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The following commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of AgWeb or Farm Journal Media. The opinions expressed below are the author's own.
Dean is Chairman Emeritus of 'Truth About Trade & Technology, a nonprofit advocacy group led by a volunteer board of American farmers.
By Mary Boote: Des Moines, IA
In 2014, the farmers of Truth about Trade & Technology celebrated the centennial year of Norman Borlaug, the father of the Green Revolution. We also marked the 15th anniversary of our organization, started in 1999 after global trade talks in Seattle sparked a riotous protest.
"We resolved to fight back," recalled Tim Burrack in a column last month. "We decided to protest the protests. Instead of smashing store windows, however, we committed ourselves to reasoned debate and sound argument."
And that's how we spent 2014: Spreading the truth about free trade and agriculture technology.
In January, Reg Clause reflected on a trip to Singapore and the lessons he learned there about international commerce: "Experience teaches that free trade is a tool for helping people everywhere. It lifts people out of poverty in the developing world. Trade lowers prices and expands consumer choice in developed countries like the United States."
The next month, our chairman Bill Horan urged Present Obama to push for new trade agreements and pressed Congress to approve Trade Promotion Authority (TPA): "America's farmers are ready and willing to keep on planting, harvesting, and selling, especially as new technologies help us grow more food on less land. To take full advantage of this prospect, however, we'll need political leaders who are committed to maintaining existing markets and opening new ones."
Export markets matter to farmers, and Mark Wagoner called on our federal leaders to finish the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an ambitious trade agreement with the nations of the Pacific Rim, in April: "Foreign trade is a key to our profitability, especially for those of us who farm. We export huge amounts of apples, cherries, pears, wheat, and wine to Asia. Without these exports, many of us wouldn't be able to farm at all."
In November, John Rigolizzo Jr. talked about how trade can influence political legacies: "Right now President Obama risks being remembered as a man who presided over a slow-growth economy. To be sure, he has faced enormous challenges, especially early in his tenure. Today, however, global trade presents him with enormous opportunities. He must do everything in his power to seize them."
Just as free trade represents opportunity, so does technology—and in particular, the technology of genetic modification. It has allowed farmers around the world to grow more food on less land than ever before. Yet it has come under unprecedented attack.
In February, Ted Sheely responded to the restaurant chain Chipotle's sponsorship of a television show that savaged modern farming: "What kind of values would inspire a corporation to wage a smear campaign against America's farmers?"
Much of the threat came through the subversive attack of labeling—the idea that food with GM ingredients should carry special warning labels, even though they're safe and healthy. In October, as voters in Colorado and Oregon prepared to consider ballot initiatives, Terry Wanzek weighed in: "This is what bothers me most about all of these efforts to ban genetically modified ingredients or slap provocative warning labels on certain products: They're attempts by other people to dictate my decisions through a mix of mandate and fear."
Earlier in the year, Carol Keiser wondered what would happen if every state created different labeling standards: "Should food labels look different everywhere we go? Of course not. Americans need easy to read and understand standards that reveal pertinent information, no matter where we buy our food."
In November, right after Colorado and Oregon had the good sense to reject the proposals to mandate labels for GM food, Bill Horan reviewed the recent history of labeling initiatives: "This marks the fourth time in the last two years that voters have turned back proposals to require special labels for food with GM contents."
Then he critiqued the process: "The ballot referendum can be a useful tool of democracy, but it's a poor way to go about building a regulatory system to govern something as complicated and important as food," he wrote. "It's time to give these ballot proposals an expiration date of right now."
Finally, he proposed a solution: "A bipartisan coalition already supports the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, introduced earlier this year by Rep. Mike Pompeo, a Kansas Republican. It would permit food companies to label their products voluntarily, but also prevent states from creating a patchwork of complex rules involving mandatory warning labels for food with GM ingredients."
The Christmas season is a time to count our blessings—and one of our blessings is the abundant food we enjoy because of trade and technology.
In April, Daniel Kelley reflected on how much technology has improved during his career: "When I started to farm more than four decades ago, we hoped that each acre of corn would yield close to 150 bushels but we often topped out at 135. The most productive fields—the record-setting ones on other farms—might inch past 200 bushels per acre. Today, anything less than 200 bushels per acre is a disappointment."
In July, Hope Pjesky wrote about Dr. Sanjaya Rajaram, the winner of this year's World Food Prize. "Some nights it's stressful enough to put dinner on the table for my family. Imagine being responsible for feeding millions of people," he wrote. "His wheat varieties have boosted global wheat production by 200 million tons."
Unfortunately, some farmers can't use the best technologies, as Nyashi Mudukuti, a member of TATT's Global Farmer Network, explained in October. "I raise sorghum and maize on our family farm on less than three hectares in rural Zimbabwe—and although we live in the 21st century, we use almost exactly the same 20th-century farming methods as our grandparents," she wrote. "The solution is to let Africa's farmers—and especially its women farmers—gain the access to the technologies that millions of others take for granted. … I desperately wish we could join in and grow these crops in Zimbabwe. They're an essential part of meeting our food-security needs.
The world needs to hear voices like Mudukuti's, as British farmer Ian Pigott wrote in October, upon his receipt of the Dean Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award, named for TATT's founding chairman. "When Norman Borlaug died five years ago, he uttered his famous last words: 'Take it to the farmers,'" he wrote. "That's good advice, but I've spent a lot of my time doing the opposite: Taking what farmers know and bringing it to the broader public."
That's what we tried to do all year, and what we'll keep on doing in 2015.
Mary Boote, an Iowa farm girl, serves as CEO for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org).
Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade and @World_Farmers on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By John Rigolizzo Jr.: Berlin, New Jersey
A startling exchange on Capitol Hill last week ought to end the debate over whether genetically modified foods should carry special warning labels.
It came near the conclusion of a three-hour hearing on December 10. The members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Health heard a range of views on a hotly contested political question—the subject of ballot initiatives in two states last month as well as proposed legislation in Congress.
The hearing room was so packed with guests that the chairman, Rep. Joe Pitts of Pennsylvania, began the session by saying he wished that all of the subcommittee's meetings would generate so much interest from the public.
Three hours later, with time running out, Rep. Mike Pompeo asked a direct question of a five-witness panel.
"I'm going to try to get some yes-or-no answers," said the Kansas Republican. He quoted an official from the Food and Drug Administration who had stated earlier in the day that GM foods "are as safe as their conventional counterparts."
Then he looked up at the panelists. "We'll start on my left," he said. "Tell me if you agree—yes or no—with that statement."
One by one, each of the five panelists replied: "Yes."
"We have total unanimity," said Pompeo. "That's fantastic."
Indeed it was, because those unanimous responses have the potential to halt an unhelpful controversy.
Three of the "yes" responses to Pompeo's question were foreseeable, as they came from a scientist, a farmer, and a food-industry spokesman. Alison Van Eenennaam of the University of California, Stacey Forshee of the Kansas Farm Bureau, and Tom Dempsey of the Snack Food Association know the truth about GM food, from their own research and experience: They're safe and healthy.
The other two panelists, however, are both strong advocates of labeling GM foods. They had every motive to respond in the negative.
Scott Faber of the Environmental Working Group is a professional activist whose organization claims—with wild implausibility—that organic food "can feed the world" (according to a recent headline on its website).
Kate Webb is assistant majority leader of Vermont's House of Representatives. Last year, her state passed a GM-labeling law whose implementation threatens to begin the process of creating a confusing patchwork of state-by-state regulations.
Confronted by Pompeo's question, both Faber and Webb nevertheless replied in the affirmative. They agreed that GM foods "are as safe as their conventional counterparts."
Their responses beg an obvious question: If GM foods are no different from non-GM foods, then why should foods that contain GM ingredients carry special labels?
They have no answer for this, or at least no good ones—and their lack of answers exposes the fundamental weakness of the political case for labels. Once we scratch beneath the slogans, we discover no substantive reason to slap warning stickers on GM food.
As Rep. Henry Waxman, a Democrat of California, commented during the hearing: GM food labels could be "inherently misleading" to consumers.
Consumers would suffer in other ways, too: Studies show that GM food labels would push up food prices by hundreds of dollars per year.
"If the labeling could result in higher food prices, then maybe that's not a risk we want to take," said Rep. Frank Pallone, a Democrat of New Jersey.
This is why voters in Colorado and Oregon rejected ballot proposals on Election Day to mandate labels for GM food. They examined the issue and decided that the enormous costs of labeling far outweighed the nonexistent benefits.
Faber and Webb deserve credit for answering Pompeo's question with honesty and accuracy. Now they should follow their words with action and work with others across the food supply spectrum to support federal legislation that affirms food companies have the right to label their products voluntarily and prevent states from imposing complicated rules about GM food labeling.
The intellectual and scientific debate over GM food is over. The new Congress now should end the political debate.
John Rigolizzo, Jr. is a fifth generation farmer, raising fresh vegetables and field corn in southern New Jersey. The family farm produces for retail and wholesale markets. John is a volunteer board member of Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org).
By Tim Burrack: Arlington, Iowa
The public protests over recent grand-jury decisions have brought to mind an event whose 15th anniversary has just passed: the so-called "Battle in Seattle" over global trade.
Thankfully, we haven't seen anything in recent days that approaches the troubles in Seattle at a World Trade Organization meeting where tens of thousands of protestors let loose their fury. To make an ideological point about trade policy, they inflicted millions of dollars in property damage on local businesses. The mayor declared a state of emergency.
I remember watching the riots unfold on television and reading about them in the newspaper. The hooliganism astonished me. Although I've always known that some people oppose the free flow of goods and services across borders, I didn't know that their views could explode into such unthinking rage.
Americans have a constitutional right to complain: The First Amendment protects our ability to speak, petition, and assemble. Yet we must always guard against the possibility of passion boiling into violence.
The mayhem of Seattle served as a wake-up call for farmers. We can't afford to let the thugs prevail. Our livelihoods – and those of most business - depend on foreign markets. The typical American corn farmer like me exports about one-third of his crop to people in other countries.
So we resolved to fight back. In a sense, we decided to protest the protests. Instead of smashing store windows, however, we committed ourselves to reasoned debate and sound argument.
Several friends and I started a nonprofit group called Truth about Trade. Soon after, we realized that many of the people who want to deny us the ability to sell what we grow also seek to deny us modern tools of agriculture that help us grow as much as we do in a manner that is sustainable. They've gone from rioting in the cities to terrorizing the countryside, as they attack field trials everywhere from Italy to the Philippines. So we expanded our vision and lengthened our name to Truth About Trade & Technology.
We've spent the last 15 years calling for new free-trade agreements and better access to agricultural technology, in the United States and around the world. We write weekly columns, publish economic research, speak to groups in the U.S. and around the world whenever invited and mobilize a global network of farmers who share our goals. We seek to engage hearts and minds rather than play to fear and ignorance.
We've certainly seen progress, as trade has expanded to every corner of the planet. Just as farmers in Iowa want to sell soybeans to China, growers in Burkina Faso hope to harvest the cotton that will make clothes for Europeans. Even so, we must do more: President Obama should push for the Trans-Pacific Partnership, allowing us to improve our trade around the Pacific Rim. Congress can give him a boost by approving Trade Promotion Authority, which will help our trade diplomats as they negotiate.
Some opinion polls suggest that American attitudes toward trade have remained stable over the last generation. Earlier this year, Gallup found that 54 percent of Americans see trade as an "opportunity for growth" and 38 percent see it as a "threat to the economy." Twenty years ago, Gallup's numbers were almost exactly the same: 53 percent and 38 percent.
I'd describe this as mostly favorable, but leavened by a large dose of skepticism—and evidence that we need to keep making our case.
On technology, we encourage governments everywhere to adopt regulatory policies that support farmers and food production, rather than smother innovation and raise prices on consumers. Just last month, we saw good news in Colorado and Oregon, where voters rejected unwise food-labeling initiatives. The result in Colorado was decisive, but in Oregon it was disturbingly close. A recount concluded only last week.
The experience provided more proof that we still have plenty of work to do.
In a democratic society, the debates never cease: trade and technology always have enemies, so they'll always need champions. As much as I hope we never see another "Battle in Seattle," I know that plenty of battles lie ahead.
Tim Burrack raises corn, soybeans and pork on a NE Iowa family farm. He serves as Vice-Chairman and volunteers as a Board Member of Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org).
By V. Ravichandran: Tamil Nadu, India
As a farmer in India, I am hopeful my country has reached a turning point and will finally embrace 21st-century farming, setting the stage for a second Green Revolution that is the world's only hope for feeding 9 billion people by 2050.
New Delhi's recent decision to permit field trials for genetically modified brinjal and mustard represents an essential step forward—a belated decision and limited in scope, but also a move that puts India on a course for genuine progress in agriculture.
In Tamil Nadu, a state that occupies the southern tip of India where I grow rice, sugar cane, cotton and pulses on my farm, I see the significance of this struggle every day. The latest UN projections say that my country will pass China's population within the next 15 years. If we don't improve our food security by then, we'll enter a period of unprecedented misery.
The good news is that much of the world recognizes the magnitude of the challenge, in India and elsewhere. In October, I participated in the World Economic Forum's New Vision for Agriculture meeting, which convened about 120 stakeholders, including farmers, in an effort to develop strategies for sustainable agricultural growth. We discussed a wide range of subjects including the importance of technology innovation, empowerment of women and smallholder farmers, Government policies, financial services, and risk management.
Although GM crops were not a major part of our conversations, the farmers in attendance made clear that we have positive views about these crops and believe biotechnology is an indispensible part of food security. Those of us who live in the developing world would like to enjoy the same access to technology that farmers in the United States and many other countries take for granted.
In too many instances, however, our governments are still catching up with our aspirations.
Years ago, India accepted biotechnology in agriculture when it commercialized GM cotton. At that moment, it looked like we might become full participants in a new wave of progress. Today, more than 95 percent of India's cotton is genetically modified to resist insect pests.
This was a welcome start, but small in scale. Only a tiny minority of India's farmers grows cotton. The rest of us produce other crops, and are yet to taste the benefit of GM crops as we try to feed a nation of more than 1.2 billion people.
Yet as farmers in North and South America pressed forward with GM corn, soybeans, and other crops, New Delhi hit the brakes. Instead of working to introduce GM brinjal—an important vegetable crop in India, known in the Unites States as eggplant—our government turned away from new forms of biotechnology.
In doing so, public officials made regulatory decisions based not on provable science, but on political science. They should have relied on reliable research from respected authorities. Instead, they responded to lies and propaganda from ideological activists.
The election of Narendra Modi as India's prime minister earlier this year, however, appears to have changed everything. Modi's environmental ministry, led by Prakash Javadekar, has chosen to emphasize science and technology.
India now will test some 30 varieties of GM brinjal and mustard, a decision consistent with PM Modi's development agenda. If sound science truly animates our policies, farmers like me almost certainly will have access to better crops soon.
I'm looking forward to what happens next. I have grown brinjal in a small area, but gave up because I couldn't keep away the pests and remain economically competitive. Many farmers in India will be benefited, if and when GM brinjal becomes available.
I plan to do everything in my power to help biotechnology take root in my country: We must make sure that successful field trials lead to commercialization, and see that our research expands to include additional crops. Today, the hard work of our Indian scientists who have developed lots of GM crops with desirable traits, including maize, rice, okra, cabbage and cauliflower, are confined to a lab while they wait for clearance from the government. This must change. It is important that these improved crops are made available to India's farmers.
The World Economic Forum and other international organizations have roles to play as well. They can lend moral support to India's innovators, who must continue to resist pressure from political protestors. They can also try to shape the views of opinion leaders, especially in Europe, where hostility to GM crops has encouraged India and other developing countries to question the value of biotechnology.
Most of all, however, they can encourage farmers like me to join a new Green Revolution that rises to the mighty challenge of feeding a hungry world.
Mr. V Ravichandran owns a 60 acre farm at Poongulam Village in Tamil Nadu, India where he grows rice, sugar cane, cotton and pulses (small grains). Mr. Ravichandran is a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network, 2013 recipient of the Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award and serves on the WEF New Vision for Agriculture Transformational Leaders Network (www.truthabouttrade.org).
By Bill Horan: Rockwell City, Iowa
When President Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863, his proclamation spoke of "the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies." The distractions of a civil war, he added, "have not arrested the plow."
Neither has time. If anything, it has spurred the plow to do more work than Honest Abe could have imagined possible, even with many fewer plowers.
In President Lincoln's day, roughly half of all Americans lived and worked on farms. Today, however, farmers make up just a tiny fraction of our workforce with each U.S. farmer producing enough to feed another 155 people.
This is a triumph of efficiency—and as we prepare to celebrate this year's holiday with family and friends, we should give thanks for the amazing productivity of our farms and the abundant food they produce. At the same time, we should recognize that our incredible success has caused many of us to take our bounty for granted, posing unique challenges that would have been incomprehensible just a generation or two ago.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that almost 320 million people live in the United States right now. Yet only 2 percent reside on farms. Less than 1 percent claim farming as a job, and less than half a percent call farming their principal occupation.
In other words, if you gather 200 Americans at random, only one of them will be a full-time farmer. The number of people who play the farming-simulation game Farmville is larger than the number of people who actually farm in the United States.
Despite this, our farmers produce a mind-boggling bounty. Earlier this year, we harvested America's largest corn crop ever. We export huge amounts of it overseas, and inexpensive food still overflows from the shelves of our grocery stories.
This is an incredible feat, the result of hard work and technological innovation. Almost everything about farming is better than it was for our ancestors, from our equipment to our seeds. We're growing more food on less land than ever before.
I've farmed my whole life and can't imagine wanting to do something else for a living. And yet the farming life isn't for everyone—and it's good that so many people can pursue other vocations. Fewer people forced into farming out of necessity means more people moving into medicine, teaching, and computer programming by choice.
Lincoln would have appreciated this social and economic development. He grew up on a farm but became determined to pursue a different career. The rest, as they say, is history.
Yet there's a downside to this positive trend: Ordinary people know less about farming and food production than ever before, making us more vulnerable to rumors, fads, and disinformation. Practices ranging from the use of crop-protection tools to the production of finely textured beef arouse bogus controversies, especially when stoked by people who refuse to understand science or agriculture.
Some have ideological agendas and others want to boost television ratings—but whatever their motives, they have an unprecedented opportunity to exploit agricultural illiteracy.
Their mischief can lead to bad public policies. Earlier this month, for instance, voters in Colorado and Oregon considered ballot initiatives to require warning labels on food with genetically modified ingredients. Coloradoans wisely rejected the idea by a two-to-one margin, but Oregonians were almost evenly split—a tiny majority opposed the labels, but a recount is underway.
If more people farmed, more voters would know the value of agricultural biotechnology from firsthand experience—and the campaigns against it would be properly seen as a fringe movement.
I don't want to go back to the way things were in the 19th century. I prefer tractors to plows. Yet sometimes I wish more people knew today what people knew back then.
So this Thanksgiving, I'll give thanks for living in a country where the farmers produce so much food that most people don't have to worry about food production—but also hope that in the year ahead, we'll all gain a better understanding of what farmers do and why our food is safe and healthy.
Bill Horan grows corn, soybeans and other grains with his brother on a family farm based in North Central Iowa. Bill volunteers as a board member and serves as Chairman for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org).
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By Hope Pjesky: Goltry, Oklahoma
Nobody ever wins a trade war, but the protectionists always want to try.
Their latest act of stubbornness will force American consumers to pay more at the grocery store and make it harder for American farmers to export what they grow—unless the federal government at last corrects a mistake that it keeps on making.
For the third time in three years, the World Trade Organization has ruled against country-of-origin labeling (COOL). It said that although the United States may permit these labels in principle, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's rules in practice have unfairly blocked Canadian and Mexican products from the American market.
This is no surprise: Ranchers like me have been saying as much for years. Although we support voluntary labeling, we oppose labels that create artificial barriers to trade.
The problem—if you insist on calling it one—is that the North American meat industry has become incredibly efficient. We're moving cattle all the time, from their birthplaces to the pastures where they grow to the feedlots where they fatten. This benefits consumers because it allows for specialization and economies of scale.
Sometimes cattle cross our borders with Canada or Mexico. A calf may be born in Montana, for example, then raised in Alberta, and finally packed in Nebraska.
When this happens, it's all about efficiency. Intense competition helps keep prices in check for consumers.
In 2008, Congress mandated country-of-origin labels. The implementation proved difficult, however, and a set of complicated rules forced producers to focus on paperwork rather than food. Suddenly, we had to segregate herds and build special warehousing capacities, all at great cost.
None of this had anything to do with the health and safety of people or animals—and everything to do with obstructing trade. Consumers never demanded the rules, and few of them have bothered to squint at the tiny print on packages that explain where the livestock that produced their meat was born, raised, and slaughtered.
The real agenda of COOL was protectionism: To drive up the costs of trading across borders. That's why Canada and Mexico complained to the WTO about unfair trade practices
I'm a patriotic American, but I have to say this—Canada and Mexico were in the right and we were in the wrong.
The WTO agreed with Canada and Mexico in 2011. The United States appealed the ruling—and lost again in 2012. So USDA revised its labeling requirements in 2013, but made them even worse. Canada and Mexico continued to object. Last week, the WTO favored them once more.
Three strikes and you're out.
If Washington refuses to reform, Canada and Mexico will retaliate with a series of punitive tariffs on billions of dollars' worth of goods produced or grown in the U.S., putting jobs at risk. They could sanction everything from cheese produced in Colorado to auto parts made in Michigan to potatoes grown in Oregon, with the purpose of delivering big blows to American exports. And they can do this with the full blessing of the WTO.
The solution is simple: The White House should abandon any plans it may have to appeal the ruling, which would merely put off an inevitable reckoning and continue to embarrass us on the international stage. Meanwhile, Congress should repeal the law that got us in this mess in the first place. However hard it might be to accomplish politically, upholding and honoring our trade obligations is the right thing to do. At a minimum, Congress should pass legislation that would authorize and direct U.S. Secretary of Ag Vilsack to rescind the pieces of COOL that are not compliant with our WTO trade obligations.
The shame of this dispute is that the WTO has been a tremendous ally to U.S. commerce in general and to American agriculture in particular. In other rulings, it has opened foreign markets to our exports, allowing us to sell goods and services to customers in other countries. An important case in point is our conflict with the European Union: The WTO has helped us sell American products to Europeans, despite the best efforts of protectionists to exclude them.
In the field of global trade, the United States should set an example for other nations to follow, not play the part of free-trade hypocrite. This is especially true as the Obama administration tries to strike ambitious trade agreements with Europe and the Pacific Rim nations.
The alternative to righteous support of free trade is a never-ending trade war that American consumers and exporters lose, over and over again.
Hope Pjesky and her family are farmers / ranchers in northern Oklahoma where they raise cattle and wheat. Hope volunteers as a board member for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org).
By John Rigolizzo: Berlin, New Jersey
When I was a young, beginning farmer, an older farmer shared a bit of wisdom. "For every 1 percent increase in the wholesale food market, farmers see their revenue grow by 5 percent."
Across the years, I've learned that if this isn't exactly an iron law of agriculture, it's at least a good rule of thumb. I've seen it come true, over and over again.
Global trade is no exception. When demand for food around the world grows, it easily converts to an appreciable increase in revenue for the farmers who produce that food, the individuals and businesses that process it, the grocers that sell it and on down the line.
