Clare Leschin-Hoar | The Verge

Congress is having a messy food fight over GMO labeling

2015-08-04T12:05:59-04:00

Late last month, the House of Representatives delivered a blow to anyone fighting for the right to know if the food they’re buying at the neighborhood supermarket is made using genetically modified ingredients. The bill, officially known as the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, has been nicknamed the DARK Act by its vocal critics. It stands for “Deny Americans the Right to Know” because it would preempt states from crafting their own laws mandating GMO labeling for a vast number of American staples, including boxed cereal, sodas, chips, frozen meals, infant formulas, and much more.

The bill’s author is classically Republican: since joining Congress in 2010, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) has been pro-life, pro-business, and fiscally conservative. And with the introduction of the anti-labeling bill, eagerly backed by the corporate food industry giants, Pompeo became one of the most potentially serious threats to the Right-to-Know crowd.

What’s more surprising in a food fight as fierce as this one is that 45 House Democrats voted in favor of Pompeo’s bill. Many of them, like Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) or Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) come from low-income districts sensitive to concerns of increased food costs. Others, like Agriculture Committee members Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) and Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-OR), have scored lucrative campaign donations totaling more than $100,000 from agribusiness interests.

It would preempt states from crafting their own laws mandating GMO labeling

Unlike other issues such as gun control or universal healthcare that fall neatly into “Red” and “Blue” territories, the divisions over GMO labeling look a lot more like a bento box, especially if you broaden the lens. On the anti-labelling side are large food corporations, farm groups, and many scientists, who worry that labeling will send a message that GM food is unsafe. (The scientific consensus is that there’s nothing inherently unsafe about GM food.) On the other side lies an eclectic but passionate mix of people who oppose industrial agriculture, have (likely misplaced) health concerns, or believe that transparency is critical when it comes to genetically modified ingredients. Just how these beliefs translate into partisan politics greatly depends on what facet of the conversation you’re examining.

Take a look at Vermont and Maine. Both states have passed GMO labeling laws. (Only Vermont’s has no contingency on nearby states passing similar laws.) The law in Vermont was introduced by a Democrat and signed into law by a Democratic governor. The law in Maine was introduced by a Republican and signed into law by a Republican governor.

The divisions over GMO labeling look a lot more like a bento box

“There are fewer extremes than the Vermont governor and the Maine governor,” says Colin O’Neil, director of government affairs, Center for Food Safety which tracks state labeling efforts. “You don’t get much more conservative than [Paul LePage] the governor of Maine.”

But the conversation is changing as it moves to Washington, DC.

As Jenny Hopkinson writes for Politico Pro, “Less than a year ago, an earlier version of Pompeo’s GMO labeling bill was languishing in the House Energy and Commerce Committee with just 37 co-sponsors and had few prospects for gaining traction.” Last week, the House passed it 275-150.

“At the federal level it has become quite partisan. People pursuing federal legislation tend to be Republicans. In the states where there have been attempts at GMO labeling, it’s generally being pushed by Democrats,” says William Hallman, professor of human ecology in Rutgers’ School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

The conversation is changing as it moves to Washington, DC

Pompeo’s bill will move to the Senate after the August break, but so far, only Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) is working on a companion bill, one he says is still far from ready, and no Democrat has stepped up to say they will lead the issue. Another wrinkle is the passage of a Senate-side amendment to label GMO salmon attached to a spending bill for the Agriculture Department and Food and Drug Administration by Congresswoman Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).

When the issue reaches the broader consumer level, so far, there is no evidence of a partisan divide, says Hallman, who has been conducting surveys on GMO perceptions since 1995, the year after the first genetically engineered Flavr Savr tomato was approved for human consumption.

A number of surveys show that consumers overwhelmingly support GMO labeling, but Hallman says there’s an important caveat to keep in mind. Most polls don’t give the option of saying “I don’t know” when asked about support for labeling, and few consumers will say they don’t want more information. In fact, Hallman’s own survey shows most Americans aren’t even part of the conversation.

