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CapitalPress.com
February 13, 2015
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Opinion
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O ur V iew
Food safety authority should rest with one agency
I
n his latest budget plan released
earlier this month, President
Obama proposed combining
into one new agency the food
safety functions scattered in various
agencies within the Department of
Agriculture and the Food and Drug
Administration.
It’s an idea we like, so much so
that we suggested the same thing in
this space a few years back. We’re
not sure the timing is right, though,
and we want to see the particulars of
the president’s plan.
The Obama budget describes the
current system as “fragmented,” and
that’s a good word. At least 30 acts
of Congress now grant authority
over various food safety functions
to more than a dozen agencies.
USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection
Service and the federal Food and
Drug Administration are tasked with
more than 80 percent of the food
safety program.
The budget proposal envisions
the creation of a “modern, science-
based food safety regulatory regime
drawing on best practices of both
agencies.” He would create the
Food Safety Agency under the
Department of Health and Human
Services, the home of the FDA.
Obama said the consolidation
will reduce the size of government
and save money. We wouldn’t
hold our breath waiting for that.
The president was short on
details, and the individual budget
documents prepared by USDA
and the Department of Health and
Human Services are silent as to the
upfront costs of consolidating and
integrating existing programs into a
new bureaucracy.
A group of Senate and House
Democrats has introduced the
Safe Food Act of 2015 to facilitate
the president’s plan. It lays out in
some detail which current agencies
would be consolidated under the
Department of Health and Human
Services.
Consolidating food safety
programs in one place isn’t a new
idea. Many of the same senators and
representatives introduced much the
same bill in 2007.
During hearings then, Collin
Peterson, D-Minnesota, who
was chairman of the House Ag
Committee, liked the idea — except
the part about safety programs
moving from the USDA and the
jurisdiction of his committee. The
bill was never enacted.
Observers say the current bill
faces long odds in the Republican-
controlled Congress. While some
believe that’s because the GOP
favors business, we think it’s
because congressional committee
members — Republican and
Democrats — hate to give up
authority and the related campaign
contribution stream.
O ur V iew
Port disaster must not be repeated
T
he bare-knuckled brawl
underway at West Coast
container ports is damaging
agricultural exports and those
farmers and ranchers who depend
on them for their livelihoods.
The shipment of feed, food and
fiber to customers in Asia and
beyond is fundamental to Western
farmers. A long list of crops
including hay, beef, pork, Christmas
trees, apples, berries, potatoes and
nuts are all shipped via containers.
Since last fall, operators of the
West’s container ports, represented
by the Pacific Maritime Association,
have been locked in a battle with
members of the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union
over a new contract. As part of that,
union members have slowed the
loading and unloading of containers.
They blame the PMA for the
problems. In turn, the PMA blames
the union. Ports now handle only a
fraction of the number of containers
they did before the slowdown. Some
days, no union members show up for
work.
As a direct result of the slowdown,
agricultural exporters have suffered
an economic body blow. Overall, the
estimated damage is $444 million
a week in lost business, according
to the Agriculture Transportation
Coalition. To avoid West Coast
ports, some exporters have rerouted
their shipments through East Coast
ports. Imagine being forced to send
a shipment of french fries from
Washington state to Hawaii or Japan
by way of Florida.
Good grief.
Adding to the problems, in
Portland, Hanjin, the major container
shipper, is leaving.
A reaction to “Why some
farmers choose to grow
GMO crops.”
Legends abound, both
urban and rural, this is true
whichever side of any con-
tentious controversy you
happen to be standing on.
GMO opponents conjure up
their “facts” and the GMO
proponents have their own:
nothing really new under
the sun — it is how politics
work.
When you take a look
from 30,000 feet, the an-
ti-GMO camp claims to be
motivated by human and
animal health and envi-
ronmental concerns AND
a desire for consumers to
have the right to choose by
knowing if a given prod-
uct contains GMOs. The
The GMO label fight
misses bigger issues
By JON ELDON
For the Capital Press
I
Rik Dalvit/For the Capital Press
The massive losses and added
expenses are bad enough. Ag
exporters are also losing customers.