This is just one of the reasons I believe President Obama must make trade expansion a top priority of his final two years in the White House. Instead of thinking about controversial executive orders on issues like immigration, he should work with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to hammer out trade agreements that benefit all Americans.
His legacy depends on it.
Right now President Obama risks being remembered as a man who presided over a slow-growth economy. To be sure, he has faced enormous challenges, especially early in his tenure. Today, however, global trade presents him with enormous opportunities.
He must do everything in his power to seize them.
Unfortunately, this President has not focused on trade in the first six years of his time in office. He deserves partial credit for pushing through three trade agreements negotiated by the Bush administration. The pacts with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea are already helping our economy. The more we trade, the better we do.
He must and can do more.
At times, the President has talked a good game. He just hasn't followed through with game-changing action. His promise to double exports by 2015, for example, won't come close to meeting its ambitious goal.
What's more, President Obama's two major trade initiatives appear to have stalled. We've seen little progress on a deal with the European Union, and fresh concerns about our ability to resolve differences over the role of biotechnology in modern agriculture have created a new sense of pessimism.
Likewise, talks with a dozen nations along the Pacific Rim—a potential agreement called the Trans-Pacific Partnership—also have stumbled. Not so long ago, we were promised that TPP would be wrapping up around now.
Despite these disappointments, it's not too late for President Obama to reverse course. Members of his administration know what's on the line. "Given the current constraints on fiscal and monetary policies, there is no better source of growth than trade," writes Michael B. Froman, our top trade diplomat, in the new issue of Foreign Affairs.
In 2013, the United States exported more than $2 trillion in goods and services, supporting more than 11 million American jobs. Over the last five years, one third of all economic growth in the United States has come from global trade.
Farmers know this as well as anybody. About one-third of all the corn we grow ships to international customers. Our livelihoods depend on access to foreign markets. Whenever access improves, money goes into our pockets—as well as the pockets of everyone from longshoremen who work at our ports to factory workers who make tractors in the heartland.
A good first step would be congressional approval of Trade Promotion Authority, a legislative tool that allows the President and his team to negotiate trade agreements confidently and then submit them to Congress for up-or-down votes.
Passage of TPA would send a powerful signal to the EU and the Pacific nations that we're serious about striking significant deals.
Earlier this year, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada—the current leader of the Democrats in the Senate—sent a different signal, when he announced his opposition to TPA. If voters told us anything last week, however, they said that they expect the President and Congress to cooperate on policy initiatives that will benefit Americans. In other words, our political leaders should stop playing partisan politics and end the gridlock of the recent past.
President Obama ought to reach out to the new Congress—its rookies and its veterans—and ask for TPA. This would be a good start to a new era of bipartisan cooperation, and a great way to jumpstart this President's final days in the Oval Office.
That old farmer I met long ago would know exactly why this makes sense.
Voters in two states had the good sense to reject ballot proposals last Election Day that threatened to raise food prices for consumers and smother technological innovation for farmers, without delivering a benefit to anybody.
The referenda—called Proposition 105 in Colorado and Measure 92 in Oregon—would have required food packages to carry warning labels if they included genetically modified ingredients. Colorado voters rejected the idea overwhelmingly, by a two-to-one margin. In Oregon, the result was much closer and uncertain until Wednesday, when it finally became clear that the proposal had failed, 51 percent to 49 percent.
This marks the fourth time in the last two years that voters have turned back proposals to require special labels for food with GM contents. Colorado and Oregon now join California and Washington State in rebuffing political efforts to force pointless labels onto food packages. Oregon, in fact, has snubbed the idea twice: this week, plus way back in 2002.
The story of these elections is always the same: An activist group funded by special interests writes a complicated proposal, launches a propaganda campaign, and enjoys a brief moment of popularity. Then, as the public learns the truth about GM food—it's safe, healthy, and common—voters begin to realize that warning labels don't make sense. They also don't like the thought of their food bills going up by hundreds of dollars per year. On Election Day, they vote down a bad idea.
Even in the liberal bastion of Boulder, Colorado—home of the University of Colorado and its well-educated population—schemes to label GM food were met with strong opposition. "Of the dozens of scientists I talked to," wrote Paul McDivitt on the website of Discover magazine, "none had any concerns about the health and safety of genetically modified foods." And none supported Proposition 105.
"Humanity has been eating genetically modified food for thousands of years," said Pieter Tans, a climate researcher at the Boulder office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Michael Breed, a biologist at the University of Colorado, also spoke out: "There's no convincing scientific evidence that I'm aware of that GMOs present a health hazard, and there's no practical way to separate and identify GMOs in our food stream."
Arguments such as these, from trusted authorities, make a huge difference to voters.
Many anti-science activists, however, prefer not to listen. They seem immune to reason and evidence.
The ballot referendum can be a useful tool of democracy, but it's a poor way to go about building a regulatory system to govern something as complicated and important as food. Such laws should be written by legislators, in consultation with scientific experts—not by professional protestors who are pushing a political agenda, funded by interest groups that have a commercial stake in warning labels that scare consumers away from the food products we eat every day. And have been safely for many years.
Yet the labeling activists won't stand down. They know that despite their losing streak, success at just one time and in one state will rattle the entire food industry, from farmers to processors to business and store owners to consumers. Odds are they'll try again soon.
There's a simple solution to this potential mess: Congress should stop them. A bipartisan coalition already supports the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act, introduced earlier this year by Rep. Mike Pompeo, a Kansas Republican. It would permit food companies to label their products voluntarily, but also prevent states from creating a patchwork of complex rules involving mandatory warning labels for food with GM ingredients.
This is a sensible approach—and it may even be a realistic goal.
President Obama has spoken favorably of GM foods. Perhaps this a subject on which he and the new Republican Congress can find common ground: an issue that need not become yet another victim of gridlock, but rather a bill that enjoys support from members of both parties and benefits the public at large.
It's time to give these ballot proposals an expiration date of right now.
By Dan Kelley: Normal, Illinois
By John Rigolizzo IV: Berlin, New Jersey
By Bill Horan: Rockwell City, Iowa
By Mark Wagoner: Touchet, Washington
By Tim Burrack: Arlington, Iowa
By Lisa Patterson; Heyburn, Idaho, USA
By Mark Wagoner: Touchet, Washington
By Hope Pjesky: Goltry, Oklahoma
Richard Dijkstra: Ponta Grossa, Parana, Brazil
By Motlatsi Musi: Pimville, South Africa
By Gerrid Gust: Davidson, Saskatchewan, Canada
By Rosalie Ellasus: San Jacinto, Philippines
By Brian Kelley: Normal, Illinois
India's PM Modi Can Help Farmers By Putting Science And Technology To Use
By Carol Keiser: Belleair, Florida
By R. Madhavan: Ulundhai Village, Tamil Nadu, India
By Gilbert Arap Bor: Kapseret, Kenya
By Tim Burrack: Arlington, Iowa
By Dan Kelley: Normal, Illinois
By Jose Luis Romeo: Monte Odina, Spain
By Roman Warzecha: Mazowia region of Poland
Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Eve Ntseoane: Kaalfontein, Gauteng Province, South Africa
By Ted Sheely: Lemoore, California
*Note - this week's column first appeared at The Huffington Post on Feb 3.
By Joni Kamiya-Rose: Kaneohe, Hawaii
By Carol Keiser: Belleair, Florida
By Reg Clause: Jefferson, Iowa
Gilbert Arap Bor grows corn (maize), vegetables and dairy cows on a small-scale farm of 25 acres in Kapseret, near Eldoret, Kenya. He also teaches at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Eldoret campus. Mr. Bor is the 2011 Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award recipient and a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Terry Wanzek: Jamestown, North Dakota
By Mary Boote: Des Moines, Iowa
Gabriela Cruz: Elvas, Portugal
By Dean Kleckner: Des Moines, Iowa
By Tim Couser: Nevada, Iowa
By Hope Pjesky: Goltry, Oklahoma
By David Hughes: Buenos Aires, Argentina
David Hughes and his partners grow corn, soybeans, wheat and barley in Buenos Aires province and are developing a cattle ranch in Sla Rioja province, Argentina. David is a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Rosalie Ellasus: San Jacinto, Philippines
Rosalie Ellasus is a first-generation farmer, growing corn and rice in San Jacinto, Philippines. Rosalie allows her farm to be used as a demonstration plot for smallholder farmers to visit and learn from. She is a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network and 2007 recipient of the Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By V. Ravichandran: Tamil Nadu, India
Cyclone Phailin smashed into the eastern coast of India on Sunday, leaving a path of death and destruction whose toll is still being calculated. The devastation from winds that averaged more than 120 miles per hour probably would have been worse if the government hadn't ordered the evacuation of roughly 800,000 people, one of the biggest in history.
By Gilbert arap Bor: Kapseret, Kenya
By David Hill: Bradenham, Norfolk, United Kingdom
By Terry Wanzek: Jamestown, North Dakota
By Bill Horan: Rockwell City, Iowa
By Carol Keiser: Belleair, Florida
Do our food labels need warning labels?
The purpose of a food label is to help consumers make smart decisions about what to buy and eat.
But what if these labels confused people instead of informed them? Or worse yet, what if labels actually misled consumers?
That's the problem with legislation introduced in Congress earlier this year to require special labels for food with genetically modified ingredients. Offered by Sen. Barbara Boxer of California and Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, the bill threatens to hoodwink the public.
It would fool people into worrying that perfectly safe food poses a health hazard.
Suddenly, our food labels would need warning labels: "Believe the contents of this label at your own risk."
The dangers of deceptive labeling aren't a speculative assertion, but rather the main point of a recent paper by Juanjuan Zhang, a marketing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Mandatory disclosure of GMOs in food products lowers consumers' perceived GMO safety," she writes in "Policy and Inference: The Case of Product Labeling."
Zhang's research reveals that the mere act of labeling food that contains GMOs is deceptive. It causes consumers to suspect that GMOs are dangerous, even though the safety of biotech food is beyond reasonable doubt, as organizations ranging from the American Medical Association to the World Health Organization have determined.
To arrive at her conclusion, Zhang conducted a clever experiment. She approached 200 people in several settings: in grocery stores, at a college dining hall, and outside a food truck that serves organic fare. Then she separated participants into two groups. The first received a statement that said the U.S. government does not require labels on food with GMO ingredients. The second saw a statement about proposals to require special labels for food with GMO ingredients.
Then Zhang asked both groups to rate the safety of GMOs on a scale of 1 ("totally unsafe") to 5 ("totally safe").
Her observations were striking. People in the first group had a favorable view of GMOs. They gave GMOs a mark of 3.62—considerably more safe than unsafe.
People in the second group, whose experience was meant to approximate reading a label on food package, rated GMOs at 2.65—i.e., substantially lower than the first group.
The different responses are entirely logical. Consumers assume that if GMOs are safe, there's no need to label them. If they see labels, however, they imagine that there must be something unsavory about GMOs.
Supporters of the "just label it" movement like to talk about "the right to know." Yet Zhang's scholarship shows that consumer behavior is more complicated than a political slogan. Labels possess the power to mislead. That means our lawmakers must mandate them sparingly, and not just because a few special interest groups want the federal government to help them obtain a competitive advantage in the food market.
If Congress fails to resist the politicization of food labels, our food labels no longer will carry basic information in a simple format. Instead, they will begin to resemble long and complicated legal disclaimers—the kind that nobody reads, let alone comprehends.
So here are a couple of alternative mottos: Less is more. Keep it simple. These should be guiding principles behind the rules of food labeling.
I'm not just a food producer. I'm also a mother and a grandmother. When I shop at the store and decide what to put on the dinner table for my family, I depend on accurate and reliable labels. I don't want labels that push me away from safe and healthy food.
I trust scientists and food experts: GMOs are safe. They are part of a proven technology and have become a conventional part of agriculture. We eat them every day. I also appreciate that they're environmentally friendly and highly sustainable, helping us grow more food on less land.
Despite all this, some people really do want to avoid GMOs. The good news for them is that they already have an option: They can buy food that's labeled "organic." This way, they can be certain that their food contains no GMO ingredients.
Congress should reject this scheme to contaminate our food labels with distorted information. Maybe copies of the Boxer-DeFazio legislation should carry a special label for lawmakers: Caveat emptor, or "Let the buyer beware."
Carol Keiser owns and operates cattle feeding operations in Kansas, Nebraska and Illinois. She volunteers as a Truth About Trade & Technology board member (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By John Rigolizzo, Jr.: Berlin, New Jersey
As a New Jersey farmer, I remember and have been publicly supportive of President Obama's export promise in 2010. And I'm not alone, joined by business owners and leaders, farmers, ranchers, manufacturers and retailers across the country.
"We need to export more of our goods," he said in his second-ever State of the Union address. "So tonight, we set a new goal: We will double our exports over the next five years."
As recently as 18 months ago, the president announced with pride that "we're on track to meet that goal ahead of schedule."
Today, however, with the self-imposed deadline just a year and a half away; he doesn't mention his export target anymore. It seems to have "vanished from White House talking points," observed Tom Raum of the Associated Press last week.
That's because we're going to fall far short of meeting President Obama's objective.
Since 2010, exports have increased by only about one-third. Adjusted for inflation, they've been ever weaker, growing by just one-quarter. If they continue at the current clip of 3.3 percent annual growth, they'll total only about $200 million per month in 2015, says Mark J. Perry of the American Enterprise Institute.
Instead of doubling, as President Obama pledged, exports will have risen by merely 40 percent.
We should never take growth for granted. Yet it's also a disappointment.
What accounts for this missed goal? One important factor is outside the administration's control: The global economy is stuck in a rut, which means that foreign customers aren't buying American products as much as they might. Economic slowdowns around the world from China to Europe continue to hurt the U.S. export economy and there's only so much a politician in the United States can do about it.
To complicate matters, we're measuring exports in terms of dollars rather than by volume. Dollar value is important, but it's also vulnerable to fluctuations in commodity markets and inflation. Volume is a better indicator of export health, and sadly we're struggling in this area as well. On August 12, the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) released their latest monthly report, stating that this year "corn exports are projected 25 million bushels lower with reduced domestic supplies and increased foreign competition." What does that mean: Lower volume and lower prices equals less trade and fewer dollars at home. That impacts all of us.
We can do better. The President's goal to double exports is worth fighting for. Alfred Lord Tennyson once wrote that it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. Likewise, it's probably better to have come up short against an ambitious export objective than never to have stretched for it in the first place.
Yet President Obama's dedication to the expansion of America's export markets is an open question. His three great victories—congressional approval of free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea two years ago—were the initiatives of his predecessor. The President deserves praise for seeing them through, but he's now in his second term and his administration has yet to ink a free-trade pact with anyone. In many cases, the White House has seemed more interested in sparking small-scale trade wars with the likes of Canada, our most important trading partner, than breaking new ground.
The administrations trade diplomats are hoping to finalize the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), an accord that one day could include Japan as a trading member. They've also just started trade negotiations with the EU, hoping to forge the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Success with either would go a long way toward meeting the goal to significantly increase exports and cement President Obama's free-trade legacy.
Even with the best intentions however, the president won't get far without Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). This important legislative trade tool will allow the White House to negotiate free-trade agreements and put them before Congress for an up-or-down vote. Since the 1970s, when TPA, also known as "fast track", was first used, every president has enjoyed this advantage for at least part of their presidency---except for President Obama.
Congress allowed TPA to lapse six years ago amid partisan wrangling and has yet to restore it, in part because the Obama administration hasn't been aggressive enough in asking for it. Although there was some hope that Congress would approve TPA this summer, it's now clear that nothing will happen until this fall at the earliest.
My apologies to the makers of alphabet soup, but without TPA there won't ever be a TPP or a TTIP—and export growth will continue to let us down.
In the future, we'll all be better off worrying less on promises and focusing more on results.
John Rigolizzo, Jr. is a fifth generation farmer, raising fresh vegetables and field corn in southern New Jersey. The family farm produces for retail and wholesale markets. John is a volunteer board member of Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Bill Horan: Rockwell City, Iowa
Around the world, we hear stories of agricultural progress, as more countries join the Gene Revolution. In 2012, Cuba and Sudan planted biotech crops for the first time. This year, Bangladesh—which has the world's eighth-largest population—will make the leap as well.
In one country, however, we see a unique case of agricultural regress: Romania, which I visited earlier this summer. It's the only nation on the planet to take part in the Gene Revolution and then drop out. But not by choice…
Romania's farmers want back in—and the story of GM crops in the Black Sea region may be instructive as the United States and the European Union try to negotiate a free-trade agreement and find common ground on the thorny question of genetically modified crops.
The goal of my two-week study trip, sponsored in part by the Iowa Farm Bureau, was to examine the grain potential of Romania and Ukraine, with a focus on how their productivity will impact markets.
Eastern Europe is still recovering from the legacy of Communism, and many Western Europeans consider it a backwater. Yet Romania defied the stereotype in 1998, as GM crops became available. On a continent hostile to GM food, it became a Gene Revolution pioneer, utilizing the technology that allows farmers to grow more food on less land.
GM corn and soybeans grew in popularity and appeal with Romania's farmers; just as they have everywhere they've been adopted. Then politics intruded. Lawmakers banned virtually all GM farming in 2007 so Romania could become a member of the EU, which has been relentlessly hostile to farm biotechnology.
In 2006, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Romanian farmers grew more than 335,000 acres of GM soybeans. By last year, this number had plunged to almost nothing.
Romanian farmers didn't choose to abandon GM crops, but were forced to give them up. Many have switched to growing low-priced grains such as barley, rye, and wheat—and wish they could go back to the old rules, when they enjoyed the freedom to plant what they wanted.
Today, Romania cannot allow its own farmers to grow the crops their country needs—but it imports soybeans, including GM soybeans. This surely raises the price of food for ordinary Romanians, where per-capita income is less than $13,000 annually, according to the International Monetary Fund. That's only a little more than one-quarter of per-capita income in the United States.
Ukraine is in a different position. It's not a member of the EU, though officially it shares the EU's anti-biotech attitudes and bans GM crops. Unofficially, however, it recognizes the benefits of biotechnology. My hosts estimated that about 70 percent of Ukraine's soybeans and about 30 percent of its corn are the beneficiaries of genetic modification.
How do they do it? Perhaps they smuggle in seeds. In the case of soybeans—but not corn—they may be able to save seeds from one year to the next.
Yet the "how" is less interesting than the "why." Ukrainian farmers break their country's laws and grow biotech crops on the sly because they know this technology improves food production. Apparently the government is willing to look the other way.
It made me wonder: How many other European countries grow GM crops off the books?
The answer is unknowable. It won't show up in any official figures, after all.
The fact that we can ask the question, however, undercuts the myth that European farmers don't want to have anything to do with GM crops. Clearly many of them do—and they're willing to take risks to do it.
For what it's worth, farmers in both Romania and Ukraine believe that they'll have access to GM crops in the next five or ten years. The advantages are so obvious, they think, that widespread acceptance is inevitable.
Inevitability should not become an excuse for complacency. As U.S. and EU trade representatives negotiate a free trade agreement, more European farmers should speak up and explain why biotech acceptance is important to them—and know that a lot of their European farmer neighbors will cheer them on, even if only in secret.
Bill Horan grows corn, soybeans and other grains with his brother on a family farm based in North Central Iowa. Bill volunteers as a board member and serves as Chairman for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Rajesh Kumar: Salem, India
Many people in India view our neighbors in Bangladesh with a measure of pity. They inhabit an overcrowded, less-developed country whose citizens earn less than half our per-capita income. Massive floods are a seasonal terror. Man-made woes also curse them, including the Savar building collapse in April. It killed more than 1,100 people in the deadliest structural failure in modern history.
In one important regard, however, Bangladesh is embracing technology and will jump ahead of India: It's about to allow the planting of genetically modified brinjal, a staple vegetable that many people around the world call eggplant.
Growers in Bangladesh will become the envy of India's farmers. We desperately want to access GM brinjal, but our government won't let us have it – and now a committee of our Supreme Court has just called for an indefinite moratorium on field trials for new GM crops. Farmers in the Philippines have experienced similar frustrations.
So Bangladesh is embracing a bright future at a critical moment for global food security: Experts say we need to double food production by 2050, and the tool of biotechnology offers one of the most promising hopes for achieving this goal.
Bangladesh is now moving in the right direction. By becoming the first country to commercialize GM brinjal, it will discover the advantages of growing more food on less land—an excellent benefit in a country with incredible population density. Only tiny states such as Monaco, Singapore, and Vatican City pack more people per square mile into their borders. Bangladesh is the most crowded place on the planet.
This puts cropland at a premium, and means that Bangladeshi farmers must do everything they can to boost output as they try to feed more than 150 million people in the world's 8th-most populated nation. Right now, Bangladesh harvests more than 380,000 tons of brinjal per year, according to the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council. Soon, these farmers will grow even more of this vegetable, which is an ideal crop for developing countries because it's good to eat and relatively inexpensive to produce.
I've grown non-GM brinjal on my farm for many years, so I know the challenges that it presents. The pests are terrible. Fruit and shoot borers can reduce a crop badly or destroy it entirely. Up to now, pesticides have offered the only way to cope. We spray every fifteen days on my farm. Some farmers actually overdo it, applying pesticide more frequently, due to ignorance or anxiety. This creates problems for workers in fields and families in kitchens.
Biotechnology can change all this. By using the same safe and proven technology that has transformed agriculture for so many around the world, brinjal can fend off the bugs on its own, leading to higher yields, healthier vegetables, and lower costs. This helps farmers and consumers alike.
The Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) has developed four kinds of GM brinjal, based on local varieties and with the assistance of scientists at Cornell University and USAID. After seven years of testing in greenhouses and fields, BARI has submitted its products for government approval, which should arrive soon.
When this happens, Bangladesh will become the 29th country to allow GM crops. Three countries in south Asia already grow GM cotton: India, Myanmar, and Pakistan. Bangladesh will be the first to permit a food crop to take advantage of the biotech tool.
India could have been first. Scientific committees appointed by our government had ruled GM brinjal safe and ready. Then our politicians reacted to the protests of environmental extremists and anti-biotech activists. In 2010, to the severe disappointment of farmers who understand this technology and consumers who hope for inexpensive food, it banned GM brinjal.
There are signs that New Delhi may be rethinking its harmful opposition, even as our Supreme Court pays too much attention to protestors. At a forum sponsored by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research in July, President Pranab Mukherjee saluted biotechnology as a tool to improve India's food production: "Development and introduction of genetically modified crops has the potential to revolutionize agriculture," he said.
I am hopeful these words will translate into actions. I and India's farmers must ask the Indian government to follow Bangladesh's lead. In the meantime, the actions of Bangladesh give us hope that biotechnology may continue to flourish—and that India soon will move forward as well.
Rajesh Kumar farms 120 acres in two regions of India, using irrigation to grow brinjal, sweet corn, baby corn, tomatoes and other vegetables. He sells fresh produce directly to consumers through kiosks at several locations and runs a food processing unit for canning of vegetables. Mr. Kumar is a member of the TATT Global Farmer Network and recipient of the 2012 TATT Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement award (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Ken Kamiya: Kaneohe, Hawaii
Roseanne Barr would like to burn down my papaya farm in Hawaii.
The wealthy actress said so earlier this month, during a public hearing on Hawaii Bill 79, proposed legislation that would outlaw growing genetically modified crops on the Big Island.
"For the people who make their living growing GMOs, you know everybody here is very giving and they probably would bend over backwards to help you burn those papayas and grow something decent," said Barr, who moved to Hawaii after making her fortune in Hollywood.
