GMO task force scheduled to meet in April

Six months ago, as part of his “grand bargain” public retirement and tax package, Gov. John Kitzhaber demanded passage of a last-minute bill prohibiting local jurisdictions from regulating genetically modified crops and seeds.

If lawmakers didn’t pass the bill, Kitzhaber said, he would veto the whole package.

To soften the blow, Kitzhaber wrote a letter to legislative leaders promising to convene a GMO task force that would recommend legislation for the 2015 session and would oversee a Department of Agriculture plan, to be completed by June, for mapping where and when GMO crops are grown and providing buffers and exclusion zones.

So far, the task force has yet to be named.

Kitzhaber’s office has said the task force won’t recommend legislation after all.

“The likelihood of achieving any consensus recommendation on any of these issues is not very good,” Richard Whitman, the governor’s natural resources policy adviser told a legislative committee in February.

And the Department of Agriculture has not started work on the plan.

“We’re waiting for the task force to be announced. That’s the first step before we move forward,” agriculture spokesman Bruce Pokarney said last week.“If the task force meets and that’s something that’s determined we still need to do, then we’ll meet that deadline.”

The governor’s spokeswoman, Rachel Wray, said there is one task force member left to confirm, and spring break is slowing that down. The task force will begin meeting in April, she said.

“These policy conversations were an important part of the agreement that led to the passage of last fall’s compromise legislation to get more money for education,” said Jared Mason-Gere, spokesman for House Speaker Tina Kotek. “The inclusion of those elements from the governor’s letter were critical to pull the whole package together,”

“They were important to the speaker then and she still feels it’s very important that Oregonians see results of that work,” he said.

Senate President Peter Courtney did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, the local ballot measure that prompted the bill has drawn hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from across the country.

Jackson County’s Measure 15-119 was exempted from the bill because it already had qualified for the ballot.

Opponents of the measure so far have raised $308,550.

Most recently Farm Bureaus in Idaho and New Mexico, and sugar beet grower associations in Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska have contributed to the opposition campaign. statemen journal

Commercialisation of 30 GM cotton, corn/maize varieties against rules

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has approved more than 30 varieties of genetically modified (GM) cotton and corn/maize seeds for commercialisation and field test purposes in violation of rules and quality standards.

The approved varieties of Bt (or genetically modified) cotton seeds contain such low levels of poison that not only do not kill pests that destroy crop production but also build resistance in worms, impacting biodiversity and human health.

It may be noted that Pakistan does not have bio-safety laws, independent laboratories and trained staff to monitor associated risks and production of GM cotton and corn/maize to assess its impact on the soil, check cross pollination, effects on environment and human or animal consumption, especially after the national bio-safety centre project ends on June 30.

Laboratory test results (available with Dawn) showed that the approved GM cotton and corn/maize seeds contained low toxin between 0.3 and 0.7 microgram/gram against the international standards of 1.8 microgram/gram set by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Documents also revealed how in 2010 genetically modified Bt cotton seed varieties were approved which were substandard and had low genetically modified toxin to kill pests.

“In March 2014, the GM cotton varieties with even lower Bt toxin were approved overlooking the minimum standards through the National Bio-safety Committee (NBC), Climate Change Division, which does not have the jurisdiction outside the federal capital,” said an expert in the field of GM organisms at the Pakistan Agriculture Research Council (PARC).

After the passage of the 18th Amendment, GM crops became a provincial subject. On September 24, 2013, the law ministry wrote to the Ministry of Climate Change: “Environment pollution and ecology are subjects of the concurrent legislative list and stand transferred to provinces.”

Dilshad Ahmad Babar, the acting director general Pakistan Environment Protection Agency, said the Ministry of Law has directed the NBC to approve the commercialisation of the genetically modified cotton and the test of GM corn/maize in Pakistan.

Instead of following the constitution under devolution (that came into effect in 2010), local seed companies first got a letter issued through the Punjab government for approval of apparently substandard Bt cotton seeds on August 6, 2013.

“To further pressure the NBC, the Prime Minister Secretariat issued a number of letters asking the NBC to approve Bt cotton for commercialisation and the test of GM corn/maize,” said an expert.

A meeting of Inter-Provincial Coordination was held on October 2, 2013, to assess and approve the commercialisation of Bt cotton and trial growth of GM corn/maize.

Though the matter related to provinces, in January 2014 the Ministry of Law instructed the NBC to approve the GM crops in ‘national interest’.