As a result, competitors in New
Zealand, Australia, Canada and
elsewhere have reaped a windfall of
business courtesy of West Coast port
operators and the union.
We won’t blame any one group.
There’s plenty of that to go around.
What we know is they will eventually
reach an agreement. When they do,
they will act as though they have
done everyone a big favor.
Hardly.
What they have done is
needlessly cost their customers
and the port owners — the public
— billions of dollars. And the
politicians have just stood around
with their hands in their pockets.
What they should be doing is
writing legislation to ban strikes,
work slowdowns or other labor
actions that impede the free flow of
trade through the ports. That can be
accomplished by putting ports under
the federal Railway Labor Act. That
law requires unions and employers
to negotiate and go through
mediation while they keep working.
Mark T. Anderson, president and
CEO of Anderson Hay & Grain in
Washington state, summed up the
port mess best.
“At this point we have a broken
system. We have publicly owned
facilities (the ports) that have
global operators who can’t come
to terms with the people who work
there and it’s costing billions of
dollars to the U.S. economy,”
Anderson said.
“The last time I checked most
politicians ran on the idea exports
were important and jobs were
important,” he said. “It doesn’t
seem to be playing out that way.
From the president on down, they
are aware but seem to have done
little.
“It’s incredibly disappointing.”
Readers’ views
Thoughts about
choice, GMOs
The political intrigue aside,
commodity groups say that this
might not be the time to change the
food safety organizational chart.
Farmers and food processors are
in the process of dealing with new
safety regulations being drafted by the
FDA to implement the Food Safety
Modernization Act passed in 2010.
They have a legitimate point.
It’s going to be hard enough to
implement the new rules without
also dealing with the tumult the
merging of diverse agencies and
their unique cultures will create.
Nonetheless, we think having
one food regulatory scheme
administered by one agency makes
sense in the long run.
pro-GMO side tends to
come from the economic
sensibility side, crop yield,
increased profit margins
and lower labor costs AND
freedom to choose to farm
as they see fit. In America
choice is everything and it
is what makes the world of
politics go ’round.
I don’t wish to rehash
old hash. No one seems
to get converted by either
side’s arguments. I simply
wish to offer up a caution to
both sides.
To the anti-GMO group
I suggest that a time is
coming when the era of
implanting genes that are
naturally impossible for a
plant or animal to mutate
on its own and the use of
gene guns to create so-
called “frankenfoods” may
be eclipsed by a new and
different science. A science
that uses the plant’s own
genetics to engineer and
manipulate plants at a gene
level and below. This non-
trans genetic engineering is
already being accomplished
and the old stance of GMOs
as “frankenfoods” may
need to be re-evaluated and
the new methods examined
before being summarily
dismissed. Additionally, as
was pointed out in the “Our
View” article, the GMO
camp now claims a reduc-
tion in overall pesticide use.
To the pro-GMO group
I caution reliance upon per-
ceived public acceptance
of the safety of GMOs.
Urban legends arise in the
cities and it is the cities
that farmers are feeding.
All farmers must sell their
goods to those same urban
consumers as that is ulti-
mately where the profits
must come from. Remem-
ber Alar and how quickly
the public can turn around.
GMOs are relatively new,
many consumers are not
aware of what they are or
which foods contain them.
If any studies surface that
demonstrate a perceived
health or environmental
risk the whole GMO farm-
ing and food industries
would be at risk of a huge
shock.
That risk has nothing to
do with a farmer’s choice
— it would be the consum-
er’s choice. Regardless of
the economic benefit it may
not be prudent to put all the
eggs in one genetic basket.
Consumers thrive on choice
the same as the farmers
thrive on the choice of their
farming philosophy.
Brian Quigley
Camano Island, Wash.
t appears that the GMO la-
beling argument is finally
settled in Oregon — and
it will remain that way until
someone in the 50.1 percent
or the 49.9 percent camp
decides that it’s never too
early to start campaigning
for the next round. This is
clearly an issue on the rise,
and if it seemed ugly and di-
visive this last time around,
just wait. The fury of finger
pointing will hide the fact
that this political debate is
mostly just muddying the
waters and distracting us
from more important ques-
tions.