Barr speaks for a movement of political activists who want to wipe out modern farming in Hawaii. They're trampling on science, violating the rights of farmers, and ignoring an incredible success story.
Papayas are one of Hawaii's great crops. I've grown them for four decades on Oahu. My family is so connected to the fruit that there's even a variety named after us: the "Kamiya papaya."
During the 1990s, however, papaya farmers almost lost everything. The deadly ringspot virus spread through our islands and ravaged papaya trees. It became impossible to grow this delicious fruit.
Then the tool of biotechnology saved us. A scientist named Dennis Gonsalves figured out an ingenious way to make our papayas resist the ringspot virus. He inserted a piece of the virus's own genes into papayas, effectively inoculating our plants.
Thanks to genetic modification, papaya farmers were able to grow papayas again. Today our small industry has recovered and virtually all of the papayas grown in Hawaii are GM crops.
Barr and the backers of Bill 79 want to suppress the technology that has allowed us to survive and thrive.
Advocates of Bill 79 claim that their ban exempts papayas. This is true only in a highly technical sense. The legislation doesn't outlaw GM papayas the way it outlaws other GM crops, but it imposes so many new restrictions on papayas that farming them will become impractical.
To make matters worse, Bill 79 casts doubt on a proven technology at a time when we're trying to build an export market for papayas among Japanese consumers. Enacting the law would declare that Hawaiian leaders don't have confidence in the food Hawaiian farmers are trying to sell overseas.
Lawmakers sometimes like to tell farmers that they have our back. If they approve Bill 79, however, they'll be stabbing us in the back.
Yet the dispute over Bill 79 is about much more than papayas. It's about the future of farming in Hawaii—and a ban on biotechnology would have a terrible effect on Hawaii's ability to grow food.
One of our most important crops is coffee. In 2010, however, the coffee berry borer, a beetle native to Africa, arrived on our islands and started to infest our coffee farms. These pests drill holes into coffee beans, rendering them useless.
By some estimates, the 700 farms that make up Hawaii's coffee industry have suffered losses of 25 percent or more. Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a $1-million plan to fight the bug, but everyone agrees that the problem is growing worse rather than better.
Can biotechnology help Hawaiian coffee beat the coffee berry borer the way it helped Hawaiian papayas defeat the ringspot virus? Or the way it helps most of the corn grown in the United States resist the corn borer? This is a promising possibility—but Bill 79 would make it illegal to utilize this important new technology.
How silly. Around the world, farmers have planted and harvested more than 3 billion acres of GM crops. These growers include massive soybean operations in the United States and Brazil to subsistence farmers in Burkina Faso and the Philippines.
GM crops are a safe, healthy, and well understood technology. They help us grow more food on less land, both preserving the environment and keeping food prices down for consumers. In the future, they're only going to get better, as we develop drought-resistant crops that conserve water and biofortified rice that boosts nutrition.
But before anyone can enjoy these benefits, sensible people must play a little defense—and stop Roseanne Barr and her friends from burning down my papaya farm.
Ken Kamiya has grown papaya in Hawaii for almost 40 years. The "Kamiya" papaya is named in recognition of his work in the industry. Mr. Kamiya is a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By John Rigolizzo, Jr.: Berlin, New Jersey
"There is no such thing as too much information," said New Jersey lawmaker BettyLou DeCroce a few days ago.
That's definitely not true. We've all experienced "TMI" moments.
Then there's TMI's close cousin: utterly useless information. And that's what DeCroce unfortunately supports in New Jersey. She backs a bill that would require all food sold in the state to carry special labels when it's made with ordinary plants that I've grown for years on my New Jersey farm.
Labels specifically for food with genetically modified ingredients provide utterly useless information. They won't deliver any benefits to consumers, but they'll force the price of food to rise for everyone.
The good news is that New Jersey probably won't approve the legislation, at least not in the near term. Unlike most of the country, here in the Garden State we elect our lawmakers in odd-numbered years. Most analysts don't expect major new initiatives until after November.
Yet the bill, recently rubber-stamped by a budget committee, is part of a troubling trend. Across neighboring New England, politicians in several states are voting to label foods that contain GM ingredients. Connecticut and Maine have approved laws that will take effect if several other states join them. Vermont has also passed a bill in one of its legislative chambers.
This political activity on the state level flies in the face of established scientific evidence. Experts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration say that food with GM ingredients is safe and perfectly healthy, so there's no need to label. The American Medical Association and a long list of reputable groups agree.
They're right: Food with GM ingredients is the same as food without GM ingredients. It tastes the same and, in many cases, scientists can't tell the difference between them.
In New England, however, sheer ignorance is starting to shape the debate. After voting for Connecticut's law, for instance, Senate President Donald E. Williams explained his decision: "There is mounting scientific evidence showing that genetically modified foods are harmful to our health."
I'll give Williams the benefit of the doubt and assume that he's a well-meaning public servant. Yet his words hardly could be more wrong. GM crops are among the most studied and best understood plants on the planet—and there's not a sliver of real scientific data that does anything but affirm the safety of food made with GM ingredients.
Labels won't help consumers make better decisions, but they'll increase the cost of food because the labels aren't free. They represent a significant new regulation on farmers and food companies. The added expense of compliance will be passed along to consumers. We'll all pay more for what they eat at grocery stores and restaurants.
At a time when the U.S. economy is at best sputtering along in New Jersey and elsewhere, we shouldn't pass pointless laws that make it harder for families to feed themselves.
It would be bad enough if the negative impacts of excessive labeling with information of no use to human health or safety were to stop there. Yet they'll extract an even higher toll as they call into question the very purpose of GM technology. Consumers may begin to wonder why this food needs labels in the first place—and they may start to avoid it.
That would be a tragedy. Biotechnology lets us grow more food on less land. That's why I grow GM crops on my farm, not far from where Assemblywoman DeCroce cast her wrongheaded vote in favor of an unnecesary labeling law.
As we struggle to feed our families in tough times—and try to find ways to feed a growing global population—we need to appreciate food grown with the benefit of biotechnology as part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
Forward-looking people should embrace GMOs, not slap them with misleading labels that will raise prices and discourage consumers.
The labels we already use on food are just right, giving us information we need to make smart choices about what we eat.
Shortly before last week's long U.S. Independence Day weekend, the Obama administration announced that it would delay the employer-mandate portion of the new health-care law for another year.
Some pundits suggested a political motive, saying that the White House wants to suspend the unpopular requirement until after next year's congressional elections.
Yet almost nobody pointed out that the postponement is part of a troubling pattern: This administration can't get its regulatory house in order.
I feel the frustration every day as an American farmer. To grow crops, I'm always on the lookout for safe technologies that will help me make better use of the land, whether it's with improved water conservation or advanced pest control. The government needs to help out; through an efficient and effective regulatory system that makes science-based decisions in a timely fashion.
Unfortunately, our regulatory system is broken. And farmers increasingly see the Department of Agriculture not as a partner committed to helping us grow food, but as an obstacle that simply gets in the way of responsible production.
Two cases in point involve new trait technologies that use time-tested herbicides: one with a technical name, 2,4-D and the other, dicamba. The herbicide 2, 4-D was first developed in the 1940s. My father started using it on our farm in the 1950s. Dicamba was introduced in the 1950s and I've been using that tool on our farm since 1967.Today, they are two of the best understood and most widely accepted herbicides on the planet.
They're also key ingredients in two important new crop-protection tools. Having access to 2,4-D and dicamba technologies will help farmers get the yield we need to compete while easily killing weeds that have become difficult to control.
Sensationalist accounts in the media have dubbed these "superweeds," a silly word that makes ordinary vegetation sound like something out of "Little Shop of Horrors," the humorous musical about plants that eat people. Whatever we label them, we need new tools to fight them—and I've been eager to get my hands on these new products, as are many other farmers.
But USDA won't let us have this new technology. To make matters worse, it won't explain why and its failure to do so violates federal law.
USDA is required by law to respond to regulatory petitions within 180 days. With 2,4-D-tolerant crops, the waiting has now lasted three and a half years—seven times the period required by federal law.
A USDA announcement in May that it is extending the review of these technologies suggests that the waiting will continue for more than a year. For how long will USDA dawdle? Nine times the requirement under federal law? Ten times? Forever?
I should be using this product on my fields right now, during the growing season of 2013. It's too late for that, of course. Right now, I'll be lucky if this product is available before President Obama leaves office.
This is ridiculous. The 2, 4-D trait technology is already approved in Canada. Approvals are imminent for it in other countries that are key competitors. Yet, here in the United States, farmers must rely on existing technology to compete with the rest of the world.
If our regulatory system slips into sclerosis, we'll surrender our great competitive advantage, in which the United States has led the way on technology and innovation. Very soon, Brazil and China will approve novel technologies before we do.
This is how we become a second-world country—not because others are beating us fair and square, but because we're bogging ourselves down in red tape and broken rules.
I've seen what happens to farmers when governments ignore the rule of law. For six years, I invested in a farm in Ukraine, where my partners and I grew corn, soybeans, and several other crops. The venture ultimately ended because it was impossible to do business without paying massive bribes.
American farmers aren't asking for no regulations at all, or even a phony "rubber stamp" procedure. We want predictable rules that help us grow safe and nutritious food, which is exactly what we've had for many years.
Now we risk losing it. USDA thinks it can flout federal law, apparently hoping that no one will notice or care.
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack must lead and get the USDA regulatory train back on track.
Tim Burrack raises corn, soybeans and pork on a NE Iowa family farm. He serves as Vice-Chairman and volunteers as a Board Member of Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
Among the many tragedies of war is collateral damage: deaths and casualties of non-combatants who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time as well as the destruction of civilian property.
Nations at war try to keep collateral damage to an absolute minimum. At least the civilized ones do.
Trade wars also can deliver collateral damage—and in a new dispute with Canada and Mexico, the Obama administration is preparing to let innocents suffer. American consumers and farmers are about to pay a steep price.
The problem centers on a regulation abbreviated as COOL, which stands for "country-of-origin labeling." Despite the name, there's nothing calm or trendy about COOL, because it forces packagers and retailers to obey strict labeling rules that describe where livestock was born, raised, and slaughtered.
That may sound reasonable. Why shouldn't people know where their meat comes from? In its practical application, however, COOL bans the commingling of meat produced in different countries.
Canada and Mexico have rightly objected, saying that this amounts to illegal protectionism even as it masquerades as a consumer right. They've complained about losses totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.
Those losses won't affect only foreigners. They'll filch from American pocketbooks too, as the cost of meat rises in grocery stores and restaurants.
This is crazy—the sort of job-killing policy that will make our sluggish economy recovery slow down instead of speed up.
We're also throwing our regulatory regimes out of whack. Harmonized regulations should be a broad goal of trade policy, especially as the United States embarks on ambitious but sensitive trade talks with the European Union. Yet COOL ignores all of this, building artificial regulatory barriers to the flow of goods and services across borders.
And it gets worse. COOL violates America's obligations as a member of the World Trade Organization. We're "protecting" our markets from Canadian and Mexican meat without an adequate reason, such as public health. Now the WTO will let Canada and Mexico retaliate, making it harder for us to export certain American products.
In June, Canada released a long list of products that soon may face punitive tariffs because of COOL. Many involve meat, but lots don't. In all, the targets come from 37 different product sectors. They include everything from cherries and cheese to chocolate and frozen orange juice. A number of items aren't even agricultural, such as jewelry, steel tubes, and "swivel seats with variable height adjustment."
One of the targets on the list is close to my heart: corn. That's what I grow here in Iowa. As with most American corn farmers, about one-third of my corn goes overseas, in a variety of forms.
If Canada slaps a special tariff on U.S. corn, it will hurt my bottom line. I'll have a harder time selling what I grow to our northern neighbors. So will other corn farmers, upsetting the laws of supply and demand. What we grow ultimately will fetch lower prices.
This makes no sense. I don't raise livestock or produce meat. Why should I suffer in a dispute over how meat is labeled? Why should factory workers who produce "swivel seats with variable height adjustment" watch their customer base erode? Why should American consumers pay higher prices to put food on their tables?
Well, that's the nature of collateral damage. It's an unintended consequence—though, in this particular case, the result is wholly predictable. The Obama administration, which likes to talk about its commitment to global trade, really ought to know better.
Canada's list of retaliatory targets is still unofficial. Mexico has not yet published its own list, but will: A statement in May threatened that "the imposition of retaliatory measures" are just a matter of time.
Ottawa released its list in a last-ditch attempt to encourage a better solution. Mexico City will have the same idea in mind. Washington should heed these fair warnings before it's too late.
The lesson should be obvious: In a trade war, everybody loses.
By Gabriella Cruz: Elvas, Portugal
When I first met Marc Van Montagu at a meeting of farmers in Brussels, I didn't know who he was—but I was immediately impressed by his views on biotechnology. He was both honest and intelligent, and best of all he knew what he was talking about. Only later did I learn what he had accomplished as a scientist.
Now everybody else can know too, because Marc was just named as a co-recipient of the 2013 World Food Prize, noted as the 'Nobel Prize" for agriculture.
The World Food Prize will honor Marc and two others for their significant body of work and research that has helped the Green Revolution blossom into the Gene Revolution.
Truth be told, genetically modified crops hardly need the accolade. They've been confirming their worth for nearly a generation, allowing farmers around the world to control weeds and pests and promising even greater advances in the future. Since their commercialization, farmers have planted and harvested more than 3.5 billion acres of biotech crops and people eat food derived from it every day.
About 12 percent of our planet's arable land is planted with GM crops and more than 17 million farmers use biotechnology. Roughly 90 percent of those farmers are smallholders who choose GM crops because they make economic sense for themselves and their families in a manner that is sustainable for the environment and socially.
So it's wonderful that three of biotechnology's heroes will receive formal recognition from the World Food Prize. I'm hopeful that the attention they deserve and will now receive will provide a listening global audience, if only because they have so much to say—especially to the biotech skeptics in Europe who still must overcome irrational fears of a proven technology.
In addition to Marc, who is Belgian, this year's winners are Dr. Mary-Dell Chilton and Dr. Robert T. Fraley of the United States. Working separately in the 1980s, they discovered through molecular research the key to plant cell transformation using recombinant DNA.
That's the scientifically-correct way of stating that they discovered the key of how to produce crops that grow more food on less land—and all of it safe, as every serious scientist, organization, and regulatory agency around the world that has studied them will attest.
"Our new laureates have truly used science to multiply the harvest," said Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, president of the World Food Prize Foundation. He announced the winners last week, at a ceremony hosted by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who hailed the recipients "for their pioneering efforts and their tremendous contributions to biotechnology and to the fight against hunger and malnutrition." The formal award will take place in Des Moines, Iowa on October 17.
Marc grew up in Belgium during the Second World War, when his country rationed food. So he knows what it's like to scrimp on meals, and why biotechnology is a key to fighting hunger—as well as why his native continent must rethink its ways.
"For me, [the World Food Prize] emphasizes the importance of GMO technology as a contributing factor to sustainable food production," he said. "I hope that this recognition will pave the way for Europe to embrace the benefits of this technology, an essential condition for global acceptance of transgenic plants."
Originally from Illinois, Dr. Chilton began her academic career at the University of Washington, but has worked at Syngenta for the last 30 years, helping the company develop seeds for farmers.
"The committee's decision to award the World Food Prize to biotechnology researchers will help convey to consumers the value, utility, and safety of genetically modified crops," said Chilton.
Dr. Fraley, also from Illinois, worked at the University of California-San Francisco before Monsanto hired him in 1981. He has been there ever since, and led the company's effort to develop the "Roundup Ready" crops that have proven so productive and popular.
"I really believe we have just scratched the surface on what is possible in bringing innovation to farmers who deliver food security to consumers around the world," said Fraley. "While there are those who may not support our advanced research in biotechnology, the need for food security and the opportunity for farmers around the world to meet the growing demand is much more important than any differences of opinion."
Let's hope that these differences of opinion continue to wither away, as Europe and the rest of the world embraces the promise of biotechnology.
Maria Gabriela Cruz manages a 500 hectare farm in Elvas, Portugal that has been in their family for over 100 years. Growing maize, wheat, barley and green peas, they use no-till or reduced till methods on the full farm. She has grown biotech maize since 2006. Ms. Cruz is President of the Portuguese Association of Conservation Agriculture, a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network and the 2010 Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award recipient (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Rosalie Ellasus: San Jacinto, Philippines
Do judges know better than mothers what their children should eat?
In the Philippines, apparently they do. Or at least they think they do.
Last month, my country's Court of Appeals stopped field tests on genetically modified eggplants—crops that I would happily feed my own children and grandchildren.
We've been eating GM crops for years. I grow them on my farm in San Jacinto during the dry season. They're such excellent crops that I plant them on the 12 hectares that I own and also rent an additional 3.5 hectares.
I've also grown eggplants. They're the leading vegetable crop in the Philippines, where we call them talong. They come in many shapes and colors, from elongated or rounded to purple, violet, or green. Some even have white stripes.
Mothers like me can cook talong a hundred different ways, but one of everybody's favorite dishes is called pinakbet. Talong is a main ingredient, along with other vegetables as well as fish or shrimp, all stirred together in a hot and delicious mix.
If you were to ask Filipinos to pick their favorite Filipino plate, pinakbet probably would win the contest.
I'm very concerned that the judges have ruled against a technology that would make it easier for farmers to grow talong and mothers to feed it to their children.
If their decision had been based in sound scientific reasoning, then it would make sense and be accepted. Farmers don't want to hurt the environment and mothers don't want to feed harmful food to their children.
But the ruling had nothing to do with science. The judges simply reacted to the lies of activist groups such as Greenpeace, whose well-fed leaders never have to wonder about their next meal.
Biotechnology is widely accepted around the world, where farmers have harvested more than 3.5 billion acres of it over the last 20 years.
A few of those acres have been mine. I started growing GM crops shortly after the death of my husband. They helped me get my life back together and gave me the financial means to send my children to school.
They also put food on the table. I mean this both figuratively and literally because in my home we eat what we grow—and our GM corn uses exactly the same pest-fighting technology that the Court of Appeals just rejected for talong.
This is ridiculous. How can a trait be acceptable in one crop but not in another?
My personal experience demonstrates what scientists all over the world have said: GM crops are a safe and proven option. That's what the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, and many other groups have proclaimed, along with the National Academy of Science of Technology here in the Philippines.
One of the latest voices to endorse GM food is Michael Purugganan, a Filipino who is the dean of science at New York University, a preeminent university in the United States.
"When it comes to GM technology, [critics] ignore the overwhelming scientific consensus on the safety of GMO crops," he wrote in GMA News Online, responding to last month's ruling. "Meanwhile, here in the U.S., I will eat GMO tortilla chips and eat GMO tofu. I hope to one day taste GMO pinakbet. And I do so fully aware that I have nothing to worry about."
I'll take it a step further. Biotech crops aren't merely just okay to eat. They're actually better than non-biotech crops. They allow us to grow more food on less land, making them tools of conservation and sustainable agriculture. They also improve the health of farmers because they don't require additional pesticide applications, which can be hazardous to the people who apply them directly to crops.
With its unfortunate decision, the Court of Appeals has hurt the international reputation of the Philippines, which now may be viewed as a foe of progress and technology. More importantly, it has hurt the prospects of ordinary Filipinos, from farmers who struggle to make a living to mothers who simply want safe and affordable ways to feed their children.
Rosalie Ellasus is a first-generation farmer, growing corn and rice in San Jacinto, Philippines. Rosalie allows her farm to be used as a demonstration plot for smallholder farmers to visit and learn from. She is a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By John Reifsteck: Champaign, Illinois
If it's not hard, it's not worth doing.
U.S. and EU trade diplomats must keep this slogan in mind as they prepare to negotiate a sweeping free-trade agreement between the United States and the European Union.
Success would deliver a big boost to economies on both sides of the Atlantic, as phony barriers to the flow of goods, services, and investments come down. Europe is already America's largest export market, worth about $459 billion last year and supporting about 2.4 million jobs, according to federal statistics.
The good news is that we can do even better: One estimate says that a wise agreement would pump nearly $100 billion to the U.S. economy. It would function like a job-creating stimulus program, without costing taxpayers anything or adding to the national debt.
The bad news is that a few voices are already suggesting that we limit our expectations, especially in agriculture, even before formal talks begin next month. We're hearing murmurs about how everything would go a lot more smoothly if only we didn't have to argue about biotechnology.
But argue we must, because genetically modified crops are a fundamental issue for American farmers. This is a fight worth having.
Here in the United States, our science-based regulations approve biotechnology as a safe tool of sustainable agriculture. The technology allows us to grow more crops on less land, helping us feed the world and conserve resources at the same time. The vast majority of our corn, soybeans, and cotton are genetically modified, as they are throughout much of the western hemisphere.
In Europe, however, everything is political, including the regulatory process that controls what products farmers can use. Many scientific groups in Europe, such as Britain's Royal Society, have endorsed GM crops. So have sensible environmentalists such as Mark Lynas. Yet European governments ignore these recommendations, preferring to let anti-biotech activists drive consumer ignorance and dictate policies.
So GM crops have become a major area of transatlantic disagreement—a non-tariff barrier to healthy commerce in food. The coming round of trade talks represents an excellent opportunity to change this by harmonizing rules and reaching a smart resolution.
We should seize this moment. Rather than running away from a difficult conversation, we should confront it and do our best to persuade Europe on the safety and sustainability of biotechnology.
It may not even be as hard as we fear.
Here's a secret: Many Europeans actually want the United States to win this dispute.
Don't get me wrong. Europe's opposition to GM crops is strong and we should treat it seriously. Yet it may not be as formidable as some officials and pundits would have us believe.
Last November, I traveled to London for an agriculture conference. Its theme was "sustainable intensification of agriculture" but in reality the discussion was about the European regulatory system and how it stifles agriculture production. This politicized regulatory process is making it difficult for Europe to feed itself.
If the meeting had been in the United States, it would have been focused on technical issues, with panels talking about choosing the right seeds, battling weeds, and growing more food. In the London meeting it was obvious that the participants believed the greater challenge to agriculture was politics and unscientific regulation.
Farmers hate this, no matter where we live. We'd rather plant our fields and harvest our crops than fill out piles of paperwork and butt heads with bureaucrats.
An attendee from a European country surprised me with a private conversation: "Please push us on biotechnology." He believes Europe needs to accept GM foods and believes that can occur with pressure from America.
In other words, a number of Europeans understand and appreciate the virtue of GM crops. They're ready and willing to talk. Along the way, they may make loud complaints about hardheaded American negotiators, but they'll also budge from their position, make concessions, and allow progress.
Is this an optimistic view? Perhaps. But it makes sense to start these talks with a spirit of hopefulness and a desire to achieve.
When British Prime Minister David Cameron visited the White House last month, he spoke on how the United States and Europe should have wide-ranging conversations on trade: "That means everything on the table, even the difficult issues, and no exceptions."
Let's take him at his word. Rather than taking biotechnology off the table, let's make it a centerpiece.
John Reifsteck is a corn and soybean producer in Champaign County Illinois. He volunteers as a Board Member for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
When a farmer discovered biotech wheat on a remote field in eastern Oregon in April, he found the agricultural equivalent of a needle in a haystack—a few stalks amid more than half a billion acres of wheat planted and harvested in the last dozen years.
The detection made headlines around the world not merely because the needle was hard to find but because it wasn't supposed to exist at all: Genetically modified wheat was developed, tested, and proven safe for human consumption but it was not commercialized.
