"Never underestimate the power of a few committed people to change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
-- Anthropologist Margaret Mead
Even if you've heard the above quote many times before, the sentiment expressed is so powerful that I think it's worth repeating. All around the world, small groups of people are organizing public support for improved food safety and successfully challenging large corporations to change their behavior.
That's exactly what Flint Michigan residents Kathleen Kirby and Mark Fisher are banking on: their power to influence change. They're participating in a nationwide consumer boycott of Kellogg's Co. instigated by the Organic Consumers Association. By boycotting the world's largest cereal company, they hope to pressure Kellogg's into rejecting the use of sugar from genetically engineered (GE) sugar beets and to spark widespread market rejection in products ranging from cereal to baby food to candy.
As you may know, Roundup Ready sugar beets are genetically altered to resist Monsanto's toxic weed killer, Roundup, and its active ingredient, glyphosate. But here's the scary truth about these beets:
When the USDA first approved GE sugar beets for commercial planting in 1998, the EPA also increased the maximum allowable residues of glyphosate on sugar beet roots from just 0.2 parts per million to 10ppm. That's a staggering 5,000 percent increase of allowable toxins on beet roots. And, it's little surprise that EPA made this policy change at the request of Monsanto.
Sugar beet roots contain sucrose that's extracted, refined, and processed into the sugar used in the foods we eat. What this means is that the more GE ingredients that find their way into our food, the greater the likelihood that we are ingesting more toxic chemicals.
Thankfully, GE sugar beets have never been grown in the U.S. for sale to food manufacturers -- that is, until this year, when Western farmers planted their first crop of Monsanto's Roundup Ready sugar beets. Right now, over half of the sugar used in U.S. processed foods comes from sugar beets, with beet and cane sugars combined in those products. What's most disturbing is that once GE sugar beets hit the market, which could be as early as next year, there will be no way to know if we're eating GE sugar because GE ingredients are not labeled.
Currently, only four major GE crops are sold commercially -- corn, cotton, soy, and canola. Most of these are engineered to withstand repeated, large doses of herbicides. For the most part, these crops and their byproducts are largely fed to animals with the exception of some minor food ingredients and oils. GE beet sugar breaks with this tradition in that it could become the first major GE ingredient added to almost all processed foods on our grocery store shelves.
Last week, Hershey's in Brazil announced that it would not source ingredients from Cargill, one of the world's largest food providers, because the company could not guarantee that soy, lecithin, and oils were not GE. This successful public pressure campaign, led by Greenpeace, influenced the company to reject GE beet sugar. It also demonstrates how individuals who care about food safety can mobilize collectively to make a difference.
Several years ago, Hershey's in the U.S. publicly stated that it would refuse to use GE beet sugar, but the company has been noticeably silent on the issue ever since. A double standard is not likely to prevail in the U.S., where organizations such as Don't Plant GMO Beets have helped to generate more than a hundred thousand protest letters. These letters, from people like Kirby and Fisher, show companies that there's strong opposition to the use of GE sugar beets in our food.
Like Hershey's, Kellogg's is only one of thousands of companies that may soon be using GE sugar -- perhaps without even knowing that they are doing so! That could be the case unless, of course, consumer pressure forces the market to reject GE beet sugar.
Kirby and Fisher know that as a market leader, Kellogg's could lead the charge in rejecting GE beet sugar and influence other companies to follow suit.
They also know that although they are just two people living in a small, Midwestern city north of Detroit, and with the Internet at their disposal, they are on their way to changing the world, one e-mail message at a time.
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Comments
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Skeptico Posted 3:59 am
09 Aug 2008
It sounds like the problem is not GE per se, but the change in regulation allowing the increases in herbicide residue.
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colliwa Posted 5:58 am
11 Aug 2008
It is crucial that we let these companies know that the introduction of sugar derived from genetically modified beets will be meet with strong consumer protest.
I happen to work for one of the companys poised to introduce this material into its' widely consumed candy and snack foods. Like Hershey's, this corporation formerly had a no-use policy when it came to GE beets, but have sinced changed their stance to allow its' introduction into the marketplace.
and while i'm doing what i can to convince my colleagues of the importance and urgency of reinstating our former rejection of GE derived sugar, it's the voices of consumers, which will, I believe, have more of an impact on altering our companys' position.
if you haven't done so already, check out the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility's "don't plant GMO beets" website @ http://www.dontplantgmobeets.org. there you can contact these companies and demand they take immediate steps to prevent this materials' introduction into their products.
Also keep in mind that the biotech companies have more GMO seed lines waiting in the wings. If GE beets are allowed to proceed into our food supply, more and more crop families will be in danger of irreversible GMO contamination -- The risks to human health, and to the environment, in my opinion, would be devastating.
