Tag Archives: genetically modified

Community News: Prop 37 and Our Lens on Life

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Prop 37, the California referendum that would have required the labeling of all food that includes genetically modified organisms, failed on Tuesday in a 47% to 53% split.  The initiative was riddled with holes indicative of the way the laws that regulate our daily lives today are bought and sold: exemptions for dairy products (feed the cows GM corn), exemptions for meat (feed them more!), exemptions for organic labels (wait, what?!)*

In spite of that disappointing reality, approval of the ballot would have brought to the fore a public discussion in a country dying of its own obesity and caloric emptiness.  We are what we eat, and we should consider our own physical well being a value beyond calculation in dollars.  Prop 37 lost because its opponents (spending $44 million, compared to $8 million) had the support of the rural counties where so much of our food is grown.  They convinced those communities that Prop 37 would cut into their profits, and for most folks those profits are already slim.  So those concerns are real for people, even if not for Monsanto, who donated $8 million themselves and would certainly not be harmed by a dip in profits.

And maybe 37 really would have cut into those profits.  Interviews with Industrial Agriculture companies indicate that those companies would switch to non-GM, and thus likely more expensive, ingredients rather than risk the market share loss anticipated from labeling. Continue reading →

Community News: Chief Justice Roberts on Your Fruits and Veggies

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The hubbub over Chief Justice John Roberts deciding in favor of the Affordable Care Act—specifically, the way he found it constitutional on the basis of taxation rather than the power of the federal government to regulate commerce—got me thinking about our gardens and dinners.  See, a shocking amount of American law that I think essential to an equitable society rests on the rather narrow Constitutional text “The Congress shall have the power to regulate commerce.”  A significant aspect of the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, for instance, depended on the Court’s determination that the Commerce Clause gave the feds the power to regulate businesses that served mostly interstate travelers.  Thus motels and restaurants across America could not discriminate against black Americans. Equality through Commerce.  Crazy, right?

Okay, so what does this have to do with food?  Well, the House is currently considering the next Agricultural Appropriations bill, which happens to contain a rider, known as “the Monsanto rider,” that has received, curiously, little to no coverage in the national press.  This rider requires that the Secretary of Agriculture grant a farmer or industrial agri-giant a  permit to plant genetically engineered crops (GMO), even if a federal court has ordered the planting halted for safety or environmental impact studies.  You can read it here.

Monsanto, DuPont, etc., only have to ask, and every ruling by a federal court or enforcement of current consumer protection laws on the part of the White House or a federal regulatory agency is overridden and they can plant whatever crop they chose.  Even state congresses become powerless: if they try to create local or state laws to protect eaters and farmers, they are in violation of federal law, a federal law that is written to override all other pertinent federal laws. Continue reading →