The last approved field-test planting of GM wheat in Oregon was in 2001, according to the Department of Agriculture. The most recent field test anywhere in the United States was in 2005. Since then, American farmers have grown more than 500 million acres of wheat. That's an area larger than the state of Alaska.
Amid this enormous bounty of crops, someone spotted a small handful of plants that shouldn't have sprouted from Oregon's soil.
As a North Dakota wheat producer, the first thing I want you to know is that GM wheat doesn't put anyone at risk. "The detection of this wheat variety does not pose a safety concern," said the USDA in a statement last week.
The technology in question—herbicide resistance that helps crops fight weeds—is well understood and commonly used in corn and soybeans. We eat safe and nutritious food derived from it every day. This trait was not commercialized in wheat for the simple economic worry that foreign buyers would refuse it because they have not yet embraced farming's biotech revolution.
So the biggest question over the GM wheat in Oregon is not whether it's safe—we know with confidence that it is—but rather how it got there in the first place. Authorities must launch a thorough investigation that examines every possibility, from the misplacement of seeds during field tests years ago to the survival of a few stray plants in the wild.
And let's not discount the possibility of mischief: The enemies of biotechnology are thrilled by this discovery because they think it gives modern agriculture a black eye.
Meanwhile, let's learn two lessons from this episode.
The first is that we have an outstanding system of food regulation in the United States. It's so good that it can spot an isolated event in an Oregon wheat field and help us begin the process of understanding what happened.
The second is that we have nothing to fear from biotech wheat.
This is a safe product. Both farmers and consumers would benefit from its commercialization. It would allow wheat farmers to grow more food and reduce their production costs. These savings ultimately would find their way into grocery stores, where consumers would pay less for bread, cereal, pasta, and other products that come from our wheat fields.
This is more than merely a missed opportunity. Our wheat supply already suffers from a lack of biotechnology. Many farmers are switching away from wheat because it's a less predictable crop than corn and soybeans, which have been improved so much by genetic modification.
On my own farm in North Dakota, we've been cutting back every year on wheat. We used to grow it on as much as 80 percent of our acreage. Now we're down to about 10 percent, mainly because we prefer the advantages of biotechnology in corn and soybeans. My neighbors have been doing the same.
Convincing Americans about the advantages of biotechnology never has been the main issue. The United States, along with Canada and most of the Western hemisphere, already has accepted biotechnology as an excellent tool option for farmers and consumers.
It's time for the rest of the world to catch up.
When news of the GM wheat discovery hit the media, our buyers in Japan and Korea immediately suspended purchases and promised to test samples. Europe said that it would increase its testing of wheat as well.
They almost certainly won't find anything: It looks highly unlikely that any GM wheat entered the food supply. Korea's first test results, announced on Monday, appeared to confirm this.
Yet the time to commercialize GM wheat is past due. The sooner everyone stops fussing over a safe and healthy product, the sooner farmers and consumers all over the world will benefit.
Terry Wanzek is a wheat, corn and soybean producer in North Dakota. He serves as a ND State Senator and volunteers as a board member for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Gabriel Carballal: Mercedes, Uruguay
Farmers believe that every day should be for the environment, because we depend on the environment to produce the food the world demands. We need good plants, good soil, and good weather. Without a good environment, we're helpless.
That's why we must take advantage of opportunities such as next week's World Environment Day. Think of it as a second Earth Day. Each June 5, the United Nations sponsors WED. This year's theme is "Think.Eat.Save." Organizers have a specific request: "reduce your footprint."
Here on my farm in Uruguay, that's what we do all year round, thanks to advances in technology.
My family farms almost 6,000 hectares (roughly 15,000 acres) near the town of Mercedes, in Soriano. Our most important crops are soybeans, but we also grow corn, sorghum, wheat, barley, canola, oats, and grass seeds. The weather is variable but we never see snow, which allows us to plant for 12 months.
We started growing GM crops 16 years ago. It became obvious immediately that they're excellent for conservation.
As the website for WED points out, agriculture accounts for 80 percent of the world's deforestation. This is the result of pressure to convert wilderness into farmland, to keep pace with a booming global population. To protect what remains, we must produce more food on less land—and that's exactly what biotechnology lets us do.
The first year we planted GM soybeans on our farm, in 1997, we tried it on 30 hectares. The results were amazing. Within two years, we had converted entirely to GM soybeans. When biotechnology came to corn in 2004, we quickly switched to it as well. Genetic enhancement drove our yields upward because these excellent crops are so good at fighting weeds and pests.
Our experience shows that science can help us produce more with less—the very definition of sustainable agriculture.
There are other benefits as well. We're now able to do a much better job of maintaining natural pastures for a combined crop-cattle operation. This helps us preserve biodiversity.
Best of all, however, is our no-till farming system. Soil erosion is a huge challenge for farmers around the planet, but our soil is actually improving each year. Our crops pump carbon into the soil, and we can keep it there because we no longer need to fight weeds by tilling the soil after harvesting. At the end of the growing season, we simply leave the straw on top of the soil.
A friend of mine, Carlos Crovetto of Chile, puts it well: "Grains are for the people, straw and residues are for the soil."
GM crops make this possible.
Here's another statistic from the WED website: Agriculture is responsible for 30 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
And here's another benefit of biotechnology: Because we plant GM crops, our greenhouse gas emissions have dropped sharply. We're doing our part to combat climate change.
I can plant all of my fields with just two big tractors, an air drill, a planter, a big sprayer, and two combines. I've seen much smaller farms that use a lot more equipment, spewing out carbon emissions at a far higher rate than we do.
GM crops allow us to reduce the number of times we have to drive over our fields, which means that our environmental footprint has shrunk.
It's like we've reduced our shoe size. When does that ever happen?
Other advantages are harder to spot but they're equally real. Consider tire wear. I can buy a tractor, use if for 8,000 hours, and sell it with the same tires. This is important because petroleum is an important ingredient in tire manufacturing. The more use we can get out of our tires, the better—it's good for my bottom line as well as for the environment.
Unfortunately, many nations resist biotech crops because they don't understand the benefits. Farmers like me in South America already know why GM farming makes sense, as do farmers in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere.
If we're going to continue reducing footprints around the world, what we must do is spread the word—and on World Environment Day, the United Nations should help us.
Gabriel Carballal farms with his father in Mercedes, Uruguay, growing soybeans, corn, wheat, barley, canola, oats, grass seeds, sorghum and raise beef. Gabriel is a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
With the election of Brazil's Roberto Azevedo as the next director-general of the World Trade Organization, it's time to hope for a "Nixon goes to China" moment.
In 1972, President Nixon traveled to Communist China and met with Mao Zedong, marking a new and more productive phase for relations between the United States and China. It was also a diplomatic feat that only a political leader with Nixon's anti-Communist credentials could have pulled off. Just about anybody else would have suffered dearly in the fallout.
Perhaps in the future, we'll speak of "Azevedo goes to Geneva."
That's because the Brazilian, who will assume the position of Director General in September, may be just the person to revive the WTO at a turning point in its history.
Several commentators were quick to express skepticism about Azevedo. "Brazil has not been the most positive partner at the WTO," said Ernesto Zedillo, former president of Mexico, in the Wall Street Journal. "Brazil doesn't have the best credentials to lead the WTO. As a country that tends to be protectionist, it's not a great champion of a multilateral trading system."
The European Union favored a different candidate, Herminio Blanco of Mexico. The United States remained officially neutral, though many Americans also seemed to prefer Blanco over Azevedo because he helped negotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Whereas Mexico appears to have embraced global free trade, Brazil recently has moved to protect its own favored industries, even though it already has one of the world's lowest rates of trade to GDP.
Despite these concerns, Azevedo may have a tremendous upside: Developing countries trust him as a champion of their interests. This could prove important, because they've become an obstacle to completing a new multilateral trade agreement that improves the flow of goods and services around the world.
In 2001, the WTO launched the "Doha round" of world trade talks. Yet these negotiations quickly fell into a stalemate. For all practical purposes, Doha is dead--and it's been dead for a long time.
Its failure springs from many sources and there's plenty of blame to spread around. Yet developing nations may have presented the most significant hurdle. Many of them approached the talks looking for a handout, believing that wealthier countries should make concessions, almost out of charity. They didn't seem to understand the importance of opening their own markets to competition--and that any successful agreement involves a give and take from both sides.
Brazil played a central role in all of this. As a result, many developing countries believe Azevedo will be an ally at the WTO.
And they may be right, though not in quite the way they expect. Rather than convincing wealthy nations to rethink their own Doha strategies, the main challenge for Azevedo will be to persuade developing countries to reconsider past approaches.
Success is essential. As Azevedo noted at a news conference last week, the WTO "is clearly stuck." He must now get it unstuck--and it may take a figure with his special credibility among the leaders of developing nations to make it happen.
If the WTO doesn't come unstuck, it will still serve the useful function of arbitrating disputes between its members. Yet it will have lost one of its chief purposes, which is to lower trade barriers.
It's good to have big goals, but perhaps the WTO should think about playing small ball, at least for a short while. The Doha round was a swing for the fences. At this crucial juncture, however, it may be wiser to hope for a mere base hit--not a swing and a miss, but a solid knock that keeps the inning alive.
One idea may be to admit what everyone knows: Doha is dead, and it's time to move on. Perhaps we need an entirely new round, with a new name.
That won't magically change the geopolitical dynamics that caused WTO to reach its current impasse. Yet it could be an essential public-relations maneuver that revives global trade--and creates an opportunity for Azevedo to go to Geneva.
Dean Kleckner is Chairman Emeritus for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthaboutTrade on Twitter / Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Tim Burrack: Arlington, Iowa
When Americans speculate that the United States is "becoming Europe," we don't mean that our art museums are getting a lot better.
Instead, we worry about the encroachments of a growing bureaucracy that is smothering freedom and innovation.
Last Friday, in an unexpected announcement, the U.S. Department of Agriculture took an unfortunate step toward Europeanization when it delayed the approval of two crops that will help farmers control weeds and produce more food. The decision didn't receive much immediate attention outside the agricultural press, but it sent a troubling signal about the future of farm technology that should concern all Americans.
At the heart of the controversy lie a couple of time-tested herbicides: dicamba and 2,4-D. Scientists have figured out a way for staple crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton to resist these chemicals, which means that farmers can control weeds without hurting the plants they're trying to grow.
This is hardly a radical development. As the USDA acknowledged last week, these herbicides "have been safely and widely used across the country since the 1960s." My father was using 2,4-D even before that, in the 1950s. It was the first herbicide he ever applied to his fields. It's also one of the top ingredients in the weed-and-feed formulas that Americans apply to their lawns and gardens.
So why the sudden delay? Environmentalists complained that the introduction of these new crops will lead to the overuse of the two herbicides. This claim is at best unproven. Farmers certainly must pay attention to the development of herbicide resistance in weeds, but the answer to this problem is the advent of new technologies that keep us one step ahead of weed adaptations.
In other words, these new crops are part of the solution—and keeping safe products away from farmers just makes it harder for us to grow the food our country needs.
Farmers rely on effective methods of crop protection, including weed control. With them, we can grow more food on less land—and thereby reduce the pressure to convert wilderness into farmland. Environmentalists ought to join farmers in search of new conservation technologies, not oppose us in their safe implementation.
Of greater concern to me is the fact that the Center for Food Safety had threatened to sue the USDA if it didn't perform an environmental impact study on its own initiative. These traits had already been under review by USDA for 3 years with no evidence of potential harm to humans or the environment. Using litigation to slow down or ban a safe product should concern all of us!
Farmers lose either way. The USDA's bad decision means that these new crops won't go on the market and be available to me and other farmers next year, as previously planned. Now we'll have to wait until 2015 at the soonest. This postponement may not sound like much, but it contributes to a disturbing trend. In the United States, it's becoming harder and harder to introduce new agricultural technologies.
America has led the world in boosting crop yields. Food is safer, more abundant, and more affordable than ever before. Rather than cheering on our ingenuity, however, bureaucrats increasingly want to hold it back.
We're watching a major slowdown in new crop approvals. We've gone from leading to it now taking the United States three times as long as Argentina and Brazil to approve a new technology. The U.S. is going backwards while Brazil and Argentina are moving forward by effectively using internationally agreed upon science-based regulations. Innovation in agriculture technology has always has been one of the American farmer's great advantages over his food-producing competitors. Now we're handing it away, and for no good reason.
We need to return to sensible, science-based regulations—not shifting sands and unpredictable decrees from bureaucrats.
Europe already has traveled far down this fateful path. Its embrace of the "precautionary principle" has made it all but impossible to approve agricultural innovations, stifling the continent's biotech industry. European farmers envy Americans, who can plant genetically modified crops. USDA's decision on herbicide-resistant plants suggests that they may not be so envious in the future.
Earlier this year, the British writer Samuel Gregg published "Becoming Europe," a book on economic and cultural trends in the United States. He urged Americans to reject Europeanization and embrace their freedom-loving heritage. He also quotes Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th-century Frenchman who studied our country: "The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults."
So here's a message for USDA's bureaucrats: Waste no time in repairing your crop-protection fault.
Tim Burrack raises corn, soybeans and pork on a NE Iowa family farm. He serves as Vice-Chairman and volunteers as a Board Member of Truth About Trade and Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
When President Obama nominated Michael Froman as U.S. Trade Representative last week, he cracked a joke about an old friend.
"We went to law school together," said the president. "He was much smarter than me then. He continues to be smarter than me now."
Is Froman really smarter than President Obama, who graduated with highest honors from Harvard Law School? Who cares? The important point is that the men were students together more than two decades ago, when they labored over issues of the Harvard Law Review and built a personal bond that may hold the key to jump starting America's trade agenda.
The Senate should move swiftly to confirm Froman, so that he can move on and push for the trade agreements with Asia and Europe that hold enormous potential to fuel economic growth and create jobs in the United States.
Froman is currently the president's deputy national security advisor for international affairs. He has represented the president at meetings of the G8 and G20. President Obama has credited Froman with helping secure final approval of the free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea.
So Froman's resume looks promising. Yet the thing that matters most may be his personal connection to the president: Froman has the president's ear.
News reports indicate that after Harvard, the two men fell out of touch. In 2004, however, Froman learned that Obama was running for the Senate from Illinois. So he contacted his old pal, offered his services, and has been a close advisor ever since.
Froman knew Obama before it was cool.
This really matters. For a U.S. Trade Representative to succeed, he must enjoy the complete confidence of the White House. But that's not sufficient. He also needs to have constant access to the president. If trade talks bog down, Froman will be able to phone the Oval Office--and know that President Obama will take his call and help him maintain positive momentum.
Perceptions are important as well. Trade diplomats from Brussels to Tokyo will know that Froman has a direct line to Obama--a fact that will encourage them to take Froman seriously as a negotiating partner.
This may carry a special payoff right now. The World Trade Organization is on the verge of selecting a new leader, meaning that the United States and the WTO could improve a troubled relationship.
Former U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who left office two months ago, was in many ways a capable man. And he was a political ally of the president, but not an old friend. This may have played a small part in the Obama administration's sluggish first-term trade agenda.
President Obama has talked a good game on trade, promising to double exports by 2015 and to pursue ambitious agreements with Asia, Europe, and the rest of the world.
The reality, however, however, has failed to match the rhetoric. Exports have not grown as quickly as the president vowed. The Trans Pacific Partnership remains a tantalizing possibility rather than a done deal. Trade talks with the European Union have yet to achieve liftoff. The Doha round of WTO negotiations is kaput.
Last year, President Obama even suggested eliminating the office of U.S. Trade Representative, combining its duties with those of the Secretary of Commerce. Although the federal government should strive to reduce its bureaucratic bulk, this was a lousy idea. The United States needs a cabinet-level official whose exclusive portfolio is trade diplomacy.
The fact that President Obama nominated Froman on the same day he announced the nomination of Penny Pritzker as Commerce Secretary suggests that the president has abandoned the plan to consolidate these two jobs. This is a welcome development.
To a certain extent, however, Froman's abilities and authority are just details. More than anything else, a robust trade agenda requires a president who is fully committed to breaking down barriers that prevent the flow of goods and service across borders.
The nomination of Froman is a good sign. Now the Senate should do its part to help the Obama-Froman friendship move into its next and most important phase.
Dean Kleckner is Chairman Emeritus of Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Gilbert Arap Bor: Kapseret, Kenya
A newly elected government provides a country with a rare opportunity for a fresh start—and President Uhuru Kenyatta's nomination this week of Felix Kiptarus Kosgey to become Kenya's next Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries offers my nation a remarkable opening to make a hard push for real food security.
Success, however, will require President Kenyatta, his deputy Ruto, Agriculture Secretary nominee Kosgey, and the rest of our new government to set aside the bad mistakes of the recent past and embrace the bright future of biotechnology.
There's every reason to hope that they will. At the launch of the Jubilee Coalition manifesto in February, Kenyatta and Ruto promised to "put food and water on every Kenyan's table." At his inauguration on April 9, Kenyatta reaffirmed his government will implement the manifesto in total.
This is both a tall order and a worthy goal—and one of the surest ways to achieve it is by accepting the latest advances in agricultural biotechnology, recognizing that they have become conventional practices in many countries and should become so here as well.
Everywhere farmers have had the chance, they have adopted genetically modified crops. Last year, more than 17 million farmers around the world planted more than 170 million hectares of GM crops, according to a new report from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications.
This is an all-time high. Moreover, farmers in poor countries made it possible: For the first time, developing nations accounted for more than half of the world's GM crop plantings.
Unfortunately, as much as Kenyan farmers have hailed the Green Revolution of the 20th century, they have not yet participated in this Gene Revolution of the 21st century.
Our scientists have made strides toward developing biotech crops that would flourish in our soil and climate, but a toxic mix of scientific illiteracy and political pressure has prevented the commercialization of these promising plants. To make matters even worse, the previous government banned the importation of GM foods into Kenya and ordered the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation to remove all GM foods from the shelves of grocery stores.
This tragic decision came last November, in the wake of a controversial French study that claimed to find a connection between GM food and tumors in rats. The results were immediately widely debunked by renowned scientists from around the world. Yet the political activists whose personal ideology opposes agricultural biotechnology—many of them wealthy Europeans who don't have to wonder about their next meal—managed to smear a vital tool for fighting hunger.
Kenyatta's cabinet, guided by Agriculture Secretary nominee Kosgey cannot move swiftly enough to overturn the previous government's misbegotten ban on GM food. It may be the single most significant step they can take to improve our nation's food security.
They should accept what respected organizations ranging from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Britain's Royal Society have said for a long time: GM food is safe to grow and eat. We have nothing to fear from it—and so much to gain.
Sub-Saharan Africa lags the world in food production. While farmers in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the United States have jumped at the chance to take advantage of high-yielding GM crops, farmers in Kenya and its neighbors have been relegated to the sidelines.
Last year, Sudan became only the fourth African country to permit the planting of GM crops, following the leads of Burkina Faso, Egypt, and South Africa.
The boost in farm productivity alone is enough to justify Kenya's adoption of crop biotechnology, because it would help us feed a growing population. But the benefits would not stop there. Improved access to GM seeds would create jobs by supplying the raw materials for our textile industries. Everyone would benefit.
It would be great to see Kenya join the global biotech movement. Even better, though, would be to watch a truly forward-looking Kenya not merely join, but lead.
Kenyatta and Kosgey should refuse to let our continent continue to fall behind the rest of the world. With the proper leadership, they can show Africa the way to a better tomorrow—and a future in which we enjoy true food security.
Gilbert Arap Bor grows corn (maize), vegetables and dairy cows on a small-scale farm of 25 acres in Kapseret, near Eldoret, Kenya. He also teaches at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Eldoret campus. Mr. Bor is the 2011 Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award recipient and a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By John Reifsteck: Champaign, Illinois
When the biotechnology antagonists try to stoke fear by warning about "superweeds," they make these plants sound like an alarming cross between the unruly dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" and the carnivorous botany in "Little Shop of Horrors."
"I was talking to a farmer from Arkansas and he's got weeds that are now eight feet tall, they're the diameter of my wrists, and they can stop a combine in its tracks," Gary Hirshberg, a leading anti-biotech activist, told U.S. News & World Report last year. "The only way [farmers] can stop them is to go in there with machetes and hack them out."
Gary is actually right -but this is nothing new, and has nothing to do with biotechnology. Hand weeding has been practiced since farming started. One of the least favorite jobs of my youth was walking through fields cutting out weeds. It is hard work. You are not just battling weeds, but also the weather and insects. Often when you started in the morning the crops you were walking through were soaking wet from dew, and the air was cold. By the end of the day the heat and humidity was stifling, and no matter you were in the field there were flying, crawling and biting bugs. There was nothing noble about hand weeding; it is simply hard, uncomfortable work.
Weeds are among farmers' oldest foes because they compete with the crops that we grow for food. They suck moisture from the ground, steal nutrients from the soil, and block sunlight from the sky. Our job is to minimize the harm they do in our fields.
We can control weeds from season to season, but the weeds will always be with us. They'll never suffer a final defeat. We fight them and they fight back. They're always responding to everything farmers do, in a generational struggle for survival. My dad, who was also a farmer, faced weeds that I've never seen and he probably wouldn't recognize some of the weeds I encounter in my fields.
Farmers are playing chess with nature, in an endless game with new pieces added to the board each year. We will never checkmate nature; instead our goal is to maximize what we produce given the challenges that are part of farming.
Just in my generation farmers have acquired new tools to combat weeds. Herbicides that help control weeds have transformed agriculture. They are safe, effective and reduce the amount of tillage farmers need to do to their fields. Less tillage also means less soil erosion and less energy used to produce our crops.
Scientists in the last few years have developed a new form of crop through genetic modification. It possesses the ability to resist a safe herbicide called glyphosate. This development has allowed farmers to spray glyphosate, killing weeds but not the crops they're trying to grow.
Suddenly we were able to raise more crops on less land. Glyphosate was so good that we even decreased our herbicide use.
Within a few years, these GM crops became a conventional part of agriculture. Today, the vast majority of the corn, soybeans, and cotton in the United States are immune to glyphosate. Farmers embraced these crops because they made so much sense, for both economic and environmental reasons.
Yet nature isn't static. It changes all the time, and so some weed species have begun to build a resistance to glyphosate and other herbicides. These are the "superweeds" the anti-technology activists are warning us about.
Except that there's nothing "super" about them. They are ordinary weeds and their emergence was expected. Nobody predicted that glyphosate-resistant crops represented a lasting victory over weeds--at least not anybody who understands how nature works.
The people who complain the loudest about these weeds tend not to be the farmers who have to confront them in the fields. I would appreciate their concern if I didn't also know that they aren't really worried about my ability to produce nutritious and affordable food. Instead, they're using propagandistic words and phrases to frighten the public and push a personal ideological agenda in opposition to crop biotechnology.
Their real goal is to enact public policies that will make farming harder, drive up grocery-store prices for consumers, and deny everyone an important tool of land conservation.
If they succeed, "superweeds" will be only one of our problems.
Meanwhile, those of us who work the land rather than play politics must now return to the familiar challenge of coming up with new ways to fight an old battle. And we'll succeed, as long as we can rely on the twin powers of scientific technology and human ingenuity. That is what farmers do.
John Reifsteck is a corn and soybean producer in Champaign County Illinois. He volunteers as a Board Member for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
There has been some serious misinformation about the Farmers Assurance Provision running through the anti-biotech community that I would like to address personally. Maybe you've heard some voices rail against the so-called "Monsanto Protection Act" – a nickname invented to infuriate other anti-technology activists and hopefully raise support for their campaign to ban or at least slow down the planting of GM crops.