Risks

Documents available with Dawn showed that four government labs had given reports in 2010 and 2012 that all GM cotton were below required gene toxin to kill larva/pest. “Low toxins will not kill pest, it will only develop pest resistance against Bt gene,” said a lab report.

Worst, the GM corn approved by the government contained “MIR162” gene which was earlier this year banned by China after it rejected it as unsafe for animal consumption and feared contamination of its corn crops.

“It also contains “MON810”, which has been banned in most European countries since 2009. France was one of the first countries to reject it, fearing health and environmental hazards,” said the expert.

When contacted, Secretary Climate Change Division Raja Hasan Abbas said the NBC, Climate Change Division, had approved the GM crops after consultation with the law ministry.

“There are clauses in the law that gives provinces the right to ask the federal government to take initiative if they lacked capacity. The Punjab government has asked the federal government to take the lead in this case,” said the secretary, adding all procedures were followed before NBC could approve the GM crops.

Nonetheless, most members in Farmers Association of Pakistan are against introducing the GM crops. DAWN

Syngenta says prices influenced China rejection of GMO U.S. corn

(Reuters) - Syngenta AG said on Tuesday that grain prices have played a role in China's rejection of U.S. corn shipments containing an unauthorized, genetically modified trait developed by the company.

China, the world's third-biggest corn buyer, has turned away since November more than 900,000 tonnes of U.S. corn containing Syngenta's Agrisure Viptera trait.

"There's unquestionably a global trade issue at play here relating to contracts and prices," said David Morgan, Syngenta's regional director of North America.

Syngenta, the world's largest crop chemicals company, has been waiting for China to approve Viptera, known as MIR 162, for import for more than four years.

Beijing started cracking down on shipments containing the trait late last year, even though Viptera corn had been mixed in with other varieties since China increased imports of U.S. corn in 2011.

The rejections have fueled speculation among grain traders that China was strictly enforcing its ban as a way to exit contracts for pricey corn and to prevent imports into a well-supplied market. U.S. corn futures soared to $8 a bushel last summer and dropped almost 50 percent by November.

Pressure from Chinese who believe the country should be more self sufficient in food production is another explanation for the government's rejections of U.S. corn containing Viptera, Morgan said. There is no one reason behind the rejections, he added.

China's Biosafety Committee is due to meet this week or next to decide whether to approve Viptera, engineered to offer protection against crop-damaging insects.

After years of waiting for approval, Morgan said he had become "sober" in his expectations of what would come out of China.

"I'm hopeful that they will proceed in the next discussion but until we hear from them, I'm not going to count any chickens, as they say," he said in a telephone interview.

Niu Dun, China's vice agriculture minister, said in December that Viptera corn could not be accepted because it had not been approved by the ministry for import.

China has found its debate over imports of GMO farm products "to be a convenient tool to use to try and protect the Chinese market," Fred Gale, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's China chair, said at a conference this month.

China holds more than 90 million tonnes of corn in state stockpiles. Traders are expecting the government to sell some grain as early as May. Reuters

GE Labeling Bill

GE Labeling Resurrected in California, Petition For Ballot Measure Circulating in Colorado

California’s 2012 food-labeling ballot measure, rejected by state voters, makes a return from the grave tomorrow with a public hearing in Sacramento. And another state initiative is in the offing in Colorado.

Since the narrow loss for the Golden State’s Proposition 37, which called for labeling foods made with genetically modified organisms (GMOs), almost half the states have seen bills introduced containing similar language.

But moving a GMO-labeling bill through a statehouse has not been easy task. In Colorado, for example, a group calling itself Right to Know Colorado GMO, is avoiding the state’s legislature entirely. It has already filed Initiative 48. With court approval for their ballot title, the group’s next task is to obtain 86,105 valid voter signatures on petitions for submittal to the state by early August.

If the measure qualifies for the ballot, Colorado voters would decide whether food with GMOs sold in the state after July 1, 2016, will be required to have language on the label stating: “Produced With Genetic Engineering.”

Californians for GE Food Labeling — a coalition made up of environmental, foodie and consumer groups — is pitching Senate Bill 1381 as a “simpler, cleaner” version of the ill-fated Prop. 37.

Sponsored by state Sen. Noreen Evans (D-Santa Rosa), SB 1381 is one of the few surviving state bills calling for labeling foods with GE ingredients. Evans has more time than most to work the bill as the California General Assembly does not adjourn until Nov. 30. Election-year adjournments for most state legislatures occur much sooner.

