Lawmakers want labeling for all genetically modified seed

Farmers don’t seem to mind but the industry is opposed

By FRITZ MAYER

NEW YORK — Whether farmers are conventional or organic, most of them want to know what kind of seed they are buying, so they are not opposed to labeling genetically modified organism (GMO) seed. That’s the feeling of organic framer Wes Gillingham of Youngsville, a member of the New York Farm Bureau. The bureau supports pending legislation in Albany that would require the labeling of all GMO seed sold in the state.

In Sullivan County, conventional farmers use a lot of GMO seed. According to Peter Carey of the Cornell Cooperative Extension, diary farmers use it to help manage pests and weeds. “If we can splice a gene into a plant that can help control a detrimental insect population, that might be better than continuing to dump chemicals into the ground,” he said.

Organic farmers, on the other hand, are fundamentally opposed to GMO seeds. Those farmers are also concerned that the pollen from the GMO plant in a neighbor’s field will drift into their fields and contaminate an organic crop. Labeling seeds would not solve the problem of drifting pollen, but at least it would prevent farmers and weekend gardeners from unknowingly planting GMO seeds.

Members of the biotech industry, however, think labeling is not needed.

Lisa Dry of the Biotechnology Industry Organization in Washington, D.C. said the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and sometimes the Environmental Protection Agency scrutinize GMO seeds. Dry said labeling is not necessary “because all GMO products in the marketplace have already undergone extensive review… and no federal agency has seen the need to set labeling policies.”

There are many activists who don’t believe GMO seeds have been sufficiently tested to be declared safe. But even if the seeds are safe, there are a growing number of people in the world who would simply prefer not to eat GMO plants and animals. That is becoming an increasingly difficult goal.

The United States uses more GMO seeds than any other country in the world. More than 50 percent of the corn planted in the United States last year was GMO. For soybeans, the GMO share was more than 90 percent. Because soybean oil is used extensively in processed foods, it is estimated that some 70 percent of the food sold in grocery stores contains some form of GMO.

GMOs also pose a threat to organic farmers trying to provide foods that are free of pesticides and GMO. Gillingam said that there are now large farms in New York State raising hundred of acres of organic corn that can be sold for human consumption or fed to organic livestock, such as chickens and pigs.

Those fields could be contaminated from GMO corn in a nearby field. It happened in a much-publicized case in the late 1990s with a GMO corn called Starlink. That was a corn not approved for human consumption. Pollen from the Starlink field contaminated a neighboring field and the GMO-contaminated corn wound up in tacos at Taco Bell. The tortilla shells were recalled.

On the issue of cross-pollination, Dry said it rarely happens. And when it does, the produce of the organic farmer is still considered “organic.” Dry said the organic certification is a marketing tool rather than a safety program. If a crop has been grown in accordance with all the required organic practices, it is still organic even if it has been contaminated with GMO pollen. That, said Dry, is the policy of the United States Department of Agriculture.