With groups like the Center for Food Safety, Mother Jones Magazine, Food Democracy Now and Food & Water Watch – each with an anti-technology in agriculture agenda – noted as their source of information, it's time for farmers who use the technology to speak up and talk about what the provision actually does.
Included in a spending bill recently signed by President Obama, The Farmer Assurance Provision has a simple purpose: It assures farmers like me that frivolous junk-science lawsuits won't stop them from planting safe and healthy crops that have been USDA approved for planting after passing years of rigorous testing. This modest measure merely codifies case law already developed by the Supreme Court as well as the current practices of the Department of Agriculture.
Shortly after approval of the Farmer Assurance Provision, an anti-biotech website actually described it as an act of "fascism."
How do you have a reasonable discussion with an activist who equates a legal measure that received bipartisan support in Congress and backing from the White House with the horrors of Nazi Germany?
I've grown biotech crops on my farm for twenty years. I choose these crops because they let me grow more food on less land—the very definition of sustainable agriculture. Along the way, these crops help me make more efficient use of resources such as water, fertilizer, and fuel while protecting the soil.
In other words, these crops make sense for both economic and environmental reasons. They're an important tool for me as a farmer and they're good for all of us as consumers who want sustainable food at a reasonable price.
Litigation is the root of the problem this provision addresses. It is not a food safety or environment protection issue.
Around the globe, scientists and regulators have studied biotech crops and deemed them safe, from the American Medical Association to the World Health Organization.
Yet biotechnology faces ongoing opposition from an ideological movement that will stop at nothing to smear farming practices that work effectively and safely to feed my family and yours. Some have a misguided, anti-scientific agenda. Others are just special-interest groups: Certain elements of the organic-food industry worry that biotechnology puts their expensive food products at a competitive disadvantage.
Whatever their motives, biotechnology's foes have failed to block these needed and proven effective farming tools. So they've resorted to legal harassment, filing nuisance lawsuits against crops that farmers already have received authorization to plant. That's what happened to genetically modified sugar beets a few years ago.
The beets employed a weed-defeating technology already at work in corn and soybeans. Farmers were eager to take advantage of this tool, so they welcomed this new crop.
The lawsuit came five years later. It didn't charge that biotech beets were unsafe for human consumption or that they harmed the environment. Instead, it raised a technical legal concern in the Department of Agriculture's environmental assessment and demanded an even more comprehensive impact statement.
It was the sort of allegation that only a paper-pushing bureaucrat could love.
A federal judge responded by ordering a do-over. And then, despite no evidence of any potential harm, he took an extra, radical step, demanding the destruction of 95 percent of America's sugar beet plants.
Imagine the plight of sugar-beet farmers. The government had approved a certain crop for widespread commercial planting. After several years of success, a single judge told them to wipe out a whole season of planting due to a technical violation that had no bearing on the health of people or the environment.
Fortunately, the judge's order was overturned on appeal, ending a chaotic period of confusion and struggle. In time, the Department of Agriculture completed its comprehensive impact statement and determined that sugar beets were safe to plant - again. Separately, the Supreme Court ruled that courts can't yank crop approvals on technicalities—they should let farmers proceed, at least temporarily, during moments of additional regulatory review.
The new provision takes the Supreme Court's decision and gives it the force of federal law. This reasonable step provides farmers with a little more confidence that ridiculous lawsuits won't uproot settled practices in an instant.
That's why it's called the Farmer Assurance Provision—it protects us from the caprices of anti-biotech activists, and provides us with the assurance we need to go about our business of growing safe, nutritious, and affordable food.
By V. Ravichandran: Tamil Nadu, India
Everybody should eat a balanced diet, consuming the right types and amounts of food to ensure proper nutrition.
Agricultural soil needs a balanced diet as well, so that it can produce healthy crops.
That's why fertilizer is so important. It's the food that feeds the soil. Farmers everywhere must have easy access to it, especially in the developing world, where it's often in short supply.
Without fertilizer, soil starves. Crops don't grow as well as they should. The yields of farmers drop. People suffer.
So healthy people depend on healthy soil, fed by fertilizer.
As a farmer in India, I see malnutrition everyday. It's a huge problem in my country, and it has many sources—but one of the main causes of human malnutrition in India is soil malnutrition. We don't feed our soil the balanced diet it needs. As a result, our people don't eat well enough.
A new report from the Global Partnership on Nutrient Management estimates that nitrogen and other mineral fertilizers nourish about half the people in the world. Without these inputs, in other words, about half of humanity would go hungry. So more than 3.5 billion people owe their health to fertilizers.
As successful farmers know, however, you can't just "dump" fertilizer on cropland. That's like eating a meal full of empty calories—they may fill your belly, but they're harmful to your long-term health.
For crops, a balanced diet generally consists of three main ingredients: nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium (in addition to other micro nutrients). Nitrogen encourages robust plant growth. Phosphorous promotes root development. Potassium assists with the absorption of moisture and helps resist drought.
Together, they feed the soil—and the soil feeds the crops that feed us.
Sometimes, however, farmers try to get away with feeding the soil only one nutrient—and in India; the government actually encourages this bad idea. In a misguided attempt to protect domestic industries from foreign competition, New Delhi subsidizes nitrogen for agriculture. As a result, many farmers who don't understand the basics of soil nutrition wrongly believe that nitrogen is all they need. Some even think that the more nitrogen they use, the better off they are.
The truth is, that balanced soil nutrition, using nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium is necessary for growing healthy crops. Without that balance, crops may grow quickly, taking on a deep green that makes them look healthy on first glance, but often they don't mature properly, as plants spend their energy on foliage rather than on grain. These plants also have a tendency to attract more pests. This creates an additional challenge for farmers, and it may lead to an overreliance on pesticides.
Poor fertilization practices make it harder for others to eat because these miscalculations add up, affecting the food supply. The systematic misapplication of fertilizer causes India to grow less food than it should. One estimate claims that our corn yield lags behind rates in other countries by as much as 45 percent, all because the government provides an incentive for farmers to rely too much on nitrogen.
Just as a poor diet will have long-term health consequences, fertilizer mistakes have a way of lingering long past the moment of the error. It takes time, energy, and resources to restore damaged soil to an original condition. Inexpensive soil tests can help many smallholder farmers from making bad mistakes in the first place. The results of those tests each season will help these farmers know what fertilizer must be applied to nourish the soil and maximize their yield.
Better soil leads to better living—and it all starts with a balanced diet, both for people as well as for the earth.
Mr. V. Ravichandran owns a 60 acre farm at Poongulam Village in Tamil Nadu, India where he grows rice, sugar cane, cotton and pulses (small grains). He is a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Craige Mackenzie: Methven, New Zealand
When people in the United States and Europe think about New Zealand at all, a few notions usually pop into their heads: Our islands are far away, they're pristine, and they're the visually stunning backdrops to movies such as "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings."
We also have the best rugby team in the world, though the Americans don't care and the Europeans won't admit it.
Despite the vast distance between us and just about everybody else, New Zealand is not isolated. We're tightly tied to the global economy. Farmers like me are especially connected because our government doesn't subsidize agriculture.
That makes us different from farmers in many other countries, where subsidies are routine. Yet at a basic level, we're a lot like farmers in Indiana, Italy, or just about anywhere. We recognize that the land is our lifeblood--and we want to use modern technology to produce food.
This became clear to me on a trip to the United States last year, when I participated in the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Roundtable in Des Moines, Iowa. A few of my fellow farmers introduced me to a new term: "sustainable intensification." In two words, it describes what should be the goal of farmers around the planet: We need to grow more with less, while at the same time preserving the environment and remaining economically profitable.
We're trying to do our part here in New Zealand, at our farm near the town of Methven on the South Island. On several hundred acres, we grow a variety of crops, including wheat, ryegrass, radish, carrots, and barley. We also run a dairy operation milking 1,250 cows.
We're under constant pressure to do more with less. The economic reality of being fully exposed to global markets due to the lack of subsidies forces me to keep down the costs of production. Policy changes are increasingly limiting our water use and nitrate outputs, which affects our ability to apply fertilizer and the stocking rate on the land. We are always trying to grow the best crops at the right time in the face of climate conditions.
Technology is one of our most important allies. We use crop sensors, electromagnetic mapping, zonal and grid soil sampling. If an affordable new technology can give us a slight advantage, we seize it.
These are all keys to sustainable intensification. So is biotechnology. In many nations, farmers can beat back weeds and pests with genetically modified crops. As a result, they're producing huge amounts of food.
We don't enjoy the GM option in New Zealand, where biotech crops are practically nonexistent. They're grown in a few highly regulated test plots for research purposes. Ordinary farmers like me have no access to them.
That's okay for now, because existing GM seeds don't satisfy our particular needs. Many of the diseases and pests that plague farmers elsewhere don't occur here, and our stringent border controls aim to keep it that way. At most, biotechnology could assist in a few niche markets.
But that will change as biotechnology matures and tackles new challenges. Drought resistance is an especially attractive trait. Farmers everywhere seek to conserve water--and here, we're working to get the most from our moisture through intensive irrigation management.
Plants that make more efficient use of water are the very essence of sustainable intensification. As biotechnology begins to deliver these innovations, we'll need to take full advantage of them. Water is the biggest issue that is facing the world and biotechnology will be one of the key drivers to increase water use efficiency.
There are other possibilities as well, including crops with improved nitrogen response and varieties of wheat that people with gluten intolerance can consume.
New Zealand is a small country, with a population of about 4.4 million people, which is roughly equal to metropolitan Boston or Phoenix. We're pretty small players in the business of global food production.
That's the other thing about sustainable intensification: To meet the world's swelling demand for food, we must use every resource we have. That includes boosting yields on huge farms in Kansas, helping Africa meet its full potential as a breadbasket, and making sure that even far-off New Zealand has the best technology to make the most of what we can contribute.
Craige Mackenzie uses precision agriculture tools and techniques to produce specialty seed crops including wheat, ryegrass, fescue, hybrid carrots, hybrid radish, pak choi, spinach and chicory along with a dairy operation in Methven, New Zealand. Craige is a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Ted Sheely: Lemoore, California
Shop at Whole Foods. Spend your Whole Paycheck.
That's the popular description of the upscale grocery store. Last year, in a Consumer Reports survey, Whole Foods tied with Jewel-Osco as America's most expensive supermarket.
Now its prices almost certainly will go up.
Whole Foods announced on March 8 that starting in 2018, it will require labels on all items in its stores that contain genetically modified ingredients.
The Austin, Texas-based chain is a private company making a business choice. It has the right to stock certain goods and not others. If it wants to insist on labels for GMO foods, then it may do so.
The rest of us can exercise our own rights--including our right not to shop there. Demanding special labels on GMO products won't just make grocery-store bills rise, it will also spread misinformation about safe and nutritious food.
Whole Foods wants consumers to think of its stores as places where health-conscious people shop. Its slogan is "where great tasting food is only natural." This marketing strategy has led to incredible success. With 339 stores now operating in the United States and Canada and more on the way, Whole Foods is one of the fastest-growing food retailers on the planet.
"We are the first national grocery chain to set a deadline for full GMO transparency," says a press release. "We will work [with suppliers] as they transition to sourcing non-GMO ingredients or to clearly labeling products with ingredients containing GMOs."
The only problem--other than the added expense, which surely will be passed on to shoppers--is the profound misperception. There's no nutritional difference between food with GMO ingredients and food without, so labels can't convey useful consumer information. In fact, labels will send the opposite message, hinting that a problem exists when this simply isn't true.
GMO foods are safe to eat. That's the conclusion of every scientific and regulatory agency that has studied the question, from the American Medical Association to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to the World Health Organization.
A few days after Whole Foods announced its new policy, the editorial page of the New York Times--one of the most liberal newspapers in the country--voiced its skepticism. "There is no reliable evidence that genetically modified foods now on the market pose any risk to consumers," it said. "For now, there seems little reason to make labeling compulsory."
The Times went on to make a common-sense suggestion. Consumers who are determined to avoid GMO foods already may do so. They can select organic food, whose federally certified labels already mark products that don't contain GMO ingredients.
Even people who do this, however, should not operate under the illusion that organic food is healthier than conventional and more affordable varieties.
Last October, a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics said that organic food and non-organic food are nutritionally equivalent. The key is to eat a balanced diet.
A month earlier, Stanford researchers published their own report that showed much the same thing. "Some believe that organic food is always healthier and more nutritious," said Crystal Smith-Spangler of Stanford's medical school. "We were a little surprised that we didn't find that."
Perhaps Whole Foods should require labels that say: "May contain GMO ingredients, not that it matters." Or: "Don't pay high prices for organic food because it isn't any better for you."
Then again, that would undercut Whole Foods' very reason for being.
In a grand irony, Whole Foods criticized food labeling last fall, when Californians voted on Proposition 37, which would have mandated special labels for foods with GMO ingredients. Initially, Whole Foods backed Prop 37, but the chain also publicized its "reservations," due to "consumer confusion" and "costly litigation", ultimately ending its support of the ballot initiative.
Prop 37 was a bad idea that would have raised grocery-store bills and enriched trial lawyers. At first, polls indicated that the measure would pass. In the end, following a public-education campaign, voters had the good sense to reject it.
That's what happens when consumers know the Whole Truth.
Ted Sheely raises lettuce, cotton, tomatoes, wheat, pistachios, wine grapes and garlic on a family farm in the California San Joaquin Valley. He volunteers as a board member of Truth About Trade and Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
Late is better than never: President Obama finally has requested that Congress grant him Trade Promotion Authority, a power he should have requested long ago.
The United States simply cannot pursue an effective trade agenda without a president who has the ability to bargain with other countries and send each proposed trade deal to Congress for an up-or-down vote.
"Such authority will guide current and future negotiations, and will thus support a jobs-focused trade agenda," says a new report from the office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
Now Congress must do its part and approve TPA as soon as possible. Democratic senator Max Baucus of Montana and Republican congressman Dave Camp of Michigan are already working on the legislation.
And instead of giving TPA an expiration date, as in the past, they ought to propose making TPA permanent. That way, our country's trade policy won't fall hostage so easily to partisan bickering.
Congress not only has the right but also the duty to oversee U.S. trade practices. What it absolutely should not do, however, is try to tamper with trade diplomacy. Our partners want to negotiate with a single entity: the U.S. trade representative, acting on behalf of the president. They don't want to haggle with 535 members of the House and Senate.
Bad things happen when Congress gets too involved in trade policy. We're seeing the expensive results right now in a maddening new controversy over ractopamine, a feed additive that helps livestock produce lean meat.
Ractopamine is safe, widely accepted, and approved by all of the appropriate U.S. and international regulatory agencies. Farmers like me have been using it for years in cattle and hogs. It helps us supply good lean, healthy meat that consumers ask for at affordable prices.
Last month, however, Russia decided to block imports of U.S. meat from animals treated with ractopamine. Moscow claims a scientific rationale for its ban, but its real motive is retaliation: It seeks revenge against members of Congress who have tried to pressure Russia on its human-rights abuses in return for its support as a member of the World Trade Organization and preferred trading status with the U.S.
Let's not kid ourselves about the situation in Russia. Freedom House, a non-profit watchdog group, classifies that nation as "not free." Its people lack civil liberties that most Americans and other Westerners take for granted.
Who pays the price for Russia's sins? Not Russian oppressors, but American farmers. In the wake of Russia's ractopamine retaliation, we've seen hog prices plummet. They fell even further when China followed Russia's lead, for its own geopolitical purposes.
The actions of Russia and China have cost American meat producers hundreds of millions of dollars in lost exports this year. I'm already feeling the financial squeeze here in Iowa.
This is an unnatural disaster for America's heartland. It's like an anti-stimulus bill that sucks the economic life from a vital sector. To make matters worse, ordinary Russians aren't any better off.
The impulse to help Russians is a good one. As Congress tried to put its idealism into practice, however, it gave birth to a painful unintended consequence. Because of congressional meddling, American farmers now suffer from the sorry state of human rights in Russia. It almost defies logic.
Yet it provides a powerful illustration of why the president needs TPA. Without it, trade agreements get bogged down in the minutiae of congressional agendas over everything from labor conditions to the environment.
TPA preserves the ability of Congress to accept or reject trade pacts, but it also gives the executive branch the authority to reach sensible deals that will create jobs and boost exports.
It's an indispensable tool for achieving consensus on common objectives.
President Obama has ambitious trade goals for his second term. He has committed himself to a huge increase in exports between now and 2015. He hopes to complete the Trans Pacific Partnership, a big round of talks that could improve trade ties between the United States and Pacific Rim nations, most notably Japan. The President also has pledged to push for a trade agreement with Europe--a deal that promises to jump start economies on both sides of the Atlantic.
In asking for TPA, President Obama has taken a very important and necessary step. Now Congress must act and approve TPA permanently—for this president and the ones to follow.
As Catholic cardinals selected Pope Francis in Rome on Wednesday, we watched an ancient church at its most medieval: obedient to tradition, cloaked in secrecy, and waiting for white smoke. The papal conclave appears positively anti-modern.
Yet in another sense, the Vatican stands in the vanguard of science and technology. It's one of the world's strongest supporters of genetically modified crops.
Many of us are still trying to learn about the new pontiff. We know a few things already. He is not only a man of faith, but also science--a chemist, by training. He's from Argentina, whose farmers rely heavily on GM crops. And he professes a concern for the poor, who have the most to gain from 21st-century food production.
Farmers of all religious persuasions should take comfort from these views. "He will be able to better understand the Latin American continent--not only the poverty and the exclusion, but also the wealth of these lands," said Eugenio Lira, secretary-general of the Mexican Episcopal Conference, according to the Wall Street Journal.
I'm a cradle Catholic. Maybe you've heard our inside joke: I didn't choose it; I was forced into it.
Growing up, I went to Catholic school. I've given my own kids a Catholic education, at least when I could afford it--and when I couldn't, I've regretted the result. Our family eats fish on Fridays, even when it's not Lent.
Catholicism has been an essential part of my life.
And that's why I was so heartened several years ago to learn of my church's stance on GM food.
In 2009, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which advises the Holy See on scientific questions, organized a conference on farm biotechnology. It soon came out with a ringing endorsement: "There is a moral imperative to make the benefits of genetically engineered technology available on a larger scale to poor and vulnerable populations who want them, and on terms that will enable them to raise their standards of living, improve their health, and protect their environment."
Ever since I started growing biotech crops more than a decade ago, I've believed much the same thing. I saw the outstanding benefits of these plants with my own eyes: All of sudden, we were able to produce more food on less land. This was great for farmers, consumers, and conservation.
The advantages of GM crops seemed, for lack of a better word, miraculous.
They were certainly a blessing. As we produced an abundance of food, we became better able to help the needy here in New Jersey. A group of us formed Farmers Against Hunger. Biotech crops gave us a powerful new tool to generate surplus food and turn it into meals for our neighbors.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences understood the possibilities. Although its report didn't amount to an official church teaching, it gave moral weight to the case for GM crops.
"We urge those who oppose or are skeptical about the use of genetically engineered crop varieties and the application of modern genetics generally to evaluate carefully the science, and the demonstrable harm caused by withholding this proven technology from those who need it most," said the academy.
Vatican City may be tiny in size--at 110 acres, it's smaller than my farm--but it's also a sovereign state. In Europe, no government has a more advanced and charitable view of how to defeat hunger and malnutrition.
Not that the Vatican has a lot of competition. The European Union's disapproval of GM crops is both ignorant and tragic. It's bad enough that farmers in France, Italy, and Poland can't grow GM crops the way we do in the United States and throughout the Western hemisphere. It's even worse that European attitudes still shape the policies of many former European colonies, especially in Africa.
Because of Europe's unscientific views, many developing nations have refused to adopt the hunger-fighting, life-saving tools of biotechnology. As a result, people who have the most to gain are undernourished or starving.
The Roman Catholic Church often comes under harsh criticism for its throwback ways. I still remember when our church held Sunday Mass in Latin.
When it comes to the technology of food production, however, the Vatican remains true to its oldest principles while also standing at the forefront of science.
Let's hope Pope Francis shares this humane vision--and that Europe and the rest of the world join biotechnology's growing flock.
This column also appears online at USA Today:
By Hope Pjesky: Goltry, Oklahoma
On a trip to Germany a few years ago, I wandered into the meat section of a grocery store. What I saw astonished me.
The beef section in the meat case was very small and the prices were very high – the price of a very average cut of beef was similar to what we would expect to pay for a prime cut of beef in a very high end grocery store. It appeared to me that European families had very little choice – in either quality or price – when they purchased beef for a family meal.
Europeans have no idea what they're missing.
It's just one more reason why Washington must push for a robust free-trade agreement with the European Union. If American beef exports enjoyed better access to European markets, our ranchers and processors would experience a boom of job-creating growth.
President Obama said as much in his State of the Union speech: "Trade that is free and fair across the Atlantic supports millions of good-paying American jobs."
Yet very few are in the beef industry right now.
It wasn't always this way. A generation ago, Europe was America's second-largest market for beef. Within a few years, however, our presence in the grocery stores and restaurants of London, Paris, and Rome plummeted. We went from selling 18 percent of our beef exports to Europe in 1989 to selling just 3 percent in 1994.
Consumers didn't turn against us, but public perceptions did. Following a series of hormone scandals in the 1970's and 1980's, Europeans experienced a period of anti-scientific hysteria, concerned that beef produced from animals that had received growth hormones posed a risk to human health.
So they banned it.
The ban was not science-based and not needed: Growth hormones are a safe and conventional element of beef production.
Growth hormones are in fact an important part of sustainable food production. They allow us to do more with less. Cattle reach their proper weight in fewer days and with less feed, allowing quality to go up and costs to go down.
In Europe, however, ignorance and politics trumped science. The ban went into force and Americans have paid an economic price ever since.
At first, we turned to the World Trade Organization, which was established in part to adjudicate these types of disputes. The WTO ruled in our favor, observing that there's no scientific rationale for the ban. It allowed the United States to impose retaliatory tariffs on a range of European products. This was supposed to encourage Europe to come to its senses.
Two decades have passed, and the EU continues to resist. Its illegal ban on U.S. beef has stayed in place, and the retaliatory tariffs have caused American consumers to pay more than they should for Roquefort cheese and other imports.
We need to try a new approach--and a broad-based free-trade agreement between the United States and the EU is exactly the right forum for dealing with the problem.
The good news is that although a pact would benefit both sides, the Europeans appear to want one desperately. That means they may be unusually willing to alter their hardline stance on beef, which their officials know to be wrongheaded.
We've already seen at least one initial concession. The EU recently lifted a ban on meat washed with lactic acid, which safely removes contaminants such as E. coli from food. This was another unscientific prohibition of a common practice in the United States
These important steps suggest that larger compromises could come soon.
In free-trade negotiations, agriculture is usually one of the trickiest sectors--and it will definitely be the toughest part of any deal with the EU. In addition to the ban on beef, we must also confront the EU's politically (not science or health)-based resistance to biotech crops.
There is a great price to be paid by all when countries allow non-scientific trade barriers to stay in place. Reduced investment in productivity enhancing technologies and reduced trade between countries are just the tip of the iceberg. Unless we work together to make sure that politics and perceptions are not allowed to over-ride science, the price for global food security will also go up.
