Ben & Jerry’s ice cream co-founder Jerry Greenfield, addresses the House Agriculture Committee Thursday in support of a bill requiring the labeling of food containing genetically modified ingredients. At right is Rob Michalak, Ben & Jerry’s social mission director, who also spoke. Photo by Andrew Stein
A move to require labeling genetically engineered (GE) foods in Vermont is facing fierce opposition from members of the dairy industry, while receiving a big thumb’s up from one of the world’s preeminent ice cream producers.
On Thursday, Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, gave the House Agriculture Committee his full support for a labeling bill in the Vermont House, which already has 50 sponsors. A bill with similar intentions was introduced last biennial session in the House and failed to move forward.
“This is fundamentally about a consumer’s right to know,” Greenfield told the committee. “It’s not about a producer’s. It’s about people being able to make informed choices about something that is very basic — what they put into their bodies.”
Not everyone agrees with this perception. Margaret Laggis is a lobbyist for the biotech industry, but on Thursday she was representing the groups Dairy Farmers Working Together and United Dairy Farmers. She raised a warning flag about the messages GE labeling might send to consumers.
“I feel that putting a caution or a warning under food is certainly trying to confuse or scare consumers about food,” she said. “We typically think of pesticides or explosives having warning labels, not our food products.”
Greenfield took a very different stance. He said GE labeling is anything but confusing, and companies should be completely transparent about the ingredients going into people’s bodies.
He and Rob Michalak, social mission director at Ben & Jerry’s, said that 20 percent of most Ben & Jerry’s ice cream contains GE ingredients — mostly corn syrup in “the swirls,” added Michalak. Greenfield told the committee that Ben & Jerry’s is committed to weaning itself off GE ingredients, and the company has identified a source of non-GE corn for its syrup.
“I think food producers and companies ought to be proud to say what’s in, or not in, their products,” Greenfield said. “They should be screaming it from the rooftops. If you don’t feel great about what’s in your product, get out of the business. We should feel great about what we’re making and what’s in it, and consumers have a right to know.”
The committee raised concerns that labeling requirements might hinder small producers who can’t adjust their ingredient streams quickly. Michalak told the committee that Ben & Jerry’s supports a one- to two-year transition period that would allow food manufacturers to adjust to new regulations.
Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility (VBSR), which strongly supports the legislation, is also in favor of a transition period. The organization is also advocating for the committee to create a low-interest loan program to help small producers shift away from GE ingredients, which are also referred to as GM (genetically modified) and GMO ingredients.
Rep. Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham, who chairs the committee, told Michalak that while she supports the bill, she’s concerned it might place Vermont producers at a disadvantage nationally.
Michalak countered that the bill could give Vermont producers an advantage, and Daniel Barlow, lobbyist for VBSR, said that many food-based businesses across the country have had great success marketing non-GE foods.
“This could actually put the Vermont specialty food industry into a leadership role,” Michalak agreed. “With this legislation we put the power in the hands of the consumers, they are going to be selecting products they want to select and that could (create) a great advantage for those food producers that choose to not use GM ingredients.”
He also said that the bill could help drive the farming industry away from GE foods.
“The more demand there is, the more farmers will be getting non-GM seed, and there will be more supply at a more cost-effective level,” he said.
That is a concern of the groups Laggis represents.
Laggis touted the many benefits of GE crops for farmers, citing their ability to resist herbicides, grow in harsher climates and sequester high levels of nutrients from the soil. She said that the farmers she represents are concerned that the labeling effort is a disguise to drown out a facet of the biotech industry that has helped them succeed in a tough economic climate.
“I know this committee feels as though it’s a labeling issue and a right-to-know issue, but our farmers have been dealing with several of the groups that back this effort, and their real agenda is that … they really want to ban the use of this technology,” Laggis said.
Rep. John Bartholomew, D-Hartland, listened intently before raising a pair of loaded questions about the lack of human health studies that have been conducted in association with these crops.
“Why would you possibly come to the conclusion that these products should be on the market and out there and consumers not told that they’re being used when there could be health effects?” he asked. “Is what you’re saying that a farmer’s economics trumping public safety?”
Laggis defended the safety of the products, conceding that no long-term human studies have been conducted on GE food products.