Last week, Hawaii House Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Jessica Wooley tried a legislative maneuver to keep a GMO-labeling bill alive. She gutted an unrelated agriculture bill and substituted language for the GMO-labeling requirements.

But her colleagues resisted the move when state officials questioned how the measure could be enforced. “From an enforcement standpoint, unless we have the entire genome of the plant, we won’t be able to test,” said Gary Gill, deputy director of the Hawaii Department of Health.

The bill with the substitute language was then “deferred indefinitely,” effecting killing GM labeling for at least another year in Hawaii. There might be time for another last-minute revival of the GMO bill as the Hawaii Legislature adjourns in early May, but that would happen only if the votes are certain.

State lawmakers in Vermont also go home in early May, and the GE-labeling bill passed by the House there last year still could become law if it can get through the Senate in time.

After a public hearing last week, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Sears was reported as having concerns about the bill’s dairy exemption and about how much it would cost the relatively small state to defend its action in federal court.

The Vermont Attorney General’s Office estimates that defending a challenge over federal preemption would cost state taxpayers upwards of $5 million if it lost and without much in the way of legal fee recovery.

Sears is concerned that the exemption of Vermont’s dairy industry could make it impossible to pass a judicial test. The Virginia Public Interest Research Group, which wrote H. 112, acknowledged that it left dairy out as a “strategic move.”

Sears said he wants to know if the state can defend a bill that “exempts dairy and not corn chips.”

Amendments to deal with funding the inevitable court challenge and removing the dairy exemption were being advanced in Montpelier to get the Judiciary Committee to move the bill to the Senate floor.

Meanwhile, Vermont’s Senate Judiciary Committee has taken no action on S. 289, a bill that would make owners of genetically engineered seed responsible for its spread to other property.

Word has also gone out in Florida that SB 558, assigned to the Senate Agriculture Committee, will not be heard this session. The bill, which would require raw agricultural commodities found by the legislature to be cultivated in GE form to be labeled, has not received much attention. Lawmakers are scheduled to leave Tallahassee on May 2.

Also not moving is Missouri’s SB 533, which calls for labeling all GE meat and fish sold in the state after Sept. 1, 2016. The Missouri General Assembly does not adjourn until May 30, but SB 533 has been stuck in the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Food Production and Outdoor Resources.

The GE labeling bill in Rhode Island, HB 7042, appear to be dead, having been held in committee for “further study.”

The Washington Legislature left Olympia without taking action on HB 2143, which would have added another layer of prohibitions over raising genetically modified finfish. At a public hearing in January, the House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources heard industry testimony to that effect that the existing ban was sufficient. A spokesman for Puget Sound’s 30-year-old farmed Atlantic salmon business says it has no interest in raising any GM fish because customers are not interested in buying them.

Washington state voters last year also narrowly rejected a GM-labeling bill. Connecticut has adopted a GM-labeling bill, but it is contingent on surrounding states passing similar measures. © Food Safety News

GMO Labeling Movement Stagnant in Texas

When Eric Herm heard in 2005 that genetically modified cottonseeds were the latest innovation on the market, he thought he should plant the crop on his family farm near Lubbock.

“I was like, ‘What’s so bad about this,’” he said of the seeds, which are a cheaper way to help crops resist weed and insect damage. “We’re saving money and labor.”

After learning that the “seeds are injected with the genes of herbicides and pesticides,” Herm became critical of the product. “I didn’t want to be consuming that,” he said. “And neither would you.”

Now, Herm is advocating a requirement to include warning labels on consumer products with genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. He is among a small group of farmers and environmental advocates pushing for the labeling of GMO products in Texas. But the push is getting little support from the Republican-dominated state leadership or from major agribusinesses.

“I haven’t had a single constituent mention support for GMO labeling to me,” said state Rep. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, a member of the House Agriculture and Livestock Committee. Even if a measure were introduced, he added, it would face a difficult road in the Legislature. 

Herm said it was a struggle to get people’s attention. “Where I live, 90 percent of the people were looking at me like I was saying the aliens are coming,” he said.

GMO products, which are made from planting seeds with engineered DNA, make up about90 percent of cash crops like cotton, corn and soybeans nationwide, according to the nonprofit Center for Food Safety, which supports labeling. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration supports voluntary labeling. GMO foods are required to meet the same safety standards as other foods.

