Foodies mobilize against effort to speed GMO approvals

[proverbialwisdom]

Source: Carolyn Lockheed, Hearst Washington Bureau

Buried in the House Agriculture Committee’s farm bill, approved yesterday after a 15-hour markup, is a provision that will speed approval of genetically modified crops. As it stands, USDA has never not approved a GMO crop. Genetically engineered foods enjoy a very weak regulatory regime dating back to Dan Quayle that splits authority among USDA, EPA and FDA, none of which has much power to block them.

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Anti-GMO groups such as the Center for Food Safety, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund have begun mobilizing against the provision.

The Center for Food Safety sent a letter Tuesday to the committee charging that GMO “riders” would “completely eliminate” some environmental rules governing GMOs, “unreasonably pressure USDA” to approve such crops, “create multiple backdoor GE crop approval mechanisms” that would allow approval of untested bio-traits to enter the food supply, and force USDA to set “allowable levels of GE contamination” in crops and food. ( http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/2Group-Letter-Opposing-Biotech-Riders-to-House-Farm-Bill-7.10.11.pdf )

The National Grain and Feed Association, representing grain millers, has also weighed in against the provisions, saying they could have “unintended consequences in domestic and export markets.”

Scott Faber, who follows the Hill for Environmental Working Group, which lobbies for more ag conservation and fewer crop subsidies, said both sides of the GMO debate were surprised that House Ag chair Frank Lucas, R-Ok., and top Dem Collin Peterson, D-Minn., put the GMO language in there. “Most of agribusiness was just as surprised as the Center for Food Safety that Lucas and Peterson would choose to use the farm bill to gut USDA review of GMO crops and open this particular Pandora’s Box,” Faber said.


Link from: http://www.gmwatch.org/latest-listing/1-news-items/14062-foodies-mobilize-against-effort-to-speed-gm-approvals

Read more: http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2012/07/12/foodies-mobilize-against-effort-to-speed-gmo-approvals/

[freshwest]

1. So the Tea Party pushed through cuts to starve the poor and pay off big business. Great!

[KT2000]

2. Foodies?

How about people concerned with human health and environmental diversity.

[proverbialwisdom]

3. Exactly what I thought about the poor title (which does not match the article content, incidentally)

[Gormy Cuss]

4. And that may be intentional as a way to diminish interest.

"Foodies" sounds like it's a bunch of elitists who can afford to pay whatever it takes to buy their superior food.

I must admit that I never thought of the Union of Concerned Scientists as "foodies." Who knew?

[BlueToTheBone]

7. You know, humans. n/t

[4th law of robotics]

8. There really aren't any associations with human health

and a field of 100% organic corn and a field of 100% GMO corn are exactly as environmentally diverse.

Mono-culture =/= diversity regardless of how you're growing the crops.

[roody]

9. Can you write that in a sentence

with a subject and verb that makes sense?

[4th law of robotics]

10. I'm pretty sure it makes perfect sense

not sure why you chose to go that route.

Either way: there is no association proven at this moment between GM crops and adverse human health effects.

Also a mono-cultured field (that means it is cleared and planted with only one kind of crop) is a mono-cultured field whether it is GM or organic. So the bio-diversity argument is a wash (means it's the same for GM and non-GM).

[roody]

11. Now I get what you are saying.

[Overseas]

5. Glad foodies are on board. Thanks for link to GMWatch website. GM Myths is really valuable.

We do seem to hear mostly the hoped for good news about GMOs and not about the failures.

I thought that there were surely other means to achieve a lot of the things GMOs are promoted for and I'm glad to know there are. Wish we had more media that would cover those things.

[lovuian]

6. yes

The National Grain and Feed Association, representing grain millers, has also weighed in against the provisions, saying they could have “unintended consequences in domestic and export markets.”


Europe and other countries don't WANT GMO food and why penalize our organic farmers