“Two-thirds of them have never had a conversation about GMOs in their life, and 25 percent have never heard of GMOs. Over 60 percent have no idea there are GMO products in the supermarket right now. It’s really not high on the issue agenda for most people,” he says.

“It’s really not high on the issue agenda for most people.”

That’s in stark contrast to the message from pro-GMO labeling groups like the Environmental Working Group who say GMO labeling is practically more popular with Americans than apple pie. There’s no doubt those engaged in the issue are very engaged, but Hallman says they’re a relatively small part of the population.

But as the conversation gets picked up by national politicians with bigger megaphones, there’s a chance that observers will fall into line behind leaders who share their party affiliations. For consumers, that means their stance on GMO labeling may come down to who they identify with most as they filter facts.

“Research shows that the way people interpret science and facts is through their own value system and political beliefs. The facts they look for are shaped by the value systems they already hold,” says Carmen Bain a sociologist at Iowa State University who studies global agrifood systems. “Science can’t resolve this. If people are already suspicious about the food system, telling them GMOs are safe isn’t going to help.”

“If people are already suspicious about the food system, telling them GMOs are safe isn’t going to help.”

What’s unusual in this GMO labeling feud is that the arguments for and against aren’t falling where you would typically expect them to land.

Those opposed to labeling efforts typically rehash arguments in favor of GMOs themselves: science has shown GMOs are healthy and safe; GMOs have the potential to be environmentally friendly, at least the ones that require less pesticides and produce higher yields; GMOs could require less land and water to produce, lowering prices and helping feed a growing population. A patchwork of state-level labeling laws would increase food costs, anti-labelers say, especially for the poor. And among an ill-informed public, the argument goes, any label would be interpreted as a warning.

Organizations in favor of labeling — like the Center for Food Safety, Environmental Working Group, and JustLabelIt — have their own counterpoints to each of those: they say that genetically modified food hasn’t been sufficiently tested; that pesticide reductions and higher yields can be obtained through organic farming practices; and that the public has a right to know when they are consuming ingredients that have been modified. Though these groups tend to be left-leaning, arguments in favor of lower food costs, a lighter environmental footprint and science-supported opinions surprisingly don’t make up the core of the pro-labelers stance. To them, the fight over GMO labeling is foremost about transparency in the food supply.

“It’s about transparency.”

“This is a funny issue. If you think it’s about technology, you’re missing the bigger dynamic,” says Scott Faber, senior vice president of government affairs, Environmental Working Group. “It’s about transparency.”

Ultimately, there’s a lot riding on the outcome of America’s GMO labeling debate. It’s important to farm organizations, food production and trade, and to food retailers.

“There are important political and economic stakes on the line,” says Bain.

As agriculture corporations push for an anti-labeling bill, another set of corporations are moving ahead with labeling initiatives of their own. Popular ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s spent much of last year transitioning away from GMO ingredients. Chipotle banished GMO ingredients from its food menu this spring caused a media frenzy. And some surprising brand names are making the shift including traditional Cheerios, Hershey’s Kisses, Hellman’s, and Grape Nuts. Make no mistake, the parent companies of these brands, including General Mills, Unilever, and Post, are in fact supportive of genetically modified crops, and according to a report out today, are among companies that have spent $51 million since January on lobbying efforts to keep GMO labeling voluntary. At the same time, the move to create new non-GMO products is a sign they’re catering to customers who have concerns. Voluntarily adding a “GMO Free” label on these products is a potentially lucrative marketing strategy.

Another set of corporations are moving ahead with labeling initiatives of their own

Whole Foods may be the most compelling catalyst. The natural foods giant has committed to full GMO transparency by 2018, a move that’s rippled through its supply chains and has many suppliers from artisan cheesemakers to meat suppliers and snack makers moving to reformulate products. According to Whole Foods, organic and non-GMO verified products are two of the fastest growing categories in their grocery department.

“People have termed this ‘From Government to Governance,’” says Bain. “The trend of less government intervention and letting the issues be resolved in the marketplace, and we’re definitely seeing this.”

However Pompeo’s law shakes out in the Senate, with retailers and food makers playing both sides of the issue — the result will likely be a bevy of GMO-free labeled products for consumers to choose from.