Maine and Connecticut require GMO products to be labeled, and 26 other states have considered legislation. In Texas, there has been no such proposal, though interest has grown. Austin-based Whole Foods Market announced that by 2018, it would label products with genetically modified ingredients.

Most farmers oppose GMO labeling because it brings unnecessary attention to the product, which could slow sales, said Gene Hall, a spokesman for the Texas Farm Bureau, which represents agricultural producers across Texas, including large agribusinesses. 

“We don’t need to label something that is absolutely safe,” Hall said.

But activists say the issue is about keeping consumers informed.

“In the U.S., we don’t label dangerous foods — we take it off the marketplace,” said Colin O’Neil, the director of government affairs for the Center for Food Safety. “We’re not saying these products are dangerous, either. We’re just saying consumers have the right to know.”

Some labeling proponents say agribusinesses have lobbied against their efforts. “For a long time, these agribusinesses have been incredibly powerful in keeping GMO labeling out of the Legislature,” said Sara Smith, program director of the nonprofit Texas Public Interest Research Group, a consumer advocacy organization.

Organic farmers like Herm and Gerald Cole of Taylor, who support GMO labeling, said their smaller numbers were at a disadvantage against food conglomerates.

“They can lobby Congress for their best interest,” Cole said. “We just can’t.”

Hall said he was unaware of the millions spent on lobbying, but added: “There is nothing wrong with it. We’re opposed to labeling, and we’re not afraid to say so.”

Disclosure: Whole Foods Market was a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune in 2010 and 2011. The Texas Farm Bureau was a corporate sponsor of The Texas Tribune in 2012 and 2013. (You can also review the full list of Tribune donors and sponsors below $1,000.) 

*Editor's Note: This story has been updated to clarify the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's stance on lobbying. The FDA supports voluntary labeling, and GMO foods are required to meet the same safety standards as other foods.

GM field trials: Indian Regulator proposes but most states decline

GM field trials: Regulator proposes but most states decline

A Business Standard survey shows a majority of the states still firmly against the move while some others are open to consider it only conditionally

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has approved field trials for 11 crop varieties but that clears only the first hurdle in the way of genetically-modified crops. Another major hitch could come from state governments, most of which do not seem to be in a mood to give their go-ahead anytime soon.

A survey conducted by Business Standard reveals that a majority of the country’s states are still firmly against the move, while a few are open to considering only conditionally. Some others are either neutral or might take a decision after the Lok Sabha elections.

According to GEAC officials, maize, mustard and rice are among the crops that have got approval for trials, but the states that are major producers of these crops remain opposed.

A piece of good news, though, has come from Maharashtra and Punjab, two of the largest agricultural states, which have favoured field trials for GM crops.

Officials say the use of high-yield GM crops could prove beneficial, given the growing demand for food grains, vegetables and oil seeds. But apprehensions of health hazard on the use of such seeds for consumable agricultural commodities seem to be playing a spoilsport. India had suspended field trials of these crops a few years ago but the GEAC approval last week for 11 varieties brought the issue back in the limelight.

The environment & forests ministry had in July 2011 made it mandatory for companies, institutes and research bodies to get no-objection certificates from states concerned before conducting trials. Also, GEAC analyses the sites for these trials on several parameters, including whether these are located too close to sanctuaries or water bodies.

The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) has approved field trials for 11 crop varieties but that clears only the first hurdle in the way of genetically-modified crops. Another major hitch could come from state governments, most of which do not seem to be in a mood to give their go-ahead anytime soon.

A survey conducted by Business Standard reveals that a majority of the country’s states are still firmly against the move, while a few are open to considering only conditionally. Some others are either neutral or might take a decision after the Lok Sabha elections.

According to GEAC officials, maize, mustard and rice are among the crops that have got approval for trials, but the states that are major producers of these crops remain opposed.

A piece of good news, though, has come from Maharashtra and Punjab, two of the largest agricultural states, which have favoured field trials for GM crops.

Officials say the use of high-yield GM crops could prove beneficial, given the growing demand for food grains, vegetables and oil seeds. But apprehensions of health hazard on the use of such seeds for consumable agricultural commodities seem to be playing a spoilsport. India had suspended field trials of these crops a few years ago but the GEAC approval last week for 11 varieties brought the issue back in the limelight.

The environment & forests ministry had in July 2011 made it mandatory for companies, institutes and research bodies to get no-objection certificates from states concerned before conducting trials. Also, GEAC analyses the sites for these trials on several parameters, including whether these are located too close to sanctuaries or water bodies. BS