Posted on 05/03/2017 4:02:50 AM PDT by IBD editorial writer
Cargill, one of America's biggest food and agriculture companies, recently announced its partnership with the Non GMO Project, an organization focused on misinforming consumers about GMO safety, and, as the organization's name implies, ridding the American marketplace of GMOs.
The Non GMO Project also runs a verification program where they charge companies to test food products for the presence of GMOs and then awards those companies a non-GMO verification label that can be placed on food packaging.
Cargill claims this move comes in response to their customers demanding GMO-free products. If this is true, Cargill is smart to provide products and services that please their customers. Yet, Cargill could have provided this verification independently and without aligning with a radical anti-GMO activist organization that tries to stoke public fear about GMOs.
Consumers should be aware of some key facts that they won't find in Non GMO Project's materials.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Good post, thank you.
The former Chairman of the Board of Wal-Mart, Rob Walton and former CEO Mike Duke moved that company into advocacy and support of “sustainability” more than a decade ago.
That meant Wal-Mart was on the side of “Climate Change” advocacy.
When conservative shareholders showed up at the annual meetings to oppose it, the company just simply said its policy would make the company “more profitable”.
The Climate Change scam ends up justifying energy taxes on little people in their energy bills while large companies get “carbon credits”.
Cargill gets to use this to hurt its little competitors because Cargill with its big size can make the products the radical protestors demand at a lower cost.
Cargill, which is a large and sophisticated company with access to the best scientific talent may have commissioned or gained access to private research that reinforces concerns about GMOs. If so, Cargill's plans for verified non-GMO crops may reflect not just public sentiment but also a sense that GMO foods may not be quite as safe as their advocates claim.
That's because there is no case against GMO foods. There is hyperbole and unfounded alarmism against GMO foods, but there is no case against them. Every single agricultural product we eat has been genetically modified. Every single one.
...but also a sense that GMO foods may not be quite as safe as their advocates claim.
Right. Cargill now knows that GMO's are not safe so they're certifying a small portion of their product portfolio as non-GMO but will continue to feed dangerous food to their families and hundreds of millions of consumers anyway. Because there won't be any consequences.
The stuff some people will believe.....good grief.
“Cargill gets to use this to hurt its little competitors because Cargill with its big size can make the products the radical protestors demand at a lower cost.”
So is that an admission that the GMO seeds & any GMO seed-specific herbicides/pesticides cost more than Non-GMO seed and related products?
I know from studies in India with BT cotton that that was exactly the case. By 2004 (from 2002 when BT cotton was introduced there) suicides among India cotton farmers increased (regardless of increased acres/yield in cotton) because net income was hurt by higher costs with BT cotton. Many least well off farmers lost their farms and with it all means of livelihood for them.
One of the myths sold about GMO crops is that they and GMO-specific herbicides and pesticides (with GMO seeds better able to survive their GMO-specific herbicides and insecticides) and thus allow for reduction in the use of herbicides and insecticides.
Any farmer worth his salt knew that would turn out to be a myth. Why?
Using herbicides and insecticides is not a zero sum game. Life is a full scale jungle-warfare-theater of massive “survival of the fittest”. When one life-form kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus or species is disadvantaged then another life-form of the same or different genus, family, order, class, or phylum is advantaged, either because what was hurt by the herbicide or pesticide was a predator to them or a resource competitor in the same space.
While the pests targeted by the GMO seeds and their related herbicides and insecticides might be reduced, and initial yields increased in the early years, those yields over time require additional - more than before - use of additional herbicides and insecticides for the pests that have either become resistant to the new attacks against them or the pests whose survival has been enhanced by the better killing of the pests attacked by the GMO related herbicides and insecticides.
For instance, globally, since the many years of GMO seed introduction in corn, soybeans and cotton, the per acre rate of the use of glyphospate herbicides has increased. That means over time GMO farmers are spending more per acre to satisfy “pest killing/resistant” requirements - a need the GMO seeds were sold as intended to reduce. It has meant the “GMO improved yields”, over time, have become sustainable only with greater herbicide use.
So while the authors charge giant Cargil (one of five in its field) with only playing favorites, favoring GMO seeds favors mostly just a couple giants, and one most of all - Monsanto. With Mansanto you get a monopoly of seed source and pesticide source as the seed is designed to work with a Monsanto specific pesticide. Monsanto, in the GMO space is much more the monopolist than is Cargil in its space.
In re: “The average global yields for these crops would also decline, which would cause production to fall by 14 million tons.”
Global production of the three crops is approx. 1,270.79 million tons. A reduction of 14 million tons is about 1.1% of total global production. That 1.1% lower production is not likely to have the level of marketplace price impacts that the report claims.