Wild salmon may not be as wild as you think

2015-05-28T12:05:54-04:00

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Male sockeye salmon spawning north of Dillingham, Alaska | USEPA

When it comes to sustainable seafood, Alaska’s wild salmon is unquestionably one of the best choices out there for conscientious eaters. But questions are mounting over just what counts as wild.

Today, a third of all salmon harvested in the state of Alaska — a whopping 58 million of them — are what are known in the industry as “hatch and catch.” Fully-wild salmon start life in a cool, gurgling stream, in a depression its mother formed by her wriggling. Instead, these salmon begin life in one of the state’s 31 hatchery facilities, where they’re bred from captured local broodstock, hatched, fed, and raised for two to three months (some as long as a year) before being released into the wild.

A third of all salmon harvested in the state of Alaska are “hatch and catch”

But there’s growing concern among scientists and environmentalists over the Alaska’s enhancement program for wild salmon. Worries over straying hatchery salmon, competition for food at sea, overharvesting of wild salmon in mixed stocks, and genetic fitness of hatchery-bred fish are gaining attention, prompting the state’s regulators to take a closer look at practices that have been in place for over 40 years.

Although most consumers of wild salmon aren’t aware of the state’s use of hatchery fish to supplement stocks, it isn’t a secret. Alaska’s hatchery program stretches back to the early 1970s and, from the beginning, was carefully planned. Hatcheries were intentionally placed away from large natural production areas, in spots where returning fish could be harvested separately from wild stocks. Each year, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game provide lawmakers and the public with updated reports detailing things like number of egg takes, releases, and adult returns, while wild stock numbers are continuously monitored.

Alaska is the largest producer of hatchery salmon in north America

Today, Alaska is the largest producer of hatchery salmon in North America, releasing about 1.6 billion juvenile salmon into the wild each year; it’s second only in the world to Japan, which releases approximately 2 billion fish a year. According to the 2014 Alaska Salmon Fisheries Enhancement Program report, in some parts of the state, hatchery fish make up the majority of the catch. In Prince William Sound, for example, 45 million salmon returned from hatchery releases, including 93 percent of the commercial catch of pink salmon, and 68 percent of the chum. In Southeast Alaska, 85 percent of the commercial chum catch started life in a hatchery, as did 27 percent of the commercial coho catch. And now, new studies are raising concerns that these millions of hatchery-raised salmon may in fact be harming wild salmon and other species, including young seabirds, after all.

We now know not all hatchery fish return to the exact streams where their lives began. Salmon sometimes stray. As far back as 1991, after the Exxon Valdez spill, hatchery fish were discovered in streams where they didn’t belong.

A mob of spawning salmon in Bristol Bay. (USEPA)

“That was the first we saw them straying into other streams,” said Jeff Regnart, director of the Division of Commercial Fisheries for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game at a conference in February. “Later, we found that was continuing for pink and chum salmon, and that has given us pause. We want to understand if it’s going to have a fitness impact on wild populations. Our job is to protect wild salmon.”

What makes Alaska’s hatchery enhancement program different than those in Japan or Russia is the state is not using hatchery-bred fish to restore natural stocks lost to development or overfishing.

Greg Ruggerone, a salmon scientist with Natural Resources Consultants, a company specializing in fish ecology and fisheries management, says he is most worried about interbreeding of wild and hatchery fish.

“The biggest issue and the one that’s raised the greatest concern over the decades has been genetic issues — interbreeding of hatchery and wild salmon in spawning grounds,” says Ruggerone. “When hatchery fish interbreed with wild fish, it confounds our interpretation of the wild stock, making it hard to evaluate.”

“Our job is to protect wild salmon.”

But Ron Josephson, the section chief of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, says they are diligently monitoring areas with mixed stocks.

“If [scientists] find out hatcheries are impacting wild stocks, we’ll have to decide what action to take. These are decisions down the road. It depends on the magnitude of the effect. It’s hard to imagine it’s too large, or we would have seen it in areas like Prince William Sound or Southeast Alaska,” he says.