Right now, however, anything looks possible--and anybody who lays eyes on the meat section of a European grocery store will see how much we all have to gain.
Hope Pjesky and her family are farmers / ranchers in northern Oklahoma where they raise cattle and wheat. Hope volunteers as a board member for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Mark Jackson: Rose Hill, Iowa
Everyone loves an underdog, which is why Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman received such good press last week.
NPR called his recent trip to the Supreme Court "a classic case of the little guy taking on the big one," because he's the defendant in a lawsuit filed by Monsanto, the seed company. USA Today compared the legal battle to "David vs. Goliath."
In this telling, however, we should view the consequences should Mr. Bowman win. His effort to circumvent intellectual property rights threatens the future of modern agriculture and food production in the United States and around the world.
He may look like a little guy, but he's fighting against the interests of little guys everywhere. Not unlike like Mr. Bowman I grow soybeans on a family farm in the American heartland. My fifth generation farming legacy has taught me the asset of legitimate investment of time and money. Building from a strong foundation pays its own rewards and my ability to purchase high yielding pest resistant seed has more benefits than just my farm's profits. Clean air, water and ample food to feed the world's growing population are also at the heart of this conversation.
When high technology seed came to the market place in the late 1990's I quickly recognized the value it brought to my farm. Because of this I'm currently able to select from a broad selection of cutting edge seeds capable of adapting to my farm's variable planting/growing challenges. Today, I'm growing more food on less land than ever before. The seed trait called into question by Mr. Bowman is the same which has allowed me to switch to no-till farming methods while using fewer chemical sprays. On a broad note the biotech seed in question has allowed Iowa to employ no-till across nearly 60% of its soybean acres. This has a direct reduction on soil erosion, leading to clean waters--an essential advantage in our part of Iowa, where rolling hills define the terrain.
The genetically modified crops that we produce are safe, healthy, and beneficial tools of scientific innovation. Their high yields allow me and other American farmers to compete in world markets. A new report from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications says that 17.3 million global farmers (over 15 million are small, resource-poor farmers from developing countries) planted more than 420 million acres with GM crops last year, a new record.
Biotech seeds exist because seed companies pour billions of dollars into research and development. They strive to come up with higher yielding products that help farmers fight pests and weeds. Their efforts empower farmers as we grow more food and contribute to environmental sustainability.
In the United States, it can take 10 years and a $100 million investment to develop a single seed trait cleared for full seed production. Intellectual property patent rights give seed companies the security and incentive to invest these millions. We can't recycle seeds from the plants we've already grown. Biotech seeds may be self-regenerating products, but they're also protected by patent.
Just as it's against the law to pirate DVDs, computer software, and digital-music files, it's against the law to pirate patented seeds. This principle is so broadly accepted that dozens of organizations have called on the Supreme Court to protect the integrity of patented seeds, including farm and technology groups as well as a coalition of top universities.
At the oral arguments last week, Chief Justice John Roberts made the point plainly: "Why in the world would anybody spend any money to try to improve the seed if as soon as they sold the first one anybody could grow more and have as many of those seeds as they want?"
Justices of differing political persuasions appeared to agree with this sentiment: Mr. Bowman's lawyer, reported the New York Times, received a "hostile reception."
Experts say that it can be a mistake to read too much into oral arguments. Yet I'm hopeful that justices will issue a ruling that preserves a system of scientific and agricultural innovation--and supports the millions of "little guy" farmers whose livelihoods depends on planting the best seeds.
Mark Jackson grows soybeans and corn on a family farm in SE Iowa. He has traveled extensively across the U.S. and around the world to learn more about soybean production. Mark is a volunteer member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farm Network (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Roman Warzecha: Mazowia region, Poland
Ever since the fall of Communism, Poland has tried to move into the modern world by embracing democracy, freedom, and market liberalization. And we've done a pretty good job of it. Many observers say that we have one of the healthiest economies in Europe.
Last month, however, I believe we took a significant step backward. Our government banned an important farm technology for purely political reasons and without any scientific justification.
This disastrous decision will hurt Polish farmers and consumers right away. It also sets a terrible precedent for the future. We must overturn it immediately.
Like most of Europe, Poland has refused to participate fully in the biotech revolution that has transformed agricultural production around the world. Yet last year we were at least able to grow two kinds of genetically modified crops: a type of corn that fights insect pests and a potato that produces an abundance of starch.
Now they're outlawed, meaning that Polish farmers cannot use the innovations that millions of farmers elsewhere take for granted, from advanced nations such as the United States and Canada to developing countries like Brazil and the Philippines.
My family owns a farm just north of Warsaw. On about 50 hectares, we grow a range of crops, including corn. We haven't used the biotech corn that was previously available in Poland only because the pest that it guards against--the European corn borer--is not a threat in our region. In other parts of Poland, however, these bugs can ruin entire fields, wiping out a whole season's production in just a few days.
My day job as a researcher for Poland's Institute of Plant Breeding and Acclimatization (IHAR) has given me plenty of hands-on experience with GM corn. I've studied it closely, looking at GM corn's economic and environmental effects. I'm convinced that it is a safe and beneficial option for farmers and consumers in Poland--and everywhere else, for that matter.
GM crops are better than conventional strains for a long list of reasons. They allow us to grow more food on less land. They let us reduce our reliance on herbicides and pesticides. And best of all, they are perfectly safe: Despite the fearful rhetoric of political activists, they pose no health risk. Farmers have planted and harvested more than 3 billion acres of GM crops. People have eaten trillions of servings of food with GM ingredients. No one anywhere has ever suffered for it.
The bottom line is that food derived from biotechnology is a safe and healthy option that carries economic and environmental benefits.
That's why governments around the world have accepted GM crops. Respected organizations from the American Medical Association in the United States to the Royal Society of Medicine in Britain have endorsed the widespread use of biotechnology as an agricultural tool.
As the evidence for the advantages of GM crops mounts, skeptics are turning into converts. Last month at the Oxford Farming Conference in Britain, former Greenpeace activist Mark Lynas apologized for his earlier opposition to biotechnology and urged governments and farmers to adopt 21st-century practices for the sake of the environment.
So by banning a couple of previously approved GM crops, Poland is moving in exactly the wrong direction. Our government has turned back the clock on food production.
Worst of all, our public officials know that GM crops are safe for human consumption. If they truly believed otherwise, they would forbid the purchase of GM food from other countries. Yet each year we import more than 2 million tons of GM soybeans for food and feed, as well as corn, cotton, and other crops.
The message is irrational and incomprehensible. It says that GM crops are acceptable for everyone, including Polish consumers--but that Polish farmers under no circumstances may use a proven technology that has led to a boom in production everywhere it has been tried.
Poland must continue to push forward into a bright future of hope and opportunity, not backward into a new Dark Age that views innovation and technology with terror. It must not leave its farmers behind.
Roman Warzecha grows maize, sweet corn, rape and cherries on a family farm in the Mazowia region of Poland. Mr. Warzecha leads maize and triticale research at Poland's Institute of Plant Breeding and Acclimatization (IHAR) and is a member of the TATT Global Farmer Network Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Tim Burrack: Arlington, Iowa
The pundits are still working through the details of Tuesday's State of the Union speech, in which President Obama called for raising the minimum wage, fighting climate change, and fixing health-care costs.
If nothing else, the address will give Democrats, Republicans, and independents plenty to talk about.
As a farmer, however, I am really interested in two parts of the speech right now: We need more trade and better infrastructure.
They're closely linked--and they're essential to economic growth.
Just a few hours before the speech, North Korea tested a nuclear device. The President didn't say much about it on Tuesday night, but he sounded an important theme: "Even as we protect our people, we should remember that today's world presents not only dangers, but opportunities."
One of the best opportunities, he rightly said, is free trade.
The same Korean peninsula that poses a provocative threat is home to one of America's chief trading partners. South Korea is a rising nation of 50 million consumers--and a great place for Americans to sell goods and services.
We're doing it more than ever before, thanks to a new free-trade agreement. President Bush initiated it and President Obama and Congress completed it a little more than a year ago, fulfilling a promise the President made in an earlier State of the Union address. The pact is now expanding export markets and helping create tens of thousands of jobs in the United States.
And we can do even better in the region and beyond. President Obama touted the Trans-Pacific Partnership. This was no surprise because he has made a habit of talking up the TPP, which aims to lower trade barriers around the Pacific Rim.
Yet the President didn't merely reprise an old theme. He also proposed an ambitious new idea: "Tonight," he said, "I am announcing that we will launch talks on a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union, because trade that is free and fair across the Atlantic supports millions of good-paying American jobs."
Trade between the United States and Europe is currently worth about $900 billion annually. Some experts believe that lowering tariffs on goods and services could boost this figure by 50 percent. For American farmers, whose sales to Europe totaled $12 billion last year, there is also the tantalizing possibility that a strong agreement on agriculture could encourage Europeans to become more accepting of GM crops, which are harvested around the world but still resisted in Europe due to anti-scientific prejudice.
These are big and worthy goals. If President Obama achieves just one of them in his second term--either TPP or a free-trade agreement with the EU--he will leave behind an impressive legacy on trade. If he achieves both, he may go down in history as one of America's great trading presidents.
Congress should do what it can to help out. It can start by approving Trade Promotion Authority. Even though the President didn't ask for TPA in his speech, he'll need this legislative tool, which limits Congress to give a final up-or-down vote to any trade pact that the administration negotiates.
Even the best trade deals won't be maximized if the United States lacks a world-class infrastructure. President Obama spoke of America's "deteriorating roads and bridges." He also mentioned the need for "modern ports to move our goods." These are indispensible: About 75 percent of American exports travel through U.S. ports.
The President didn't discuss inland waterways, but they're essential too. The American Society of Civil Engineers claims that their poor quality cost businesses $33 billion in 2010, and that this price will soar to $49 billion by 2020.
The locks that are supposed to assist river traffic are woefully inadequate: The average age of federal locks is 60 years. They're practically senior citizens. In seven years, says The Economist, more than 80 percent of these locks will be "functionally obsolete."
Businesses – including agriculture - rely on efficient transportation. As a farmer, about one-third of our corn goes to customers in foreign lands, along with so much of what we grow. On my farm, one out of every three rows of corn that I plant is sold and shipped somewhere else. We count on our rivers and ports to help make these sales.
Trade and infrastructure are inseparable--and we need them both if we plan to strengthen the State of our Union.
Tim Burrack raises corn, soybeans and pork on a NE Iowa family farm. He serves as Vice-Chairman and volunteers as a Board Member of Truth About Trade and Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
Note: a version of Burrack's column appeared online at USA Today on February 13.
A decade ago, the U.S. beef industry was going global like never before. Production was rising, demand was growing, and everyone just wanted to buy more cattle. The excitement was contagious.
Then the growth markets crashed to a halt.
The first U.S. case of mad cow disease was diagnosed in Washington State and the global marketplace for US beef immediately changed. We still haven't recovered from it--though now, at long last, it looks like we'll have a chance to get those markets back.
Outgoing U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack have announced a deal that could supercharge beef exports to Japan this year. Under the agreement, beginning February 1, 2013 Japan will accept U.S. beef from cattle less than 30 months old, up from the previous limit of 20 months. The only exception involves ground beef, which will continue under the old restrictions.
Our trade diplomats deserve thanks for their efforts. Japan's decision is long overdue, but it wouldn't have been possible at all without a big push from Washington.
The beef industry, for its part, has learned important lessons about responding to a crisis--lessons that may help it later on, as new challenges emerge.
In 2003, Japan was the world's biggest buyer of U.S. beef, importing nearly a billion pounds of it annually. This was no surprise: American beef is the gold standard. Nobody raises it as well as we do.
In December of that year, however, a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, better known as BSE or mad-cow disease, struck our herds. It's a rare and poorly understood affliction, but science tells us that people who ate BSE-tainted meat can die from a brain disorder.
For three years, Japan banned all U.S. beef imports. When sales started again, they took place under such severe restrictions that volume remained low. Meanwhile, ranchers in other countries, especially Australia, took over what had been our dominant position in the Japanese market.
Sales have improved recently, to nearly 800 million pounds of U.S. beef in the last two years combined. The new rules could spur sales of more than 500 million pounds in 2013 alone, worth $1.5 billion.
That's an additional $1.5 billion pumped into the American economy, like a miniature stimulus program--except that it won't cost taxpayers a penny.
Now we must ask ourselves why the recovery took so long.
The Japanese government definitely overreacted. Although mad-cow disease is a serious concern, Japan's severe response was far out of proportion to the size of the problem.
For years, this was essentially what we said to the Japanese. It had the virtue of being true, but it was also a mistake on our part.
We should have recognized more quickly that a different message would have served our interests more effectively. Mad-cow disease had shaken Japan's confidence in U.S. beef. To reassure their government and consumers, we should have taken additional concrete and transparent steps right away.
Eventually, we took them. We adopted new safeguards that have improved our ability to detect threats, prevent outbreaks, and respond to challenges in a timely way.
Going forward, we'll do a much better job of stopping interruptions in our supply chain.
I wish mad-cow disease never had reared its ugly head. But it may be possible to say there's a silver lining to what happened: The U.S. beef industry is even better today than it was a decade ago.
And we're well positioned to grow. The successful completion of the free-trade agreement with South Korea in 2011 has opened new export opportunities there. Now we're ready to return with real force to Japan, which almost certainly will become the top export destination for U.S. beef. (Right now, it's Mexico.)
Even greater trade possibilities lie ahead. Much of Asia looks to Japan for leadership, especially on regulatory issues. Japan's acceptance of U.S. beef will lead to an immediate sales spike in Japan, and it could encourage other neighboring countries to admit more of what we export.
China is the one we really want. Right now, it doesn't import any U.S. beef directly. With a population of 1 billion people--and most notably an emerging middle class--it represents an incredible untapped market.
We're ready, once again, to go global.
Carol Keiser owns and operates cattle feeding operations in Kansas, Nebraska and Illinois. She volunteers as a Truth About Trade & Technology board member (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Bill Horan: Rockwell City, Iowa
U.S. trade representative Ron Kirk confirmed last week that he's leaving Washington for the private sector. He deserves praise for the Obama administration's major achievement on trade: final approval of free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea that had been negotiated by President Bush and his trade representatives but languished in Washington for years.
These three deals are already helping the U.S. economy by making it easier for Americans to sell goods and services abroad.
Complacency now becomes a danger. Exports have fueled America's sluggish economy for several years, but they've slowed down in recent months. As President Obama begins his second term, he must first find a new trade diplomat and then push for new trade pacts.
An excellent opportunity awaits across the Atlantic Ocean: The White House should actively pursue a U.S.-European Union free-trade agreement, which would benefit Americans directly but also improve conditions around the globe.
Three years ago, President Obama announced his National Export Initiative, promising that U.S. exports would double in five years. Initial signs suggested that he might make good on this pledge, as exports expanded by about 11 percent in 2010. Yet they've dropped ever since, to less than 7 percent in 2011 and, according to the latest figures, less than 4 percent in 2012.
At this rate, we'll fall far short of the administration's goal.
The president will blame the lousy world economy, and he'll have a point. Yet there's no reason to admit defeat--and in a poor climate, developing an aggressive trade agenda that helps Americans export goods and services becomes even more urgent.
Together, the United States and the EU are responsible for almost half of the world's GDP. We already trade a lot: Trans-Atlantic trade is worth more than $900 billion annually. Yet we can do even better. The European Commission believes that an ambitious agreement could boost trade by 50 percent.
Generating that much economic activity would be like passing a stimulus program. And it wouldn't cost our debt-ridden government a penny. Simply by lowering tariffs on both continents, new trade would generate business, creating opportunities for entrepreneurs and jobs for workers.
The alternative is to do nothing--and doing nothing isn't free. It could prove costly. Last year, U.S. exports to the EU actually declined by about 1 percent. Without positive action, we may see more stagnation rather than growth.
Agriculture often poses problems in large trade deals, and it would be no different with the EU. Yet a comprehensive agreement could do enormous good, not just for farmers in the United States, who would sell more of what they grow, but for people in the developing world.
One of the issues that will need to be covered is the acceptance of biotechnology as an acceptable tool of agriculture production. I believe a good trade agreement would require the EU to accept more food with GM ingredients--a common phenomenon throughout the Western hemisphere, but distrusted in Europe due to anti-scientific prejudice.
The good news is that most thinking Europeans know that biotechnology makes sense. European regulators have declared it safe. A growing number of scientists speak out on its behalf. A month ago, British environmental activist Mark Lynas announced his support for GM crops.
Robust trade talks could provide the spark for Europe to lower its resistance. This would benefit people everywhere, in ways that the dollars and cents of trade figures fail to capture.
Modern food-production methods, including biotechnology, allow each U.S. farmer to feed 147 people. This amazing efficiency lets more non-farmers devote their energy and creativity to other projects--everything from pioneering vaccines to inventing the next cool mobile-phone app—instead of spending their day providing food for their own family.
Europeans should want this benefit for themselves, and they should hope it spreads into Africa, which looks to Europe for economic and political leadership. Global food and nutritional security depends on Africa to realize its full potential as a breadbasket, and increased acceptance of GM crops is one of the tools that should be available.
None of this will happen without political leadership.
President Obama's immediate task is to appoint a new trade representative--a figure who will command respect in foreign capitals. Former Republican Senator Richard Lugar, who has a good relationship with the president, might be an inspired choice.
Then comes the hard part, but also the most important part: Thinking big on trade.
Bill Horan grows corn, soybeans and other grains with his brother on a family farm based in North Central Iowa. Bill volunteers as a board member and serves as Chairman for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.
By Cherilyn Nagel: Mossbank, Saskatchewan, Canada
The best thing to happen for Canadian food last year took place in California.
Voters there rejected Proposition 37, a badly flawed ballot proposal that would have required special labels for food that may contain genetically modified ingredients.
For years, anti-biotech activists here in Canada have talked about pursuing a similar scheme. They've blogged about it on their websites and have campaigned against modern agricultural methods. They haven't made much headway, in part because so few people buy into their non-science alarmist arguments.
The results of Prop 37 should encourage these protestors to give up: Labeling GMO's wouldn't make food any safer, in California, Canada, or anywhere.
But extremists can be immune to facts-- including the fact that over 1 billion meals with GMO technology have been eaten around the world, with not a single reported case of negative human health effects.
Mandatory labeling would only serve to increase the cost of food production. In the United States, the pro-label radicals are already pushing a new initiative in the state of Washington, neighboring British Columbia.
Let's hope this bad idea doesn't slip across the border and force us to endure our own political fight.
Agriculture is one of the great engines of the Canadian economy--and much of our success in recent years comes from advances in technology that allow us to grow more food on less land.
On our farm in Saskatchewan, we've grown GM canola for almost 10 years. There are obvious advantages for us on the farm, but this technology benefits all Canadians. Boosting our productivity keeps food prices down and helps protect the environment.
Anti-biotech activists seek to turn back the clock on this progress. They fail to see the science behind the benefits. They want warning labels to demonize ordinary products, reduce consumer confidence, and hurt an entire industry, even as food and health organizations around the world have endorsed the adoption of GM crops.
For me, the issue is personal. I have two young daughters, and we feed them what we grow on the farm. That includes food with GM ingredients. As a parent, I'm very comfortable feeding my children food produced from GM crops. But I'm inundated with anti-biotech propaganda while shopping at the grocery store. I'm irritated by irrational labeling… like "GM Free" stickers on products that don't even have a GM counterpart. Thanks for the "warning!" Parents have enough to worry about these days when feeding our families, we don't need more unsubstantiated fear tactics.
In 2002 the Hudson Institute found that organic and "natural" food products were eight times more likely to be recalled or suffer other food safety problems, compared to their conventional counterparts. Those who are concerned about food safety should turn to science. Most of us with children in the public school system are faced with the issue of food allergies. If all the lobbying dollars being thrown at anti-biotech campaigns were diverted to science, perhaps we could remove the protein that causes peanuts to be allergens, or address the root of lactose intolerance.
The enemies of biotechnology love to talk about the publics "right to know." I agree wholeheartedly: The public has a right to know that biotechnology is an essential part of our food security in the 21st-century. Biotechnology warning labels shouldn't be a part of it, especially here in Canada. Warning labels should be reserved for allergens and other real food safety concerns.
Thankfully, the tide of public opinion is turning in Canada. Citizens are starting to realize the value of this new technology – whether it's lower food costs, improved soil conservation or reduced use of scarce resources.
The outlook for GM technology continues to be bright. Future applications promise to use fertilizer more efficiently, help grow crops under drought conditions or improve the nutritional profile of crops. Biotechnology in the future means growing more with less. It also means creating healthier food. This is the legacy that I want to leave to my children.
Cherilyn and her husband own a diversified grain farm in Mossback Saskatchewan, Canada. In addition to farming, Cherilyn is active in many agricultural policy initiatives to improve the sustainability of agriculture and advocate for modern agricultural practices. Cherilyn is a member of the TATT Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org).
By Ian Pigott: Harpenden, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
"There is nothing that an intellectual less likes to change than his mind, or a politician his policy," says the British writer Theodore Dalrymple.
Mark Lynas is both an intellectual and a political activist—hence his recent decision to change his mind is so notable. Earlier this month, he announced his conversion from foe to enthusiastic supporter of genetically modified crops.
I was in the room when Lynas revealed his change of heart whilst delivering the Frank Parkinson Lecture at this year's Oxford Farming Conference. His talk deserves a wide audience here in the UK, where we are not allowed to grow the modern crops that farmers in the Americas and elsewhere take for granted.
For years, Lynas has been one of the world's leading environmental campaigners. He's best known for his work on climate change. One of his books, "Six Degrees," won Britain's most prestigious award for science writing. It was also turned into a documentary for National Geographic, narrated by the actor Alec Baldwin and watched by millions.
When he wasn't talking about climate, Lynas often could be found protesting GM crops. He was not merely an extremist who wrote newspaper articles against 21st-century agriculture but also a militant who set about damaging GM crop trials.
This destructive activity, says Lynas now, "is analogous to burning books in a library before anyone has been able to read them."
Lynas calls the effort to spread malicious propaganda against GM crops "the most successful campaign I have ever been involved with."
Now he regrets it.
"I want to start with some apologies," he said at the beginning of his remarks. "I apologize for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid-1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonizing an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment."
Instead of yanking GM crops from the soil, says Lynas, true environmentalists should seek to plant more of them.
"The GM debate is over," he said. "We no longer need to discuss whether or not it is safe. Over a decade and a half with 3 trillion GM meals eaten, there has never been a single substantiated case of harm. You are more likely to get hit by an asteroid than to get hurt by GM food."
He went on to explain why GM crops are good for the environment: They allow us to produce more food on limited land, shrink our carbon footprint, and reduce our reliance on chemical sprays.
In one respect, Lynas said nothing new. As a farmer who devotes 15 percent of my land area to environmental stewardship, creating habitats for birds, mammals and pollinators, I too believe that we could enhance biodiversity and reduce our environmental footprint if we grew biotech crops.
Yet Lynas is different. We know from history that convert's opinion can wield much greater influence—so a one-time environmental activist could become one of the greatest advocates for modern farming methods.
Lynas said in his speech that he first began to have doubts about his opposition to GM crops by reading the online comments to his newspaper columns.
Readers encouraged him to look more closely at the science of biotechnology. "I discovered that one by one, my cherished beliefs about GM turned out to be little more than green urban myths," he said.