I’m all for anything that
improves transparency and
allows consumers to make
informed decisions, and
food labels can be a great
way to do this. However,
this approach only works if
these labels answer some-
thing about the food, and for
that to happen we need to
make sure we get the ques-
tion right. This should sound
familiar to anyone that has
ever stepped into a class-
room, as I think all teachers
are required to say, “Make
sure you read and understand
the questions before you an-
swer them” every time they
hand out a test.
When it comes to GMOs,
we’re doing a poor job of
even asking the right ques-
tions. For example, a recent
“Food Demand Survey” by
Oklahoma State University
found that 82 percent of re-
spondents supported man-
datory labeling of all food
containing GMO products,
which sounds very straight-
forward. However it also
found that 80 percent of re-
spondents supported manda-
tory labeling of all food con-
taining DNA. DNA, by the
way, is found in everything
that is, was, or might one
day be alive, which would be
all food except for salt licks
and probably some types of
Halloween candy.
The coming round of the
GMO labeling fight, wher-
ever it next happens, is a
great opportunity to improve
on this. Here are just two of
the dozens of things that we
need to work into the com-
ing debates.
One, the issues that are
often blamed on GMOs are
usually far more pervasive.
To take just one example, it
is often claimed that GMOs
prevent farmers from saving
their seeds. In reality, grow-
ing out your own seed on a
commercial scale is usually
not practical unless you’re a
grain farmer (in which case
that’s the point). Even if you
wanted to grow your own
vegetable seed, for example,
many non-GMO crop variet-
ies are hybrids, which means
that the seeds wouldn’t have
the same characteristics as
the parent plants. Those non-
GMO and non-hybrid variet-
ies that are left might still be
Guest
comment
Jon Eldon
patented through convention-
al breeding, in which case any
replanting would probably be
under contract restrictions.
And while we’re on the sub-
ject of seeds and genetics, it’s
worth noting that many non-
GMO crop varieties began
their career as a highly irra-
diated seed, since radiation
causes random genetic mu-
tations, a very small portion
of which might prove to be
valuable.
Two, “GMOs” are not ac-
tually a simple type of crop
because there are important
differences among those va-
rieties that are born in a test
tube, to borrow some imag-
ery from 1950s science fic-
tion movies. A neutral genet-
ic marker — a portion of the
DNA that doesn’t code for a
protein — might have been
inserted to see if a different
target gene was inherited
through conventional breed-
ing methods; an existing
gene could have been turned
on or off or up or down, such
as to strengthen cell walls
and reduce lodging; a spe-
cific gene could have been
swapped with a nearly identi-
cal one from another species
to produce a slightly different
protein and a significantly
different effect, such as with
Round-Up Ready crops; or a
completely novel gene could
have been inserted into a crop
genome, such as from the
bacteria Bacillus thuringien-
sis (Bt) into corn.
Point being, forget the
simplistic arguments that
will soon again flood the air-
waves. GM crops will not
save the world — the world
is just too complex for that
— nor will avoiding them
make all the problems go
away. Are there important
environmental, social and
health implications of grow-
ing GM crops? Absolutely,
but most of them come from
“growing crops” and won’t
just disappear if you remove
the “GM.” Should consum-
ers be able to make relevant
and informed choices about
the larger implications of the
products in the grocery store
aisle? Yes, please! But those
choices must be relevant and
informed or the choice is
meaningless at best.
There is a lot to want to
change about food produc-
tion and food consumption,
and allowing consumer
choice to drive this change is
great, but for this to work we
have to read and understand
the questions before picking
up a No. 2 pencil and filling in
our choice.
Jon Eldon worked with
genetics as a conservation
biologist and is now pursuing
a Ph.D. at the University of
California-Santa Cruz in soil
fertility management and
food security. He is on twitter
at jondeldon.