The state is in the third year of a 12-year Hatchery Wild Interaction Study looking at genetic and ecological interactions between hatchery and wild salmon and any impacts that may have on wild stocks.

“We’re now able to do family tracking through genetics,” says Sam Rabung, who is the PNP Hatchery Program Coordinator.

Today, scientists are able to identify the progeny from two salmon that spawned in a natural system. Or identify hatchery fish that spawned in the wild with another hatchery fish, or if it bred with a fully-wild salmon. And, they can identify their offspring, and whether or not those salmon came back to their spawning grounds at the same rate. “It’s remarkable,” says Rabung.

The numbers are massive — 58 million returning hatchery fish last year alone — which explains why straying of hatchery fish into wild populations and spawning grounds is a growing concern.

“If 1 percent of fish naturally stray, and 93 percent are hatchery salmon, that’s a big impact on the natural population in terms of sheer numbers,” says Randy Ericksen, the fisheries science director at Ocean Outcomes, a not-for-profit that studies global fisheries.

Straying isn’t the only worry. Generations of returning hatchery salmon could change the timing of natural salmon runs, warns Ericksen. And nuances in salmon, even within the same species, aren’t always controllable in hatchery breeding programs.

“There are differences even in fish that return to the same river,” says Ericksen. “Some sockeye, for example, specialize in spawning in rivers, others in tributaries, and others on beaches. You can look at them, and they can even be physically different, but they’re all sockeye.”

Hatchery enhancement is very much on the radar of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, which provides sustainable seafood recommendations to consumers. Wild Alaskan salmon (including hatchery fish) still merit a “best choice,” but the group is in the midst of updating its salmon standards.

“The concerns we’ve been looking at are mainly interactions between hatchery fish and wild fish,” says Sam Wilding, a senior fisheries scientist at Seafood Watch. “Over the last five years, there’s been more science looking at impacts. But what we don’t want to do is to put something in our criteria that says this is a concern, but we have no way to measure it. You have to be able to measure. Hopefully that will incentivize greater research.”

The use of hatcheries to enhance stocks has been a point of contention between the salmon industry and the Marine Stewardship Council, the world’s largest wild seafood certification program. MSC’s greater scrutiny of hatchery salmon are now being addressed in new standards went into effect April 1st, and for the first time, spell out how salmon enhancement activity will be measured.

“Our natural system is finite.”

“The requirement is that enhancement does not negatively impact wild stocks,” says Megan Atcheson, an assessment manager at MSC.

While Alaska takes a closer look at its hatchery program, don’t expect enhancement practices to go away anytime soon. Hatchery salmon provide additional harvestable fish and important economic benefits to the state.

“Our natural system is finite. The only way to produce more harvestable fish is through our hatchery program,” says Rabung.

California’s drought has been a dream come true — for pests

2015-05-01T09:30:02-04:00

It was a single limb on a walnut tree that had withered and died. A small loss, and one Craig McNamara could have easily missed during his orchard inspection in June. But come July, the tree lost a few more. By August, it was dead. Botryosphaeria, the fungal disease that took it, has now spread to nearly every tree on McNamara’s 450-acre organic farm, many as old as 55 years.

Farmers call it “bot” for short, and it’s diffusing through McNamara’s orchards on the heels of a tiny insect called the walnut scale. Unfortunately for California growers, the drought, combined with the warmest winter in the state’s history, have made conditions ripe for the unwelcome disease, along with plenty of other agricultural pests.

“I never heard of it until last year,” says McNamara, who’s been tending his Sierra Orchard farm for 34 years.

Scale is the size of a Rice Krispie. It spends its life sucking the juice from the flesh of a twig, then forms a small scale over the area, before repeating the process. The insect leaves behind thousands of eggs under that scaly patch that hatch, grow into crawlers, and continue the deadly cycle — one that has grown worse with drought. Lack of moisture, including the Central Valley’s vanishing tule fog, fuels the problem by stressing trees, making them more susceptible to insects.