If the discussion over GM crops were approached by the public, intellectuals and policy-makers with the honesty and open-mindedness of Lynas, I believe they would soon realize that its role is pivotal to feeding our growing population in a sustainable and environmentally sensitive way.
Ian Pigott runs a diversified farming business in Harpenden, UK. Located just 20 miles from the centre of London, he grows wheat, oilseed, rape and oats in rotation. The farm is a LEAF (linking environment and farming) demonstration farm. Ian is a member of the TATT Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org)
If you enjoy the taste and healthy benefits of salmon, and appreciate that it is available to you, you may want to share your thoughts with the federal government as soon as possible.
Why? Because the Food and Drug Administration just declared that genetically modified salmon "is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon," and they are looking for your feedback.
As soon as next year, salmon could become more abundant and less expensive, meaning that salmon lovers will enjoy this heart-healthy food more easily and often.
Before that can happen, however, GM salmon must overcome the harsh opposition of radical anti-biotech groups. This should not have to be a concern. Unfortunately, it is, and failure would deliver a devastating blow not just to a safe product, but also to the very idea of improving our food security with biotechnology.
On December 21, the FDA released an extensive report on GM salmon and opened a 60-day comment period for citizens and organizations to register their opinions. Think of it as the final jumps in a long regulatory salmon run. As this phase proceeds, officials should hear an important message: Consumers know GM salmon is safe and look forward to eating it.
Developed by a Massachusetts company, GM salmon grows to market size in half the time. It achieves this feat by blending the genes of Atlantic salmon with a growth gene from a Chinook salmon and an anti-freeze gene from an ocean pout.
In every other respect, this is an ordinary salmon: It tastes the same and it's just as healthy. Because the introduction of fishery-raised GM salmon will remove pressure from wild stock, it's even good for the environment. We'll have more salmon on our grills as well as in our seas and streams.
I have a special interest in wild salmon because I own a fishing lodge in Alaska. We depend on salmon to thrive in their natural habitat.
Fortunately, GM salmon pose no threat. For starters, they're sterile and can't mate. They're also confined to indoor containers. One of the major test facilities was built in the mountains of Panama, on the theory that even in the unlikely event of a catastrophe; the cold-dependent GM salmon would perish in the regions warm and muddy waters. Similar safeguards would accompany any commercial production.
Because so much care has gone into their advent, GM salmon are on the verge of becoming the first genetically improved animals approved for food consumption.
It's about time. The regulatory-approval process started long ago. The first GM salmon was created in 1989, during the first Bush administration. The FDA got involved 17 years ago, during the Clinton administration. As Jon Entine recently pointed out in a detailed investigation for Slate, the online magazine, the Obama administration was ready to issue its approval last year but dragged its feet for political rather than scientific reasons: It wanted to avoid a pre-election controversy.
The good news is that the FDA is finally letting science trump politics. As Entine points out, however, there is much more at stake than the fate of a single food product: "North America has become a dead zone" for investment in genetically enhanced animals, due to the strangling effects of political red tape.
James Murray of the University of California at Davis recently developed a goat that produces milk with a special protein that prevents diarrhea—an advance that could save lives in the developing world, especially among children. Yet as Entine reports, Murray has moved his research to Brazil. "When you don't have a regulatory pathway forward and the government doesn't support research in this area, what company will invest in this field?" he asked. "None."
Traditionally, the United States has led the world in biotechnology regulatory approval. If GM salmon suffers new setbacks, however, we'll fall further behind—at a time when China is investing hundreds of millions of dollars into transgenic animals.
During the comment period, Americans should say they believe in biotechnology and want more of it.
Since the national elections, Washington has focused almost exclusively on debt and taxes. Yet the fiscal cliff isn't our only challenge: We're also confronted by a kind of regulatory waterfall, in which the rushing rapids of politics smash great ideas and proven concepts.
GM salmon may survive, despite the long and unnecessary delays. The next innovation may not be so lucky.
Ted Sheely raises lettuce, cotton, tomatoes, wheat, pistachios, wine grapes and garlic on a family farm in the California San Joaquin Valley. Ted and his sons own Rainbow King Lodge on Lake Iliamna, Alaska. He volunteers as a board member of Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org)
By Terry Wanzek: Jamestown, North Dakota
It may be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Heck, it may be even better than sliced bread.
Several weeks ago, researchers announced that they had tapped into key parts of the wheat genome. With this success, we could be on the path to doubling wheat production and increasing food security for people around the world.
That's an awful lot of sliced bread.
It also marks one of several important milestones in the history of wheat, a plant that currently accounts for around 20 percent of all calories consumed by humans.
About 8,000 years ago, farmers domesticated this staple crop. This agricultural innovation may have led to human society's transition from hunting and gathering to settled production and the rise of civilization.
Almost 2,000 years ago, the Gospel of Matthew gave us one of our best-known idioms, about separating the wheat from the chaff.
And today, scientists are exposing the secrets of wheat's genetic makeup.
The formal announcement came in Nature, the academic journal. Scientists from the United Kingdom led the effort, joined by collaborators in Germany and the United States. One member of the team hails from my home state: Dr. Shahryar F. Kianian, a geneticist at North Dakota State University.
Wheat may look like a simple plant, but its biology is astonishingly complex. Wheat is comprised of three different grasses; it has an enormous genome of about 95,000 genes, which is roughly five times larger than the human genome.
So decoding wheat's genome is a long and laborious task. In Science, the researchers described their approach, called "shotgun sequencing." They break the genome into pieces and look for patterns, allowing them to learn more at a faster pace.
It's like separating wheat and chaff at the genetic level.
Their paper was written for an audience of peers, scientists with advanced degrees. Yet their conclusion points to a practical application: "Analysis of complex polygenic traits such as yield and nutrient use efficiency will also be accelerated, contributing to sustainable increases in wheat crop production."
In ordinary English, that means we'll soon grow both more and better wheat.
This advance hardly could have come at a more fitting time. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that global farmers grew 681 million tons of wheat in 2011. Only corn and rice had bigger harvests.
Amid this modern bounty, droughts have caused the price of wheat to bounce up and down, creating economic and political instability. Many experts trace the recent tumult in the Middle East—including the ongoing civil war in Syria—to a sudden spike in the cost of wheat and other foods.
Wheat is a hardy plant that can grow in semi-arid environments. This helpful trait accounts for much of its usefulness and popularity. Ironically, the plant's toughness also puts it on the front lines of climate change. When droughts strike, wheat often feels the pressure first.
By taking advantage of wheat's genome, we can apply the same tools of biotechnology that have launched a global revolution in agriculture. In the United States and many other parts of the world, the vast majority of corn and soybeans is genetically enhanced to fight weeds and pests.
With wheat, biotechnology can help us take a plant that already makes efficient use of moisture and build increased drought resistance right into its fundamental makeup. This will make wheat even more durable during dry spells.
This is an essential development, if we hope to keep up with global population growth and also make sure that people enjoy access to affordable food. Geneticist Michael Bevan of the John Innes Center in the United Kingdom put the matter bluntly in the Wall Street Journal: "We need to double wheat yields."
Decoding wheat's genome is an indispensible step on the way to meeting this vital goal.
At some point, perhaps one of these brainy scientists will do us all a favor and insert a special trait into the next generation of wheat plants: One that bakes the bread and slices the loaves at the same time.
Terry Wanzek is a wheat, corn and soybean farmer in North Dakota. He serves as a ND State Senator and volunteers as a board member for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org).
By Mary Boote
You shouldn't compare apples and oranges. Everyone knows that.
So does is makes sense to measure apple exports by counting oranges? Of course not. And yet this is precisely how the United States measures and is reporting its progress in trade policy.
That's because we compute the value of our trade in dollars, when the most important measurement should be volume; the actual amount of products we sell to others.
Fixing our calculations will serve our long-term interests in trade, and possibly even help us avoid the fiscal cliffs in our future.
The United States hasn't enjoyed very many economic success stories recently. Joblessness remains high, growth is stagnant, and now our President and Congress are engaged in a high-stakes game of political chicken over taxes and spending.
Amid all the gloom, farm exports have been a bright spot. The Department of Agriculture recently predicted that they would reach $145 billion this year, which is more than $9 billion above last year's total. Even more impressive is the fact that it's an all-time record.
So that's good news. Except that even here, looks can be deceiving. In October, U.S. exports plummeted, not just in agriculture but across every major category of trade. They declined by 3.6 percent in the largest month-to-month drop since January 2009.
That month was significant because it marked the beginning of President Obama's administration. A year later, as he and the rest of us struggled through America's ongoing slump, he made an important promise in his State of the Union address: In five years, he said, U.S. exports would double.
This pledge involved an interesting measurement "trick": For a baseline, he chose a year in which exports had hit rock bottom, following the global economic downturn. The regular turnings of the business cycle all but guaranteed a rebound. For a couple of years, it looked like President Obama might make good on his export pledge. A goal that all of us want him to achieve.
This year, however, trade leveled off. We'll be lucky if it comes anywhere close to doubling by 2015.
To complicate matters, we're measuring in dollars rather than by volume. Dollars are a good way to evaluate exports, but not the best way. Currency valuations can mask the true story. For a better sense of our export health, we have to examine export volume.
And here, the data are more troubling. The total volume of farm exports will be about 108 million metric tons this year. This is well below recent levels. The drought explains some of this but not all of it. Even with corn exports falling by almost half, we're still shipping out fewer major commodities. We certainly aren't on track to double anything.
One of the best ways to improve export volume is through policy: rules at home that allow farmers and businesses to thrive, and trade agreements with partners that allow goods and services to move free from artificial barriers. Success requires sensible regulations that protect consumers rather than onerous ones that hobble economic activity, plus an aggressive agenda of trade diplomacy.
These are long-term strategies. Adopting them now won't save us from the oncoming fiscal cliff—it's too late for that—but it will help our economy in the future.
A central dispute between the White House and Congress in their fiscal-cliff standoff involves spending. President Obama would like a new round of stimulus spending, even though it would add to the federal debt.
Properly understood, exports can serve the same purpose—but without the debt. Rather than creating programs and sending the bill to taxpayers, officials should push for new trade agreements that allow Americans to export goods and services abroad. They approved deals last year with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea, but only after letting them languish for years. So far, the Obama administration has talked about expanding trade opportunities but it has not negotiated a single trade pact on its own.
More trade will create jobs and economic growth at no cost to the public treasury—especially if we strive to boost not just our sales value but also our sales volume.
Anti-biotech activists are like zombies in a horror movie: No matter how many times you defeat them, they keep snapping back to life, determined to wreak brand-new havoc.
So a month after suffering a bad loss in California on Election Day, they're shifting their misconceived movement to Connecticut, Oregon, Vermont, and elsewhere. The next engagement is already well underway in the state of Washington, where the frightening extremism of what they really hope to achieve is also on full display.
Their outrageous goal is nothing less than a complete ban of crops enhanced by biotechnology--and they must be stopped.
Last month, 53 percent of Californians said "No!" on Proposition 37, a fatally flawed ballot initiative that would have mandated warning labels for safe food products that may contain ingredients derived from genetically modified crops.
Prop 37 was a bad idea from the start. It would have driven up grocery-store bills without aiding consumers at all. Farmers, doctors, scientists, and just about every daily newspaper editorial page in the state opposed it. In the end, so did most voters.
Yet anti-biotech activists are preparing to strike again. In Washington, they're gathering signatures now for a ballot initiative modeled on Prop 37. They even have an official name for it: Initiative 522, or I-522. And they've raised almost $200,000 in its behalf, according to Linda Thomas of KIRO
Organizers are well on their way to meeting a goal of collecting 320,000 signatures by December 31. They believe this will give them more than enough to guarantee the 242,000 valid names they will need for certification by the secretary of state. If that happens, their proposal will move to the state legislature. As soon as January, lawmakers could approve the measure or allow I-522 to go on the ballot in November 2013.
Odds are the legislature will defer to voters. That's what happened earlier this year with I-502, an effort to legalize and regulate marijuana. Supporters had gathered signatures, and lawmakers let it appear on the ballot. Last month, 55 percent of voters approved it.
It remains to be seen how I-502 will affect drug use, as selling or possessing pot remains illegal under federal law. But consider the irony: Shortly after Washington voters decided to relax drug laws, anti-GM activists are asking them to impose a crackdown on one of the safest and common technologies in agriculture.
Reasonable people can disagree on the decriminalization of pot. Yet the idea that voters would take a laissez-faire approach to marijuana and then almost immediately impose draconian restrictions on mainstream food ingredients is just plain bizarre.
The opponents of biotechnology try to present a reasonable face to the public, but their real agenda is radical--and it's already on full view in the state of Washington.
On Election Day, as Californians were casting their ballots against Prop 37, voters in Washington's San Juan County considered an even more dangerous measure: a total ban on the growing of GM crops.
San Juan County, home to less than 16,000 people, is tiny compared to California and its population of almost 37 million. So its drastic initiative didn't generate much attention during the campaign season--and neither did the result, in which 61 percent of the county's voters decided to outlaw the kinds of plants that farmers in much of the rest of the country take for granted.
This is the true mission of the anti-biotech movement: the utter elimination of genetically modified crops from the United States.
If the "Just Label It" crowd wanted to stop at labeling, its leaders would have condemned the vote in San Juan County. But they did no such thing. For people who love to spew out press releases and shout on blogs, their silence was curious--and also revealing.
The rest of us must speak out against both the effort to push new food-label laws and the even more harmful agenda that lies behind it. We know the truth about modern food and agriculture, and it's our job once again to make sure voters hear about it as well.
Ted Sheely raises lettuce, cotton, tomatoes, wheat, pistachios, wine grapes and garlic on a family farm in the California San Joaquin Valley. He volunteers as a board member for Truth About Trade &Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org).
Farming in India has reached a very crucial phase. In a scenario of rising consumption needs and aspirations, and dwindling or varying natural resources, it has become imperative for India to innovate or access appropriate technologies that will enhance our agricultural productivity efficiently.
Since the Green Revolution in the 1960's, researchers, government and the private sector have been working relentlessly to improve the efficiency and productivity of agriculture in our country, blending science with traditional knowledge so the farming system will be more responsive to the needs of its farmers.
Today, the progress we have made is in jeopardy. We are under attack from several anti-technology activists who are using false and unfounded allegations to question our desire to have access to better technologies and seeds. They have gone so far as to request that our Supreme Court place a ten-year ban on GM crop field trials in India; a radical and ignorant proposal that could devastate Indian agriculture at a time when farmers must grow more food just to keep up with a population that recently boomed past 1.2 billion people.
Thankfully, the Supreme Court rejected this outrageous idea.
The worst may be yet to come, however: The Court appointed a Technical Expert Committee (TEC) to assess the benefits of GM plants, but the body lacks a single member who is an expert on the science of how modern technology can improve farm productivity.
So the "expert" committee lacks expertise.
Early next year, the Technical Expert Committee will issue a new and more detailed report. It will receive full consideration, even if it includes suggestions as harmful as the one our country just dodged.
Enough is enough. Why must India's farmers always be held back? We should enjoy the right to grow the food our country desperately needs.
India must transform its attitude toward biotechnology and embrace the science that is helping farmers in the United States and other countries achieve record levels of food production.
Around the globe, farmers have harvested more than 3 billion acres of biotech crops. The food they produce has become a part of conventional diets. Both farmers and consumers benefit: Farmers grow more food on their land and consumers see their food bills kept in check.
Yet India's government has failed to keep up with the times.
A decade ago, it permitted the commercial cultivation of GM cotton—and ever since, yields have soared, both on my 60-acre farm in Tamil Nadu and across the nation. The proof of performance can be seen in our fields, where cotton production went up by 154 percent. The evidence is right in front of our faces.
Instead of trying to repeat this success by allowing farmers to grow other varieties of biotech plants, however, the government has permitted political protestors to dictate agricultural policy. More than 6 million of us now grow GM cotton, but we're still forbidden from growing the kinds of food crops that farmers in Argentina, Canada, the Philippines, and elsewhere take for granted.
Nearly three years ago, we were about to take a big step forward with the advent of GM brinjal, a culinary vegetable that people in other countries call eggplant. Scientists recommended it and farmers wanted it. But the government said no, simply because a few loud voices were able to shout down common sense.
As I write this, I am battling on my farm to salvage my rice crop. This year, I've had to contend with a drought, followed by a monsoon, and then a brand-new dry spell. Modern technology holds out the promise of seeds that can endure the worst that weather can throw at us--everything from low moisture to submersion in water. In addition to the challenges of climate, farmers also must beat their traditional foes: weeds, pests, and disease. I am convinced biotechnology can help with that too.
But only if we enjoy access to the best agricultural tools that science can deliver.
India is a poor country, and sometimes I'm forced to wonder if anti-GM activists want to keep us that way.
The choice is clear: We can remain poor, and always be reaching for the begging bowl, or we can work together to come up with 21st-century solutions to our most pressing problems.
Up to now, we have for the most part chosen foolishly. To reverse course, our Supreme Court must continue to treat the advice of its own Technical Expert Committee with the skepticism it so richly deserves.
The next step is to choose wisely. That means listening, at long last, to the people who appreciate the true potential of biotechnology: India's own farmers.
Mr. V Ravichandran owns a 60 acre farm at Poongulam Village in Tamil Nadu, India where he grows rice, sugar cane, cotton and pulses (small grains). Mr. Ravichandran is a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org).
The Obama administration's second-term shakeup will include a new top trade diplomat as the current U.S. Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, is eyeing the exit door.
There's no official announcement yet, but Kirk's departure is one of the worst-kept secrets in the capital. "He intends to leave Washington and head back to Dallas," where he once was mayor, reports the Washington Post.
As President Obama reboots a cabinet that will include a new Secretary of State and director of the CIA, he'll want to make sure he settles on a trade ambassador who not only has his full confidence but also a high level of credibility with foreign leaders.
An excellent choice is available: Richard Lugar, the Republican senator from Indiana.
Under normal circumstances, Lugar wouldn't even consider the job. Earlier this year, however, he lost his party's primary election. Lugar had hoped to serve one more term in the Senate and then retire after a long career.
By tapping Lugar, President Obama would send a powerful signal to a divided country that's sick of partisan gridlock. He pursued the same strategy in his first term with the appointment of former Republican congressman Ray LaHood as Secretary of Transportation. LaHood has indicated that he doesn't plan to stick around for another four years. As with Kirk, there's been no formal notice, but all signs point to a departure.
Lugar is a natural option. For one thing, the President and Lugar have a strong relationship, going back to their days in the Senate. They collaborated as members of the Foreign Relations Committee and traveled together to Russia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan.
In 2007, when Obama announced that he was running for president, he invoked Lugar's name. "Politics don't have to divide us," he said. "I've worked with Republican senator Dick Lugar." During one of his presidential debates with John McCain in 2008, Obama said that for foreign-policy advice, he sought Lugar's counsel. President Obama even cut campaign commercials that showed images of the Hoosier. Lugar had not endorsed Obama, but neither did he ask for Obama to take down the ads.
In addition to showing bipartisanship and enjoying Obama's trust, Lugar possess several other important qualities. Popular among his colleagues on both sides of the aisle, he would coast through Senate confirmation. He also possesses an outstanding record of free-trade votes. He has been a consistent supporter of free-trade agreements and presidential Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).
Farmers would cheer the choice as Lugar has chaired the Senate's agriculture committee and he knows how much farmers depend on exports.
The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, ranks Lugar as one of the Senate's most reliable friends of free trade. Over the last two decades, Lugar has cast 55 votes on issues involving trade barriers. According to Cato, he has voted to remove restraints to trade on 53 occasions--more than 96 percent of the time.
Senators don't have bosses, except perhaps for voters, and Lugar would have to agree to take direction from the White House. The late Earl Butz, who was Secretary of Agriculture in the Nixon and Ford administrations, once told me how it works: "The president and I have a deal," he said. "When we don't agree, we do things his way."
So Lugar would have to agree to do things Obama's way. But perhaps he could also become the strong voice for trade that the Obama administration desperately needs, as it seeks to make good on a promise to double exports by 2015 and complete the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a potentially blockbuster trade pact whose success will require a skilled negotiator who knows his way around foreign capitals as well as the halls of Congress.
Serving as U.S. trade representative would be a worthy capstone to a distinguished career. Obama should seize this unique opportunity and invite Lugar to join his team, for the good of the country.
Dean Kleckner serves as Chairman Emeritus of Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org).
By Motlatsi Musi: Pimville, South Africa
Back in the dark days of apartheid, many South African farmers like myself were forced to drive our tractors through fields full of landmines as we worked hard to grow maize and other vegetables.
That's now a part of history, thank goodness. Yet farmers in today's Africa continue to face landmines of the metaphorical variety: As we try to obtain access to the latest agricultural technology, we see hazardous obstacles everywhere. They must be removed.
If our continent is ever going to feed itself, we're going to have to beat the odds--and adopt the same tools that are taken for granted in so much of the developed world. That means we must have access to seeds improved with biotechnology.
I've seen the benefits of GM crops firsthand. Just south of Johannesburg, I own several acres of land and rent more. For the last eight years, I've grown genetically modified corn and soybeans. They are outstanding crops. My yields have improved by more than one-third, meaning that the economics of farming never have been better. Agriculture doesn't have to be a subsistence occupation. It can be a sustainable profession.
Economics are only a part of it. GM crops are more sustainable for the environment and human health as well. The biotech variety I planted protects maize from stalk boring insects, so I don't have to apply nearly as much chemical spray as in the past. That's a huge benefit for field laborers, especially children.
The enemies of biotechnology sometimes claim that GM food is harmful to eat. This is sheer nonsense. Ever since I've grown it, I've eaten it. There are no bad side effects. This is perfectly good food.
Africans everywhere must come to this realization. We don't grow nearly enough food. Our production is simply too low. And so we face a stark choice: Do we accept the bleak prospect of permanent dependence, in which we rely upon the wealthy nations of the world to feed us, out of pity? Or do we want to stand on our own and take care of ourselves?
The choice is between aid and trade, and this is no choice at all. We must embrace agricultural growth. We shouldn't struggle to feed our fellow Africans, but should grow so much that we export our crops around the world.
GM technology is not a panacea. It won't solve all of our problems. African farmers face a long series of challenges, from an inadequate infrastructure to political corruption. Yet access to the latest crop technologies will give us a fighting chance, especially as the climate changes and we try to adapt to new and possibly harder conditions. Drought-resistant plants represent an especially hopeful opportunity.
Too much of Africa missed out on the Green Revolution. We cannot afford to let Africa ignore the Gene Revolution.
Unfortunately, many people, especially in Europe, don't want us to benefit from these developments. It reminds me of the worst aspects of South African apartheid.
In 1976, I quit high school to become an anti-apartheid activist, thinking that liberation was more important than education. They're both essential, of course, and I'm proud to say that over time we saw Nelson Mandela go free and now many of us actually own the land we work. I'm no longer a second-class citizen, but a proud South African with my own passport.
But those were tough times. As a protestor, I was detained by authorities. My brother was beaten. He still has a dent in his skull from that experience. Just thinking about those times brings back memories of pain.
Now we face a new kind of imperialism--an international eco-imperialism that seems to think African farmers should remain poor and desperate, while the rest of the world flourishes. This new breed of activist seeks to keep GM crops away from African farmers and hamper the sale of our GM food to customers in other countries. Almost nothing could be more harmful.
I look forward to a different kind of future, when Africans refuse to let others push us around. We should demand nothing but the best. For those of us who produce the food, that means full access to biotechnology.
