Tell the USDA What YOU Think about GMOs in Organics - Comment Period Extended to 3/3/2010

[Christina Haas]

From Whole Foods' Whole Story Blog:

UPDATE 02/18/10: The U.S. Department of Agriculture is currently considering whether or not to approve the use of genetically engineered (GE) Roundup-Ready alfalfa. Their report says you don’t care about GMOs in organics.

The comment period has been extended from February 16 until March 3, 2010. You still have time to have your voice and opinions heard! The easiest way to send your comments to the USDA is on the True Foods Project Take Action website.

As part of the approval process, the USDA is required to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), a detailed analysis of how the crop will affect the environment, organic and conventional farmers, farm animals, and the public. They’ve released their EIS on GE alfalfa, and here’s how the True Food Network at The Center for Food Safety summarized the issue in a recent Action Alert:

"In 2006, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) sued the Department of Agriculture (USDA) for its illegal approval of Monsanto’s genetically engineered (GE) Roundup Ready alfalfa. The federal courts sided with CFS and banned GE alfalfa until the USDA fully analyzed the impacts of the plant on the environment, farmers, and the public in a rigorous analysis known as an environmental impact statement (or EIS). USDA released its draft EIS on December 14, 2009. A 60-day comment period is now open until February 16, 2010. This is the first time the USDA has done this type of analysis for any GE crop. Therefore, the final decision will have broad implications for all GE crops."

That Environmental Impact Statement, unfortunately, contains a number of questionable statements and conclusions. The part of the EIS that worries us the most is the claim that buyers of organic foods don’t care if those products are contaminated with GMOs (genetically modified, or genetically engineered, organisms). We know that nothing could be further from the truth, and that a huge number of our shoppers care deeply about avoiding GMOs in the foods they buy. We’ve gone to great lengths to keep GMOs out of organic foods and, through our work with The Non-GMO Project, have helped advance North America’s first standards and verification program for Non-GMO foods. We are intent on preserving our ability to provide non-GMO options for our shoppers. Every newly-approved GMO crop erodes our ability to provide non-GMO food, and leads to contamination of organic and non-GMO crops, due to pollen drift and other forms of contamination.

What can YOU do?

The True Food Project has set up a Take Action website to help you easily submit your comments to the USDA. These are due by February 16th so take the time to do it now. Please use the CFS’s form letter as a guide and personalize it as you see fit – let the USDA know exactly why you’re concerned about this issue, what you think about GMOs in your food, and what you think they should do with the approval of GE alfalfa.

In our own comments to the USDA, we emphasized a few key facts:

• Organic and natural foods consumers do care about the presence of GMOs in their food. In fact, avoiding genetically engineered ingredients is one of the key reasons that shoppers seek out organic foods.
• The contamination of organic and non-GE crops by GE material has presented a huge burden for our company and our industry.
• The unchecked proliferation of GE crops will directly harm organic producers and the integrity of the organic label.
• The approval of GE alfalfa would do more harm than previously approved GE crops, since alfalfa is a perennial crop.

Everyone has their own opinion about GMOs; please tell your story to the USDA via the True Food Project action campaign by February 16th. We’d love to read what you think in the comment section below, but make sure you send your comments to the USDA first!

[Camilo Garcia]

I wrote in and commented. I definitely care about GMO and GE foods; I am against such things. The danger is in contamination of our gardens, or the produce we depend on from the Farmer's Markets and grocery stores. There was an NPR report aired a couple of years ago where they talked to Mexican corn farmers in Oaxaca (way down there) and they were saying GMO pollen had been detected and they were really afraid for the safety of their varieties. I am sorry to say that I didn't follow the story very long and don't know where it stands now, but after this reminder I am going to look it up and see what else we can do. Thanks for the post.

And regarding the EIS process in general (Environmental Impact Statement), I work with ecosystem and habitat management and restoration and I know that most EIS are either whitewash science or downright misleading, in order to get development projects approved. That is the main reason I have to travel to work. Despite the green label that has been applied to Travis County, Central Texas, and Austin specifically, this too is mostly greenwash. It is only greener than the rest of Texas. Most of the work around here is for private biology firms to process NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) paperwork, like the EIS requirement; this is sadly just rubber-stamp BS for the big developers. Sorry for the negative reportage, but you know we have a long way to go. There is a lot of good being done elsewhere that I think will really help as we import ideas. I am really liking the fact that Foogs is attracting so many members from other states and now Canada.

And we really do have a strong undercurrent in this area, many people whose ideas and energy we can tap into. The more we can get groups and individuals together, the quicker we gain strength and the ability to reach more and more people. I really don't know all the science involved, but I do think it could be as disastrous as they say if contamination with GE pollens was widespread.