Lisa J. Bunin’s Posts

• GM sugar beet: Trick or treat?

  Sugar from GM sugar beets will soon be unlabeled and widespread 1

  Posted 1 year ago

  The scariest thing next Halloween might not be the monsters, zombies or witches trolling our streets -- it might be the candy. Those colorful, tin-foil-wrapped Hershey's kisses and dark chocolate pumpkins could contain sugar extracted and processed from the roots of genetically modified sugar beets.

  Sugar in Halloween candy comes from several sources, including sugar beets. But this year, farmers are planting Monsanto's Roundup-Ready GM sugar beets for sale to food producers for the first time. This beet is genetically engineered to survive multiple, direct applications of the weed killer, Roundup, and its active ingredient, glyphosate. What's particularly appalling about… Read More

• Yo! No GMOs!

  Non-GM seed and feed make a comeback 0

  Posted 1 year, 1 month ago

  I recently met with members of Japan's Seikatsu Club Consumers' Cooperative (SCCC) in my office in San Francisco to discuss how to overcome the difficulties of obtaining certain non-GM products for its 1 million members. The 14-person delegation -- comprised of pig, chicken, cattle, and dairy producers for the co-op -- came to the U.S. in search of stable supplies of non-GM corn to feed its animals.

  Like the 600 or so other co-ops that flourish across Japan -- providing food to more than 22 million people nationwide -- SCCC is dedicated to offering wholesome, non-GM foods at reasonable… Read More

• Mooo-ve over, FDA

  Consumers demand market rejection of food from cloned animals 9

  Posted 1 year, 2 months ago

  Consumer market rejection seems to be the ongoing theme of U.S. food politics in the waning days of Bush's inept Food and Drug Administration. Given FDA's repeated failure to protect our nation's food supply or to respond quickly and appropriately to outbreaks of food-borne illnesses, consumers have turned to food companies and demanded that they now take the lead in safeguarding our nation's food.

  Public opposition to milk and meat from clones has caused 20 major food companies, restaurants, dairies, and supermarket chains to refuse to produce, use or sell food from clones. These companies have taken action despite FDA's… Read More

• Not a sweet proposition

  As GMO sugar beets sneak into the food supply, citizens fight back 5

  Posted 1 year, 3 months ago

  "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… Read More

All Posts

Lisa J. Bunin’s Recent Comments

• Click here to view comment in original post

  Let's get to the point

  You seem to have missed it, so let's try again...

  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

  On As GMO sugar beets sneak into the food supply, citizens fight back posted 1 year, 2 months ago 5 Responses

• Click here to view comment in original post

  On the Contrary

  To grow Roundup Ready, herbicide resistant, GE sugar beets, the maximum allowable glyphosate residues on beet roots had to be increased because farmers spray the weedkiller directly on the plant, which can't be done with conventional varieties.

  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

  On As GMO sugar beets sneak into the food supply, citizens fight back posted 1 year, 3 months ago 5 Responses