“These products did have to prove that they are nutritionally similar to their counterparts,” she said. “What they tested for and what is required to be tested for is known common allergies … and the nutritional content.
“Have there been feeding studies? No. Those are very long and very expensive, and there was nothing that would lead us to believe there’s a problem,” she said.
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Would vtdigger be kind enough to explain why consumers should care whether their food has been produced via genetic modification? We’ve been interfering with natural selection since the advent of agriculture. Is there really any evidence that GMOs are inherently dangerous? Is seems like the anti-GMO advocates never explain what drives their concern beyond skepticism about big agribusiness. Perhaps that skepticism is justified, although maybe it should be expressed via some means that isn’t so clearly preempted by federal law.
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Lack of research on GMO health effects isn’t enough of a reason?
This isn’t just cross-breeding two different apple varieties. This is about inserting food genes with bits of E coli DNA. Turning this around, how on earth could these products become so prominent in our food system without looking at a possible health impact? The Industry is lucky the legislature is not looking at an outright ban as would happen with any similarly untested food.
FYI: Monsanto supported GMO labeling in England.
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How unsurprising that big biz thinks we purchasers of their products are too dumb to understand labels. A word for Ms Laggis, labels don’t scare us, but patronizing greedy manufacturers and lobbyists do. Whether or not I get “confused” by ingredients is irrelevant. I have a fundamental right to know what is in my food. Warning labels more associated with pesticides or explosives? Well maybe, but the ingredients in both of those are probably in our food and I would like to know. And while some of our elected officials may be worrying about the impact on Vermonters they can relax. We will gain. More people will buy local produce. Mr Greenfield is correct that producers who feel good about their products should be screaming it from the rooftops, disclosing their ingredients and using unadulterated products whenever possible.
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Ben & Jerry’s is a Vermont icon and a big customer for Vermont milk; it has done a masterful job of portraying itself as a friend of the dairy farmer and in the public’s eyes it has succeeded. But the company’s policies are in large part responsible for the sad condition in which the dairy industry finds itself today. The company’s stated interest in the “triple bottom line” which includes its social mission is profoundly unattainable by paying dairy farmers, their biggest and most important supplier of natural resources, below the cost of production. B&J cannot become Fair Trade™ by exploiting farmers and, in fact, Fair Trade was put in place to prevent precisely what Ben & Jerry’s is doing. The company’s new “Caring Dairy” program, while mentioning that they source sustainable, Fair Trade nuts and vanilla, seems to go to considerable lengths to avoid mentioning that the company exploits Vermont dairy farmers, suggesting that farmers should spend more time on vacation in order to qualify for points on their scale. The idea that “In exchange for participating, “Caring Dairy” farmers get a little extra for their produce” and “it’s as simple as that” is frankly, galling.
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It’s very unfortunate that our dairy industry has allowed itself to be used by those who promote and lobby for genetically modified materials.
Does the farmer benefit by hiding the content of his product? It’s difficult to see how. But then again, the “Dairy Industry” isn’t the “small farmers”, is it?
Does the biotech industry benefit by hiding the pervasive spread of its products? Of course it does. This labeling might in some small way aid those who provide non-GMO (or GE, if you like) products, thus limiting demand for the GMOs and creating more competition in the marketplace. That, I believe is the last thing the biotech industry wants, and they have spent millions of lobbying dollars to insure it doesn’t happen.
Will GMOs have a positive influence on our way of life? We won’t really know for a generation or two. In the meantime, providing information to consumers seems the least the government should require.
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“…there was nothing that would lead us to believe there’s a problem…”
So, the feeding study that was published last September that said (in part): “The health effects of a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize (from 11% in the diet), cultivated with or without Roundup, and Roundup alone (from 0.1 ppb in water), were studied 2 years in rats. In females, all treated groups died 2–3 times more than controls, and more rapidly.” doesn’t provide a *hint* that there is a problem? What other sort of evidence should we expect to have before the long-term studies are done?
“Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize” was published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology in September 2012.
http://research.sustainablefoodtrust.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Final-Paper.pdf
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I really and truly have no axe to grind here — if GMOs are dangerous then by all means let us not just label them but ban them. But if the GMO skeptics out there truly hope to persuade people like me, they had ought to tak care to maintain their credibility. Here, for example, a couple of seconds of searching revealed that the Seralini study cited here by Jeremy Hansen is controversial to say the least. See, e.g.:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/09/are_gmo_foods_safe_opponents_are_skewing_the_science_to_scare_people_.html
Attention fellow members of the progressive left: Do we want make public policy based on scientific consensus or not? Which is it? We cant just embrace science when it tells us what we want to hear.
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First, I will admit I am not a scientific expert on this topic. But, what we (the Senate Agriculture Committee) learned this past week was that the study mentioned above, was blasted by scientists for it methodology. And, by many standards that methodology had its flaws, but it used the same methodology (number of rats, type of rats etc.) that Monsanto had used to prove the safety of its products.
They wanted to mirror the Monsanto study, but do it over a longer period of time to see if there were effects if one went longer. But they wanted to mirror Monsanto so that they could be compared side by side.
So the critics panned the study, but never panned the underlying study by Monsanto that it was designed to parallel.
No one is saying that these foods are certain to be bad for us, however, it is alarming to many that there have not been more comprehensive (more rats, broader samples etc. etc) tests done before we (humans) become the guinea pigs with large parts of our diets consisting of GE ingredients. Many are concerned (as more and more studies and as other digestive ailments are on the rise) and would like to choose. Many also would like to do this not just for their personal concerns, but then, once we know what people’s diets are, then correlations may (not necessarily will) be studied to see if gastrointestinal issues are related to diets that are high (or low) in GE content. Without labeling, this can not be determined.
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Is the proposal to just have a label that says “this contains genetically engineered crops?” If so, that’s not enough information. Some genetically-engineered crop features are perfectly fine. The problem is with crops that, for example, have engineered-in herbicides the effects of which have not been studied. And I have a deep philosophical opposition to crops with built-in suicide genes to prevent farmers from saving seeds from this year’s crop to plant next year’s, whether the produce is healthy to eat or not.
Consumers have a right to this information. If GE crop producers are afraid that consumers will get the wrong idea from a GE label, they should be pushing for more detailed labeling, not no labeling. No labeling just leads to more consumer mistrust of the products we see on the shelves.
Jerry Greenfield is absolutely right that GE labeling will be good for Vermont business, for just this reason. The Vermont brand is a brand that inspires trust; if this law passes, even without detailed labeling, it will improve the brand, not damage it.
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I’ve been told that a phone call from Monsanto to the Gov. caused similar legislation to be pulled off the table in the last session. Let’s hope that this time around we show a little backbone and pass this bill, even with all its caveats and exemptions.
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There is significant evidence that GMO food is not only harmful to human (as well as other animal) health, but GMO crops threaten to destroy eons of natural plants by contaminating them via genetic drift-the cross pollination of organic and non-GMO crops with GMO seeds that occurs as a result of pollen carried by the wind. Once the horse is out of the barn, you can’t let it back in. For anyone who needs clarification about this issue, I suggest reading “The World According to Monsanto” or watching film documentaries such as “Life Running Out of Control” or “The Future of Food.”
Why have the majority of nations throughout the world either banned GMOs or mandated labeling? Perhaps because their politicos are not for sale to the highest bidder the way they are here?
The notion that labeling crops as GMO will “confuse and scare” consumers is the biased opinion of a shill for these corporate cons. To borrow a phrase from Ben & Jerry’s: “What’s the doughboy afraid of?” The leading proponent of this dubious science is Monsanto; the same company that brought the world life destroying PCBs, Agent Orange, as well as the soil contaminating herbicide Roundup to name just a few. They have no scruples, and constantly lie in order to profit from spreading their poisons around the globe.
I’ve never been confused by truth and facts Ms. Laggis. I’m not sure what transpired in your life that would cause you to believe that others would be, but I can’t help but wonder if a lucrative pay day would cause you to be confused by or ignore the facts for the sake of your personal financial gain. It is this attitude that has left America on the brink of financial ruin for the past several years, and threatens our children’s future. I’m concerned about the world and food my daughter will face in the future. I wish you and your friends at Monsanto, Cargill, et. al. could explain to me why you are not.