I-522 supporter sports sticker at hearing.
OLYMPIA, Feb. 15.—An initiative that would require special Washington labels for food produced with genetically modified ingredients now appears certain to appear on the fall ballot, making this state the next battleground in a national environmental crusade – not that it comes as any surprise to a food industry that has been watching the Evergreen State intensely, or to the legions of activists that collected signatures last year for Washington’s I-522.
After a courtesy hearing this week that offered a preview of the fall campaign, Senate Agriculture Chairman Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond, said he heard nothing to change his mind — and he has no plans to bring the initiative before his panel for a vote. “I still don’t think it’s a wise idea,” he said. “If it’s really that important of an issue, it is up to the federal government to address.”
The Washington labeling initiative, perhaps the top issue this season for a big segment of the environmental community, natural-foods advocates and anti-corporate activists, puts Washington front and center in a national effort to force labeling of products made from genetically modified crops. Once one state says yes, backers say other states will follow, and it might be the precursor for a federal law that would make consumers think twice before they get to checkout line.
Senate Agriculture Chairman Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond.
That’s just what science, agriculture and business is afraid of – an effort to put the skull and crossbones on some two-thirds of the processed food products found on supermarket shelves, fueled more by suspicion than any evidence of harm. The battle is being waged state by state. Last year California voters narrowly rejected a substantially identical measure, Prop. 37, 51-49. Yet even as the biotech industry, agribusiness and retail merchants were fighting that $55 million battle, activists here were getting set for Round Two. Last year Seattle-based PCC Natural Markets was prime mover behind a campaign that delivered 353,000 signatures to the state elections office and qualified the measure for the November ballot. Because it was filed as an initiative to the Legislature, lawmakers have the option of passing it into law. Hence the significance of Hatfield’s statement: It means the measure has hit a brick wall at the Capitol and the fall vote is inevitable. “Sometimes people say, oh, you’re holding it up – you’re just one senator – but when I talk to my fellow committee members I know where the votes are,” Hatfield said. “We could bring it up but it would fail.”
So Thursday’s hearing really didn’t make a whit of political difference, except to demonstrate that it’s going to be California all over again. The same interest groups, the same arguments. And Washington voters, like their counterparts in the Golden State, will have to decide if labeling is a matter of informed choice or a stigma without substance.
Be Very, Very Afraid
Senate hearing draws crowd; another may follow in House.
It was a wide-ranging hearing that probably explained everything you might want to know about the issue and then some – about genetically modified crops, scientific studies, legal compliance problems and costs that ultimately would be borne by Washington consumers if this state leads the way. But here’s the gist of it. The case for labeling appears to be based more on suspicion than on evidence of harm – the body of scientific studies appears to vouch for the safety of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs. Instead the argument is waged in the political realm. Some 63 countries now have enacted labeling requirements and outright bans on genetically modified seeds, crops and finished food products.
Genetic engineering might be seen as an extension of the age-old plant-breeding techniques that have been used since the beginnings of agriculture. It’s just that over the last two decades DNA technology has developed capabilities not possible through traditional techniques. Like making crops more resistant to certain pesticides, less susceptible to crop-specific diseases, and better able to withstand drought. Genetically engineered seed is now used in a wide variety of crops, particularly corn, soybeans, canola and sugar beets – though not yet in Washington’s leading agricultural commodities, wheat and apples. Activists say the public ought to be glad of that.
“If big corporate agribusiness was convinced there were no health risks from GMOs they would be more than willing to label GMOs — instead they want to hide them from us,” declared attorney Patricia Michael. “We are told that GMOs are safe for human consumption, but remember, we were also told that DDT was harmless, that saccharin was harmless, that Agent Orange was harmless, that PCBs were harmless. I urge a yes vote on I-522 – we have a right to know what we are eating.”
That’s one of the key points – the right to know. The other? If so many other countries are erecting barriers to imports of GMO crops, Washington agricultural export markets are at risk. “I just don’t want to lose our customers,” said wheat farmer Lynn Polson. “If 90 percent of our crops are going overseas and those guys don’t want to buy it, who’s going to buy it?”
And while at least a handful of the I-522 advocates said they weren’t opposed to genetic engineering per se, it was hard to escape the idea that many see the labeling effort as a way to discourage consumers from buying and thus stop American biotech companies from tinkering with Mother Nature. Said Anne Mosness of Eat Wild Salmon, “Eating should not be a dangerous act.”
No Safety Issue
Attorney Rob Maguire of Davis Wright Tremaine and Martina Newell- McGloughlin, director of Life and Health Sciences Research at the University of California-Davis.