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Lisa J. Bunin Posted 6:56 am
11 Aug 2008
However, this massive 5,000% increase in allowable herbicide residues (from 0.2ppm to 10ppm) is just one of the many causes for concern about the commercial planting of GE sugar beets. Here are some others:
The USDA approved GE sugar beets, as it did the other 4 major GE crops on the market today, without conducting a full review of the potential environmental impacts, as required by law. Consequently, the Center for Food Safety, Organic Seed Alliance, Sierra Club, and High Mowing Seeds is suing the USDA and asking the Court to withdraw USDA's approval of the commercial planting of GE sugar beets until the USDA prepares an environmental impact statement (EIS) http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/pubs/Final%20Complaint ...
Market approval of GE crops is based upon the biotech industry's own research. No long-term health studies on the effects of eating GE foods have been conducted by any government agency.
GE crops are not tested for the presence of potential toxins, mutagens, carcinogens, immune system suppressants or new allergens that could be created during the production of GE crops.
Once released into the environment, GE pollen and seeds can't be recalled - the genie cannot be stuffed back into the bottle. And, because GE sugar beets are wind pollinated, they have the potential to travel long distances and contaminate non-GM seeds and crops of related varieties, such as chard and table beets. This puts markets at risk for both organic crops and conventionally grown, non-GE export crops.
Just as the overuse of antibiotics breeds anti-biotic resistant bacteria, the overuse of glyphosate weedkiller, used in tandem with the growing of GE sugar beets, breeds glyphosate-resistant superweeds. These superweeds are stronger than normal weeds and, therefore, require the use of even more toxic and persistent chemicals to kill them, which will inevitably end up in our food and waterways.
So, you see, the problem isn't merely the change in regulation. It is also a lack of adequate regulation and the absence of evidence that proves GE sugar beets, or any other GE crop for that matter, is safe for human consumption and the environment.
Lisa J. Bunin
Campaigns Coordinator
Center for Food Safety and
Switzer Environmental Leadership Fellow
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Catdaddio42 Posted 8:04 am
15 Aug 2008
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Lisa J. Bunin Posted 7:00 am
25 Aug 2008
World agriculture is increasingly becoming dependent upon a single tool for weed control -- the weedkiller glyphosate, Monsanto's Roundup in particular. This situation is largely attributable to the rapid spread of GM, Roundup Ready (RR) crops, which is also driving the expansion of glyphosate-resistant weeds. Since Roundup is becoming less and less effective in killing weeds, farmers are turning to the use of more toxic and persistent herbicides, such as atrazine and 2,4-D, to eliminate those same weeds that formerly succumbed to Roundup.
Contrary to your claims that Roundup adversely affects only plants, studies have shown that the weedkiller is toxic to amphibians, frogs, and earthworms. Studies suggest that Roundup is a potential hormone disruptor and it may be correlated with increased rates of birth defects and cell division dysfunction. At least one study has shown that children of glyphosate applicators experience higher rates of behavioral disorders than non-exposed populations.
So, there's ample cause for concern not only that more Roundup is being sprayed on sugar beets, but also that more residues - a 5,000% increase since 1998 - are being allowed on sugar beet roots!
Now straying, as you do, from the subject at hand...
Let's start with manure. Your vote for high-intensity livestock production is a vote for huge manure lagoons created in animal factories housing thousands of cattle, pigs, and poultry crowded into confined animal feeding operations or CAFOs. These manure lagoons sicken rural people with their stench and often leak into surface waters or breech their containers, contaminating local streams with a flood of fecal matter, causing massive fish kills.
At CAFOs, cattle are force-fed corn that they were never meant to eat, creating unnaturally acidic conditions in their guts that foster development of deadly E. coli 0157:H7. The source of pathogenic E. coli is animal factories, not organic agriculture. Organic farmers use cover crops that fix nitrogen and spread safely COMPOSTED manure in their fields.
Once organic farming systems are established, their yields are close or equal to that of the destructive "high-intensity" agriculture systems that you recommend. Organic farmers produce high yields without using massive doses of nitrogen fertilizer that have numerous adverse side effects including huge emissions of nitrous oxides (potent global warming gases) and the creation of ever-expanding dead zones such as the one found in the Gulf of Mexico. Dead zones are caused by hypoxia, a lack of oxygen due to nitrogen fertilizer-induced overgrowth of marine plants that suck all the oxygen (life) out of the water and then die.
Like you, I am also worried about habitat destruction, but I guess you haven't heard that practices such as ripping out riparian habitats and farmland vegetation are currently being touted as the solution to combat E. coli 0157:H7. This is a big mistake and so is misleading people to think that high-intensity agriculture will solve our food safety problems when, actually, it's the root cause.
Lisa J. Bunin
Campaigns Coordinator
Center for Food Safety and
Switzer Environmental Leadership Fellow
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