In 2013, California’s six top produce crops (almonds, grapes, strawberries, walnuts, lettuce, and tomatoes) were valued at $18.3 billion dollars. While the State Department of Food and Agriculture does not keep statistics on crop damage done by insects, even a 10 percent associated loss would be substantial for growers. And many farmers say they’re now seeing pests earlier in the season and in greater numbers.

Lygus bugs, beet armyworms, potato psyllids, aphids, thrips — every crop has its pest, but growers and scientists say the drought is triggering a change in insect behavior, producing a boon of bugs at a time when farmers are already wringing their hands over the very future of their crops.

Lettuce aphids infesting a leaf. (Yong-Biao Liu/USDA).

The burst of bugs is something John Trumble, an entomologist at University of California-Riverside, predicted in a 2009 paper, “Climate change will exacerbate California’s insect pest problems.” In it, Trumble warns that warming temperatures could prove a boon for insects: existing pests may expand their range, and new bugs may make California their home.

“The [current] increase is mostly related to the drought, which may in fact be related to climate change,” says Trumble. “Insects are nothing if not adaptable.”

Joe Pezzini, chief operating officer of Ocean Mist Farms in Castroville, says it’s the plume moth that has him most concerned.

With nearly 5,000 acres in production, Ocean Mist is the largest artichoke producer in North America. About half the crop is made up of annual varieties. The other half is planted with an heirloom perennial that came from Europe nearly 100 years ago. Its rootstock can stay in the ground for a decade or more.

“We’re getting two more generations per year than we had before. generations [of plume moths] are overlapping.”

Plume moths bore into an artichoke like a worm in an apple. It typically takes six to eight weeks to go from egg to moth, but dry, warm weather, including several 80-degree days in January and February, have accelerated the moth’s life cycle; the plume moths are maturing in four to six weeks, according to Pezzini.

“That means we’re getting two more generations per year than we had before,” says Pezzini. “Generations of them are overlapping.”

To handle the growing number of plume moths, Ocean Mist uses spray or traps to eradicate them, and has even resorted to chopping their valuable perennial varieties to the ground, leaving the root intact. The idea, says Pezzini, is to reduce the foliage in the hopes of slowing the moth down.

White flies on cotton plants near Blythe, California. (Edward McCain/USDA).

Lack of rainfall is prompting insects to migrate. Hillsides that typically would stay green until April are already dry. Low rainfall amounts and low seed germination have pushed bugs, like the voracious beet armyworm, from the California hillsides into agricultural fields.

“Farmers are seeing them much earlier than they would have because native plants have been desiccated, and they’re showing up in fields at a time when growers are not used to seeing them,” says Trumble.

That’s the scenario that’s playing out at Terranova Ranch, Don Cameron’s farm 30 miles southwest of Fresno, where he grows more than 20 different crops ranging from wine grapes to canning tomatoes to carrots and onions. Sugar beet leafhoppers may sound like a endearing bug dreamed up by Pixar, but they carry the beet curly top virus, devastating to sugar beet and tomato crops.

“It just takes one bite.”

“Tomatoes aren’t their favorite crop, but it just takes one bite into the tomato to transmit the virus and the plant dies,” Cameron says. “We’re hearing reports of the South Valley being infected with curly top virus from the sugar beet leafhoppers — we’re just keeping our fingers crossed it doesn’t turn into a serious problem.”

The bug-related virus devastated Cameron’s canning tomato crop in 2013, when the region had already reached severe drought status. Yield in his organic fields dropped from 50 tons per acre to 12 tons, and his conventional tomatoes were hit with a 10–15 percent loss as well.

There has been an upside to the warm weather, though. Plenty of farmers, including Cameron, have planted crops weeks earlier than normal. His wine grapes are two weeks ahead of schedule. Tomato transplants placed in fields in early March usually run the risk of frost. Not this year. And crops like strawberries have done well this year, with some regions harvesting as early as five weeks ahead of their normal schedule.

“We’re not going to let the insects take our crops.”

But Cameron says this year he’s keeping a close watch for insect swells that threaten his fields.

“The insects are cycling faster than they used to. We’re having multiple generations and a longer growing season,” he says. “We’ve got to be vigilant. We’re not going to let the insects take our crops.”