed in I-522 reads like a warning against technology, not a tool to empower consumers.

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[wakeflood]

Thanks, DES, that’s helpful. And for the record, I’m not against science looking for ways to improve our lot – not by any stretch. I generally welcome it.

Most of my concerns revolve around the hubris that comes with knowing a lot about how to mess with things but not being able to truly determine how the results play out over time in real life. Genies and bottles, etc.

We have hundreds of chemicals in our bodies now that our parents/grandparents didn’t. How those things interact inside humans is one species-wide, non-voluntary experiment. And anyone who speaks confidently that they know what this means for human health/disease/reproduction is suspect for me.

Which is why I’m less concerned about a genetically modified crop and more about the pesticides it’s engineered to “work with” – if that makes sense?

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[Ken]

In case anyone is wondering, the term “Organic” is a marketing label and last time I looked it up, there are no federal laws concerning the use of that label in any sector except chicken.

This is the control Agribusiness has on the federal government.

I also want country of origin laws but that is not gonna happen either.

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[VBD]

Well Ken, you might want to look again.

http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/nop

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[JoB]

VBD..

call me old fashioned. I am sure a great many people do.

but here’s the deal. i won’t shop at a market that doesn’t already monitor truth in advertising of it’s products..

if a sign in the produce section says local and my investigation reveals that their definition of local includes florida.. i am unlikely to shop there.

disposable pawns indeed.. Nice phrase by the way if more than a little misleading…

if they are responsible retailers this isn’t going to be a huge problem for them…

an no… i don’t have a problem with the concept that the distributor will have to make sure Washington goods get sent to Washington :)

i kinda like that idea…

I am the consumer this law was written for

DES

i am not going to bother sourcing the study since you didn’t source your authoritative proclamations either..

edited because i changed my mind after all..

http://organic.insightd.net/reportfiles/Full_first_nine.pdf

good study.. you should read it… even if it was published by those pesky organic folks

but the latest study i saw about the amount of pesticides used on GMO crops didn’t agree with your assessment.

as to the safety of round-up.. the jury is still out on that..

but people who avoid using it in their yards to avoid contamination of the water in the sound are kind of difficult to convince that round-up is really good for you… if it’s not good for the fishes …

having seen the same kind of it’s safe for you sell during my lifetime on cigarette smoke.. i am not buying the early science built on assumptions about the long term effects of chemicals that are currently considered safe. Does DDT ring a bell with you? it was once considered safe.. within my lifetime.

I am choosing to consume real food produced for the most part on local farms for reasons that have far more to do with my health than with my politics… though as luck would have it my politics follow my stomach ;-)

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[VBD]

JoB, it appears to me that this is not a law written for you at all. If you already shop at organic markets, and prefer to buy GE-free foods, then you will not see any difference after this law is adopted. It’s the people shopping at Safeway, QFC, and Fred Meyer buying Corn Flakes and Oreos who will see the biggest changes.

It seems that what you are in favor of is making everyone else pay. Nice.

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[JoB]

VBD

you make a lot of assumptions about where i shop. The checkers at my local QFC know me well enough to ask about my garden and my dogs…

and i am a regular visitor to my local safeway.

i haven’t been in our local Fred Meyers since they posted the sign looking for scabs.. but i shop generally there as well.

I also visit the canned foods outlet in Burien and make a monthly trip to Albertsons… not to mention the products i can only find at Thriftway.

I am a pretty equal opportunity shopper.

You can try to paint me as an elitist if you want, but first you might ask yourself where exactly is it that you think i stand in the aisle reading labels if i only shop at the Farmer’s market and PCC?

you do know that you can buy both local and organic at your local grocer, don’t you? if not, it’s time you checked them out. demand really has made a difference in selection.

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[TanDL]

Sorry, don’t feel like taking the bait. I’m too weary from long days at work and just don’t have the energy to match wits. Bottom line for me is this: I want to know what I’m eating!

People in a small town in Colorado where I was raised bought houses built on fill dirt provided by a local AEC (Atomic Energy Commission) plant for building projects in the early 60s. The low-level radioactive dirt was declared absolutely safe without long term testing. An extraordinary number of my childhood friends and their families who were raised in those houses are now dead.. all from cancer.. and guess what? It has been determined that most was caused from the fill dirt under those houses. I was lucky to have had a restless father who moved us to another state so he could get a better job while our neighbors were moving into those “new and wonderful” neighborhoods.

I’m voting for 522 because I want to know what I’m eating. If long term testing proves out the safety of GM foods, then I’ll relent and declare that we the public were wrong. Until then, I’m supporting legislation that provides choice. Have a good weekend.

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[JoB]

TanDL

you cut right to the quick…

this is about choice… informed choice…

it really is that simple.

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