In re: “Removing GMOs from processed foods would also costs jobs as many food products would simply cease to exist”
There is no reliable basis for that statement.
Ignored in the report is the very real danger, over time, from greatly reduced crop & seed diversity.
When a crop represents a less genetically diverse crop, the natural outcome over time has historically proven to be a developing weakness to a increased or new stress from a resistant source given some advantage in the environment, due to changing climate conditions, or a natural growing ability, via resistance, to be a pest. Strength of a crop in some areas and conditions does not make it strong in all possible & changing conditions.
The Irish potato famine was a famine CREATED by a British Imperial mandated lack of biodiversity in Ireland’s potato crop. 90% of that crop was ONE variety of potato. When all of Europe was hit with a plague infecting potatoes, no other country in Europe, except Ireland, lost nearly all their potato crop. Why? In the rest of Europe most farmers were growing more than one variety of potato. So, all of Europe had a plague hitting the potato, but only Ireland suffered a famine from it. Why? Lack of biodiversity. It didn’t help, with Ireland, that British Imperial dictates had also turned most Irish farming into only growing potatoes. They got the rest of food they needed by the sale of potatoes, until they had no potatoes to sell.
Today 88% of the U.S. corn crop is a single GMO corn; for soybeans it’s 93%; for canola it’s 90%; for sugar beets its 54%. That’s just some examples.
There are numerous “reports” attempting to explain away the concerns about biodiversity while only addressing the number of different seeds/root plant species in existence. The issue, for agriculture and what agriculture gives us is not how many different seeds/root plants exist. It’s how many are in production and how much production is done by each.
I am no “climate change” alarmist. Earth’s climate has always been changing, as it is now. But changing it is, and sooner or later the crops demonstrating the most lack of biodiversity will be hit - like the potato was - by an unforeseen attack, with major consequences to a crop’s production. But this time, with only a few GMO crops becoming the largest representative in their field, GLOBALLY, the consequences - unlike the potato famine - will be global as well.
It is simple arrogance that GMO seed producers have a crystal ball and can prevent the lack of biodiversity - manufactured by their domination of food crops, from becoming an agricultural disaster, in time.
“Cargill gets to use this to hurt its little competitors because Cargill with its big size can make the products the radical protestors demand at a lower cost.”
Cargill has big competitors also.
Great post.
My opinion: The fact that something is GMO can be either good or bad. It depends on what the modification is. It would be great if crops were genetically modified to be more nutritious. But the problem - as I see it - is that the focus of GMO seems to be about making crops herbicide and pesticide resistant. This results in increased sales of herbicides and pesticides which benefit the companies that make them. It also results in food being laced with more of those pesticides and herbicides, which is bad for the consumer.
Bottom line is that it’s all about the bottom line. Crops are not being genetically modified to benefit you and me. They are being genetically modified to benefit someone’s bank account.
An additional factor that is covered up is that the modified genes eventually escape into the wild. This means that the weeds which are being treated with the herbicides start developing resistance not just via natural selection, but by co-opting the weaponry of the other side. Another aspect of the war you mention. This accelerates the arms race.
Buy heirloom seeds and learn how to garden.
"As scientists, physicians, academics, and experts from disciplines relevant to the scientific, legal, social and safety assessment aspects of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we strongly reject claims by GM seed developers and some scientists, commentators, and journalists that there is a “scientific consensus” on GMO safety and that the debate on this topic is “over”.
"We feel compelled to issue this statement because the claimed consensus on GMO safety does not exist. The claim that it does exist is misleading and misrepresents the currently available scientific evidence and the broad diversity of opinion among scientists on this issue. Moreover, the claim encourages a climate of complacency that could lead to a lack of regulatory and scientific rigour and appropriate caution, potentially endangering the health of humans, animals, and the environment.
"Science and society do not proceed on the basis of a constructed consensus, as current knowledge is always open to well-founded challenge and disagreement. We endorse the need for further independent scientific inquiry and informed public discussion on GM product safety and urge GM proponents to do the same."
The statement included a series of points:
1. There is no consensus on GM food safety.
2. There are no epidemiological studies investigating potential effects of GM food consumption on human health.
3. Claims that scientific and governmental bodies endorse GMO safety are exaggerated or inaccurate.
4. EU research project does not provide reliable evidence of GM food safety.
5. List of several hundred studies does not show GM food safety.
6. There is no consensus on the environmental risks of GM crops.
7. International agreements show widespread recognition of risks posed by GM foods and crops."
In broad terms, the politicalization and abuse of science to suppress concerns about GMOs parallels that in the global warming controversy. In both instances, I suspect that more than a few insiders realize this.
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