As an organic farm, we never use any genetically modified (GM) seeds. This is required by the National Organic Program and enforced by the organic certifying agencies, so buying certified organic is one way that consumers can know that something they are buying is not GM. Unfortunately, there is currently no way to know if the non-organic items you might buy are GM or not, unless the company specifically says no GMOs on the label. Products with GM ingredients can even be labeled “natural.” GM corn and soy have become so prevalent that you are almost certainly eating GM foods if you are buying anything processed at all—cereals, drinks, energy bars, etc.
Monsanto, Dupont and other big pesticide and food conglomerate companies are fighting hard against Prop 37. They are spending tens of millions of dollars to defeat it, coming up with dubious claims of increased cost for consumers and clever glossy ads that point out inconsistencies in which items the proposition would require to be labeled (the law would apply only to retail outlets and is very straightforward).
I’ve often heard people confusing GM food with non-GM plant breeding and hybridization. There is a big difference. People have been breeding food plants for ages to select for traits that are important to farmers—size, flavor, color, time to ripening, resistance to disease or drought. We sometimes lament the traits that seed companies for big-Ag select for, and so we look to seed companies that understand small direct-market growers who care more about flavor than shelf life, and we use heirloom varieties when we can. Nevertheless, agricultural plant breeding is vital to the production of food on a large scale. Seed companies need to be constantly breeding and selecting varieties of lettuce, for instance, that are resistant to the latest strains of powdery mildew year to year. Evolution is an ongoing process, and seed companies try to stay a step ahead of the diseases and pests. Most successful squash varieties are hybrids—they are two squash varieties that have been bred together to produce a squash that has more of the traits we want. This sort of breeding is the equivalent of getting a dog who is part golden retriever and part Irish setter.
GM seeds are like getting a dog who is part fish. The genes from a different species of animal, plant, virus, or bacteria are introduced into the genes of the plant or animal to be grown for food. The Europeans are much more wary of this grand experiment, and all of Europe, Japan, India and China already require GMO labeling. These foods haven’t been around long enough for any long-term health studies to be conducted. But a look at common GM foods is reason enough to avoid them. Round-Up Ready soy beans are engineered so that they can be doused with the herbicide Round-Up (to kill the weeds) and still thrive. Genetically modified rapeseed (canola) has escaped the boundaries of the farms where it was initially grown to invade the fields of farmers trying to grow non-GM canola for oil. GM corn has been engineered to produce the natural pesticide Bt (a kind of bacteria) in its own tissue. Aside from the concern about killing all lepidoptera all the time instead of targeting a pest when it is actually a problem, organic growers who use Bt have concerns that insects will quickly develop resistance to this very useful natural product given the constant exposure from these crops.
Whether you think it’s no big deal to eat GM crops or you want to avoid them at all costs, Prop 37 is simply a right-to-know law. And we all have a right to know whether the food we are eating is genetically modified.
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