It is the kind of argument that leaves scientists shaking their heads. A promising development, now in its infancy, that holds the promise to sustain a fast-growing world population and achieve environmental benefit – done in by fear. You could require labels on tomatoes and potatoes that declare them to have genes from the deadly nightshade family, and certainly that would be the truth, observed Martina Newell-McLoughlin, director of Life and Health Sciences Research at the University of California at Davis. “But I think that for consumers would mean they would never again touch a tomato or a potato. So in this instance you have information that is supposedly providing choice, but in fact it is going to take choice away.
“I think as a scientist, my real concern with this is that when you look at the impact of biotech so far, it has been extremely positive. It has resulted in the reduction of millions of pounds of active insecticides that are used to control pests and diseases. It also has resulted in a switch to no-till farming. So we are reducing ersosion, we are reducing water usage, we are reducing fuel usage and we have a much more sustainable production system. There is a much greater sequestration of carbon – it is the equivalent of taking 9 million cars off the road. This is what biotech has allowed us to switch to. And the potential negative impact of this going forward, if we abandon the scientific method, we are going to slow or destroy the advances that will reduce the use of these unsafe chemicals and these less-safe agricultural practices in this country, and we limit the potential for improved nutrition, improved quality, improved sustainability and improved ability to produce food – to ensure food security in a world where we have a massive increase in population and dwindling resources.”
And Then the Details
But that’s just the big picture. Agribusiness and retailers are sweating the small stuff. The bill would essentially require that Washington food products be handled and labeled differently than products in other states. Meaning farmers and food processors would have to establish separate handling procedures for GMO and non-GMO foods to avoid contamination, separate packaging lines, separate warehousing procedures. Or else they could just put labels on all their products indicating that they are made with GMO ingredients, rendering the labels meaningless – though of course that appears to indicate something about the product is second-rate. “We believe as retailers this issue has to be debated nationally,” said Holly Chisa of the Northwest Grocery Association. “The countries that have been mentioned – Russia, Japan, France, Germany – they are countries. They are not states. There is a reason you address this on a national standard. If you go state by state, you create a patchwork quilt. It needs to be debated in a national forum.”
Last year’s opposition campaign in California pointed to an estimate that the average family’s annual grocery bill would be increased by $400 by the state-specific labeling requirement. No comparable statistic is yet available for the state of Washington, though it could be larger – this state has a market about one-sixth of the size. And that doesn’t include the cost of lawsuits that are enabled by the initiative. Rob Maguire of Davis Wright Tremaine, representing BIO, a biotech industry trade association, said the initiative would be a boon for trial lawyers because it allows third parties to file lawsuits without providing evidence of harm. Processors and grocers would have to establish elaborate record-keeping procedures to ensure GMO products are labeled correctly, but a slip on paperwork or signage could land them in court. “There is nothing in here that indicates that a business that has simply made a mistake or a seed company that has made a mistake may be free from liability by correcting the mistake,” he said. “If on a given day a grocery stock clerk failed to put up a sign on the right produce aisle shelf, you are liable for a $1,000-a-day violation.”
California Redux
A look at the hearing sign-in sheet shows that the battle lines are being drawn just as they were California, even though a formal no-on-522 campaign has only now been formed and campaign finance reports show just $100 in the bank. Organizations signing in to oppose the measure include the Washington State Farm Bureau, the Northwest Grocery Association, the Washington Food Industry Association, the Washington Retail Association, the Northwest Food Processors Association. Also turning thumbs-down is the Washington Association of Wheat Growers, even though GMO wheat seed is some seven to 10 years away – eventually something might come of research, said past president Eric Maier, and the measure really is about “whether we will do genetic engineering or not.”
On the other side are a bevy of environmental and activist organizations, among them Consumers Union, the Coalition to Protect Puget Sound Habitat and the Washington Public Interest Research Group, along with natural-foods retailers, the state Nurses Association and others. And there is another commonality with the California ballot measure: Both were written in part by George Kimbrell of Oregon’s Center for Food Safety. Kimbrell argued that genetic engineering is designed largely to permit broad-scale application of pesticides and herbicides, which will ultimately lead to environmental problems in the form of more chemicals in the environment and more chemical-resistant super-weeds – offering no benefit to consumers in cost, nutrition or flavor. “Washington consumers should have the choice to avoid purchasing foods whose production can lead to environmental harm,” he said. “Labeling of genetically engineered foods is not an effort to shut down the advance of science and technology. It is an effort aimed at offering the public full disclosure, offering a rightful choice in the marketplace and creating a better food industry.”
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