Mr. Motlatsi Musi grows maize, beans, potatoes, breeding pigs and cows on 21 hectares he acquired in 2004 through the Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development Program (LRAD) in South Africa. Mr. Musi is a member of the TATT Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org)
California voters sent a loud-and-clear message to special interests and anti-biotech agitators last week: Keep your hands off our food.
The rejection of Proposition 37, a deeply flawed ballot initiative, shows that an informed electorate can make wise choices about food policy. In the face of a propaganda campaign that relied on junk science and scare tactics, 53 percent of voters said no to Prop 37.
The advocates of this radical proposal had a simple but misleading message: Just label it. They sought to require special labels on certain food products that might carry ingredients derived from biotechnology. Yet their unnecessary rules would have raised everyone's grocery-store bills and raised suspicion without delivering a single consumer benefit.
Prop 37 also would have been a jackpot for trial lawyers, who were its actual authors. Their goal was to rig a system of complex and burdensome regulations, spawning an untold number of petty and destructive lawsuits whose main purpose was to enrich the most aggressive litigators.
Farmers like me condemned Prop 37. So did doctors. The American Medical Association released a statement on the safety of genetically modified food and the pointlessness of politically motivated labeling. Scientists, grocers, and food producers also joined an impressive coalition of truth tellers.
Early signs suggested that the battle would be hard fought. The first polls hinted that voters might approve Prop 37. The organic food industry and its allies pumped nearly $9 million into an effort to coax voters to favor labeling. They understood the stakes: One of Prop 37's most prominent backers, Mark Bittman of the New York Times, described the initiative as "the most important vote on food policy this decade."
Media celebrities jumped into the fray as well. On his daytime television show, Dr. Mehmet Oz plumped for Prop 37. "For the first time ever in this country, genetically modified foods are on the ballot," he said on October 17.
Like so many of Oz's preposterous allegations about biotech crops, this statement was just plain wrong: In 2002, voters in Oregon overwhelmingly rejected a ballot proposal to mandate labeling. Several California counties have voted on biotech crops too.
Yet this was the hallmark of the Yes-on-37 campaign: Bad information, masquerading as fact.
As November approached, an educational campaign on Prop 37 and its defects began to reach the public.
Almost every daily newspaper in California advised voters to spurn Prop 37. They recognized Prop 37 as reckless and harmful. Their unanimity was a rare and remarkable thing, and voters understood the significance of this sweeping rebuff.
The polls started to change, reflecting popular sentiment as it turned against a fatally flawed initiative.
On Election Day, the people finally spoke. And when they did, they spoke decisively.
In beating back Prop 37; they said that America shouldn't turn away from proven technologies. Nor should consumers bear the cost of expensive regulations that don't offer any upside.
The most sensible anti-biotech activists may conclude that it's time to abandon their quixotic quest. GM crops are an essential tool of 21st-century food production; helping farmers from Bakersfield to Burkina Faso grow even more safe and healthy food as they meet the huge challenge of feeding our families and the planet.
Unfortunately, the political battle over food probably will go on. Before the defeat of Prop 37, activists boasted about running similar initiatives in Oregon and Washington. Last week's rout should discourage them, but perhaps it will drive them to try again, work harder, and spend more. They may also double down on their ruthless demonization of modern food production.
Our victory last week is a case study in success, but almost 4.3 million Californians voted against us. We must continue to tell our compelling story. In the months ahead, we can do it with the knowledge and confidence that educated voters will be on our side.
Ted Sheely raises lettuce, cotton, tomatoes, wheat, pistachios, wine grapes and garlic on a family farm in the California San Joaquin Valley. He volunteers as a board member for Truth About Trade and Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org).
By John Rigolizzo: Berlin, New Jersey
"America, I believe we can build on the progress we've made," said President Obama early in the morning on Wednesday, during his victory speech in Chicago.
Let's hope he's right, especially in the area of free trade. Success will require a renewed commitment to helping Americans sell their goods and services abroad.
It will also take some creative thinking.
Maybe there's even a special job in it for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. More on that in a moment.
For voters, the top issue in 2012 has been unemployment and the economy. If the United States ever recovers from its current doldrums, exports will have to lead the way--and the Obama administration must open new opportunities for Americans to sell their goods and services around the globe.
Obama's first term included several notable accomplishments. In the darkest days of the recession, the president promised that exports would double by 2015. Right now, the United States is on track to meet this goal.
That's the good news. The bad news is that we're using the wrong yardstick. If exports double by 2015, they'll double in dollar value only. This is not the best measure of economic health because so much of it depends on currency, inflation, and commodity markets. Export volume matters more--and going by this indicator, we're nowhere near doubling our exports.
We're also seeing a slowdown in global trade. The World Trade Organization recently reported that trade in goods probably will grow by only 2.5 percent this year, down from 5 percent last year and 14 percent in 2010. This discouraging trend could erode Obama's export aspirations.
A poor business cycle explains part of the problem, but policy choices play a large role as well. "Increased protectionism may also be starting to drag on trade," observed The Economist recently.
In the wake of the global financial crisis, most countries avoided the temptation to turn inward. They seemed to have learned the lesson from the 1930s, when deliberate economic isolationism took a bad situation and made it much worse.
Yet now it seems that many governments are flirting with these misguided policies--and the United States is guilty of it too, judging from ongoing trade disputes over everything from steel to tomatoes.
There are a few bright spots, however. Amid all the attention focused on the presidential election, most Americans didn't notice what happened on October 31, besides Halloween.
On that day, the Panama Free Trade Agreement went into full force, wiping out hundreds of tariffs that made it harder for Americans to do business with Panamanians. Obama formally signed it a year ago, along with a pair of larger and more significant deals involving Colombia and South Korea. The approval of these three pacts--negotiated by the Bush administration but not fully completed until Obama gave them a final push--probably represent Obama's main legacy of free trade.
At least so far. In his second term, Obama hopes to conclude the Trans Pacific Partnership, which holds the potential to boost trade around the region. The president shouldn't stop there. He should ask Congress for Trade Promotion Authority and use this vital tool to start new talks with other partners.
Perhaps Romney can help.
During the campaign, he praised the huge potential of increased trade with Latin America.
Would it be crazy to think that Romney could become a special trade diplomat?
"In the weeks ahead," said Obama in the wee hours after his re-election, "I also look forward to sitting down with Governor Romney to talk about where we can work together to move this country forward."
If the 2012 election results tell us anything, it's that Americans don't trust single-party rule in Washington and expect their elected leaders to work together for the good of the country. Nothing could send a more powerful signal along these lines than Obama and Romney agreeing to collaborate on trade for the economic good of the United States.
Now that would be progress everyone can believe in.
John Rigolizzo, Jr. is a fifth generation farmer, raising fresh vegetables and field corn in southern New Jersey. The family farm produces for retail and wholesale markets. John is a volunteer board member of Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrrade.org)
In all three of their debates, President Obama and Mitt Romney both mentioned international trade and how it benefits the United States.
"We signed three trade deals into law that are helping us to double our exports and sell more American products around the world," said Obama on October 3, referring to one of his administration's economic success stories.
"I want to add more free trade agreements so we have more trade," said Romney on October 16, suggesting that he'll pursue trade diplomacy even more aggressively.
Each time they faced off, the Democratic and Republican contenders were eager to talk trade. It didn't matter how the Commission on Presidential Debates tried to define the events it sponsored. The first debate focused on domestic issues, the last one concentrated on foreign policy, and the middle forum included both. Trade came up every time.
Yet neither candidate spoke directly about what may be the most essential point about the flow of goods and services across borders: U.S. trade policies prop up commerce all over the world. Global prosperity depends on an America committed to free-trade leadership.
This simple fact became obvious during the festivities surrounding the World Food Prize in Des Moines last month. My organization, Truth about Trade & Technology, held the seventh annual Global Farmer Roundtable, an occasion for farmers from different countries to gather and discuss their common challenges and opportunities. This year, we hosted 15 farmers from 13 nations, including Zimbabwe, New Zealand, and Uruguay.
I wish Obama and Romney could have taken a break from the campaign trail and listened to our guests as they described how farmers and their families depended on the United States for leadership, vision and inspiration.
Because of the United States leadership, the world has come together to lower trade barriers, making it possible for farmers to feed the planet by selling what they grow to consumers they'll never meet.
Because of the United States leadership, biotechnology holds out the hope for greater agricultural productivity, making it possible to keep up with rising populations.
Because of the United States leadership, global shipping lanes are open and safe, making it possible for merchants to move their products without fear of coordinated military strikes or random acts of piracy.
Americans make all of this possible, but we benefit from it too. The presence of trade encourages peace and prosperity everywhere.
Think of it this way: Like the keystone that supports an arch, our trade policy connects domestic and foreign policy. If the keystone crumbles or vanishes, then the arch collapses, leaving only ruin.
In the third presidential debate, Romney came close to making this point. He cited Admiral Michael Mullen, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said that America's top national security threat isn't China, Iran, or Russia. It isn't even Islamic terrorists. Instead, it's our national debt.
If the United States loses economic strength, then the world will become significantly less peaceful and prosperous. Instead, it will descend into war and destitution.
Obama added his own observation: "We've got to make sure that our economy is strong at home so that we can project military power overseas."
The good news is that neither Obama nor Romney is a protectionist. From time to time, they have spoken harshly about China--sometimes even a little too harshly--but they have refused to go over to the dark side of economic isolationism.
This is nothing to take for granted. In the heat of election contests, office seekers frequently try to pander to struggling voters by blaming foreign trade for America's ills. In 2008, when he was a senator running for the White House, candidate Obama threatened to pull out of NAFTA.
Whether he truly meant what he said at the time or merely wanted to stoke populist passions is now a question for historians: As president, he abandoned this rhetoric and became an advocate of global commerce. Romney, for his part, has pledged to expand trade, especially with Latin America.
On Election Day, only one man can prevail. Let's hope that no matter who comes out on top, free trade triumphs as well. Then everybody wins.
By Gilbert arap Bor: Kapseret, Kenya
When the United States votes on November 6, many Kenyans will want to see if Americans will re-elect President Obama, with whom we share a kinship through his Kenyan father.
Yet there's another election that matters even more to us--not just as Kenyans, but as Africans who live on a hungry continent, where food insecurity poses a daily threat.
Nobody outside California can vote on Proposition 37, a ballot initiative that would require labels for many types of food that contain genetically modified (GM) ingredients. If it passes, however, Proposition 37 will hurt global efforts to improve food production through modern technology.
Advocates of the proposal say that consumers have a right to know what they're eating. That's true enough, and the U.S. federal government already requires clear and comprehensive nutritional information to appear on food packages. The American Medical Association says that there is no scientific justification for adding additional details about biotech ingredients. It would simply confuse grocery-store shoppers, who might worry that such food presents a health risk.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Over the last 15 years, farmers around the world have grown more than 3 billion acres of GM crops. No credible scientific evidence has shown food with GM ingredients to have caused as much as a sneeze, let alone actual harm. GM crops are perfectly safe.
Farmers plant GM crops because they're better than traditional varieties: They grow more food on less land, need fewer herbicides and pesticides, and fight soil erosion because they reduce tillage. They are models of economic and environmental sustainability.
They're also essential to feeding the planet. Demographers say that by 2050, global food production must double. The only way to meet this goal is through innovation. Just as farmers throughout history have crossbred plants to create new crops, we must now deploy the modern tools of biotechnology to coax higher yields from existing agricultural land.
The good news is that many nations already have embraced GM farming. In the United States, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil, the vast majority of corn and soybeans are the products of biotechnology. They're no longer cutting-edge crops, but utterly conventional. People eat food with GM ingredients every day.
Yet in many poor countries--and especially in sub-Saharan Africa--biotechnology has spread slowly. Anti-globalization activists have crusaded against them, wrongly insisting that old-fashioned farming practices are adequate in the 21st century. Tellingly, few of these protestors have backgrounds in either farming or the science of crop biotechnology.
When it comes to food production, farmers know best. Here in Kenya, our access to biotech crops is limited--but we're about to make significant progress, with the government's imminent release of GM corn (maize) seed. It will help us feed a growing population.
The passage of Proposition 37, however, would undermine food security--right away in California, and very soon everywhere.
One study says that if Proposition 37 wins approval, the annual food costs of the average California family will rise by $350. That's because the law's complicated requirements would force food companies to alter their methods of packaging and production.
Yet Proposition 37 would carry an even higher price tag outside the borders of California. It would cast suspicion on a vital technology. Labels will stigmatize GM food, and companies that perform research and development into biotech agriculture will start to have second thoughts. If poor political choices can trump sound science, they may begin to invest their resources in other areas.
Africa has a rooting interest in these developments. Not only do we want basic varieties of GM corn, but we hope to have access to other kinds of GM crops plus different types of GM traits, such as drought resistance. This is the key to my continent's ability to feed itself.
Thomas Friedman reminds us that the world is flat: We live in a global village, where legal and scientific events that occur in one place quickly reverberate in the four corners of the earth. Political decisions in California will soon catch up with farmers everywhere, from Honduras to India to my little 25-acre farming plot in western Kenya.
Let's hope that on Election Day, Californians vote locally and think globally.
Gilbert Arap Bor grows corn (maize), vegetables and dairy cows on a small-scale farm of 25 acres in Kapseret, near Eldoret, Kenya. He also teaches at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Eldoret campus. Mr. Bor is the 2011 Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award recipient and a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network.By Gilbert arap Bor: Kapseret, Kenya
Gilbert Arap Bor grows corn (maize), vegetables and dairy cows on a small-scale farm of 25 acres in Kapseret, near Eldoret, Kenya. He also teaches at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Eldoret campus. Mr. Bor is the 2011 Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award recipient and a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network.
By Rajesh Kumar: Salem, India
My last visit to the United States changed the way I farm on the other side of the world.
In 2009, I traveled from India to Des Moines to attend the Global Farmers Roundtable, a project of Truth about Trade and Technology, held in conjunction with the World Food Prize. I met farmers from Iowa as well as Australia, Honduras, South Africa, and elsewhere. We learned about each other's work, discussed common challenges and opportunities, and enjoyed some of the best sweet corn I've ever tasted.
When I returned to India, I worked with a group of local farmers to open a new sweet corn processing factory. The knowledge I gained in the United States made it possible. I'll always be grateful to Iowa and the people I met at the Global Farmer Roundtable and World Food Prize for pointing us in the right direction.
I hope Indian farmers can imitate Iowa farmers in other ways as well. Most importantly, we must embrace biotechnology--or at least we must be allowed to embrace biotechnology. Right now, large forces and special interests are blocking the way. They must be stopped.
More than 1.2 billion people call India home. By 2025, demographers say that we'll pass China as the most populous nation on the planet.
Many of our people are already poor and malnourished--and the problem could grow worse. If we're to thrive in the years ahead, India must adopt the very latest technologies in agriculture.
This happened once before, during the Green Revolution of the 1950s and 1960s, when new seeds, methods, and equipment transformed farming in developing nations. The success of this movement is said to have saved billions of lives.
Now we have to do it again, this time with biotechnology as one of the tools. If last century's improvement was the Green Revolution, then this century's innovation is the Gene Revolution. The United States and many other countries--Argentina, Brazil, and Canada--already are taking full advantage of it. By growing genetically modified crops, their farmers enjoy large yields that are the envy of growers everywhere.
Now much of the rest of the world must adopt this solution. India is not the only country with swelling numbers of people. To keep up with global growth, the world's farmers have to double food production by 2050--and we have to do it largely on land that's already in cultivation. In other words, we must grow more with less.
India faces particular problems. Our crop yields are stagnant or dropping. Many young people avoid farming, believing it's a profession for the poor and illiterate. To top it off, our government does little to promote agriculture.
The problem isn't that we have no biotechnology in India: Many farmers plant GM cotton. They know the amazing benefits. I've grown GM cotton several times myself, appreciating the boost in yield and the reduced reliance on herbicides. It requires just one spray, whereas non-GM cotton needs six applications or more. That makes GM cotton healthier for farmers, in addition to being economically sensible.
Yet we don't have access to other kinds of biotechnology--most notably brinjal, which Americans call eggplant. For Indians, it's a staple crop. In 2010, GM brinjal was on the verge of commercial approval. Researchers had perfected it and farmers wanted it, but our government in New Delhi said no. It bowed to political pressure from special interests that took advantage of widespread illiteracy and scientific ignorance.
I'm returning to the United States next week, once again for the World Food Prize. This time, I'm the recipient of the Kleckner Trade and Technology Advancement Award. It's a humbling honor--and one that I hope will allow me to go back to my home with additional credibility, as I continue to advocate for biotechnology in India as well as the rest of the developing world.
I want to keep on changing the way we farm--and I hope Americans will continue to help me and my fellow farmers make the most of the Gene Revolution, for the sake of India and the world.
Rajesh Kumar farms 120 acres in two regions of India, using irrigation to grow brinjal, sweet corn, baby corn, tomatoes and other vegetables. He sells fresh produce directly to consumers through kiosks at several locations and runs a food processing unit for canning of vegetables. Mr.Kumar will be recognized as the 2012 Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award recipient in Des Moines, Iowa on October 16 during the TATT Global Farmer Roundtable / World Food Prize events. He is a member of the TATT Global Farmer Network.
"Is Dean Kleckner the most famous farmer in America?"
I thought about the question for a moment.
"No," I said. "He's not the most famous farmer in America. He's the most famous farmer in the world."
I know, I know: "Famous farmer" is an oxymoron. Although growing food is one of the most important jobs around, the work is done in near-anonymity.
Yet in the halls of power, Dean became known as the great champion of U.S. agriculture. Last month, he stepped down as chairman of Truth about Trade & Technology--and we all owe him a tremendous debt for having devoted his life to American farming.
Dean grew up in northern Iowa, near the town of Rudd, working in the fields alongside his father. When he started out, all farming was organic--or "primitive," as Dean likes to joke. He still remembers the first time his family used commercial fertilizer: "The corn shot up faster, the fields grew greener, and there was more of everything," he wrote in a 2008 column. "We never looked back."
That's for sure: When it came to farming, Dean always looked forward.
He also looked outward, becoming an advocate of ordinary farmers. For a decade, he headed the Iowa Farm Bureau.
That was when I first met him. I was a state delegate to a convention. We were debating some issue, and Dean had left the room for a few minutes. While he was gone, we voted to take a certain action. When Dean came back, he heard what we had done. Then he calmly explained why we were mistaken.
We knew he was right. We reversed our decision. He had turned us around 180 degrees. He was wise and clear-thinking.
Dean went on to become president of the American Farm Bureau, winning seven consecutive two-year terms.
This was when global leaders in agriculture came to know Dean. He represented the United States in world trade talks, making sure that American farmers gained access to new markets. Yet he always remembered that trade talks are a two-way street, and he took the time to understand the agricultural interests of other countries. Dean was successful because he's such an excellent listener--the very opposite of the "ugly American" stereotype.
Dean may have traveled the world, but he never lost sight of where he came from. He continued to grow corn and soybeans and raise hogs, back near the town of Rudd. He still cheers for the St. Louis Cardinals and loves to eat at Cracker Barrel.
After he left the AFB, Dean joined Truth about Trade & Technology, an organization that I had helped form with a few fellow farmers. We really needed his help.
We had sensed the need for a farmer-led group that would seek to improve America's ability to sell its goods and services across borders. We also wanted farmers in the United States and around the world to enjoy access to advanced technologies, including genetically modified crops.
We had a grand vision--but knew we needed broader expertise to implement it and make a difference.
That changed when Dean joined TATT. With the most respected voice in agriculture, he jump-started the organization--and turned it into a deliberative and influential promoter of everything from free-trade agreements to consumer acceptance of biotechnology.
Now Dean has stepped down as chairman, but it would be wrong to conclude that he has retired. Just last week, he wrote a column for TATT on the importance of Trade Promotion Authority as TATT's Chairman Emeritus. I'm sure we'll hear from him again soon.
In 2007, the board of TATT created the Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award, honoring a global farmer who has demonstrated "strong leadership, vision, and resolve in advancing the rights of all farmers to choose the technology and tools that will improve the quality, quantity, and availability of agricultural products around the world." Next month, we'll give it away for the sixth time.
We thought the award would be a great way to recognize a deserving recipient as well as show how much Dean has meant to farmers in the United States and abroad.
We created the Kleckner Award when Dean was out of the room. Nobody thought for a second to reverse the decision.
Bill Horan grows corn, soybeans and other grains with his brother on a family farm based in North Central Iowa. Bill volunteers as a board member and serves as Chairman for Truth About Trade & Technology. www.truthabouttrade.org
By Dean Kleckner: Des Moines, Iowa
President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney disagree over budgets, health care, and what to do about unrest in the Middle East. When they meet for their first presidential debate on October 3 in Denver, they'll have a brand-new opportunity to highlight their many differences.
Wouldn't it be nice if they spent at least a few moments finding common ground? Voters are tired of gridlock in Washington and it would hearten them to see these ideological rivals describe areas of agreement.
I would suggest they start with international trade, which both men claim they want to expand. Specifically, the candidates should say that no matter who takes the oath of office in January, the next president must have Trade Promotion Authority (TPA).
The United States simply can't forge new free-trade agreements without it.
The idea behind TPA is simple: It lets the president's team negotiate with other countries, find progressive consensus and make a deal, and then submit the proposed pacts to Congress for up-or-down votes.
TPA is a practical tool that allows our trade diplomats to pry open new markets for American-made goods and services, helping everyone from farmers and manufacturers to insurance agents and Hollywood moviemakers. The up-or-down vote is essential because it respects the authority of Congress to weigh in on pending agreements but also prevents individual legislators from trying to reopen trade talks after they've been completed. (They'll say to "make improvements".)
In other words, it gives the president and his administration the genuine authority to negotiate.
Think of it this way: When you want to purchase a car, you visit an auto dealership and search for a sales representative. (Actually, the sales reps always seem to find you. That's just how those guys are.)
Would you bother to negotiate with a sales rep that lacks the authority to sell vehicles? Or one who wants to continue bargaining even after you've come to terms and shaken hands? Of course not. It would waste your time.
That's how other countries view TPA. If our president doesn't have it, they won't walk through the equivalent of America's dealership door.
Last year, President Obama finally sent and Congress approved trade accords with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. We're just starting to see the economic benefits. Yet these agreements were negotiated when George W. Bush was president, back when TPA was still in force. It expired in 2007, which means that President Obama hasn't had this important tool for his entire term in office. Right now, he is the only president not to have enjoyed TPA for at least a portion of his presidency since Lyndon Baines Johnson--and LBJ didn't have it because TPA had not yet been invented.
So it's no coincidence that the current administration has yet to negotiate a single tariff-reducing trade pact.
President Obama means well--and he likes to talk up the tremendous potential of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an accord that would improve trade ties between the United States and several economic partners along the Pacific Rim. Without TPA, however, it won't ever leave the drawing board. Here's a motto to consider: No TPA, no TPP.
This alphabet-soup sloganeering may point to part of the problem. TPA just isn't a great name for this device, though it's arguably an improvement over "fast track negotiating authority," which was what everyone called it through the 1990s. Perhaps it needs rebranding once again. How about Free Trade Fair Vote?
Whatever the semantics, the next president should have TPA. Romney has called for it plainly. Obama hasn't spoken as openly, though his administration has signaled that if the president is re-elected, he would like to have TPA in 2013.
So imagine the power of the moment, at the October 3 debate, if both candidates were to agree on the urgent need for TPA. Each man could promise that if defeated in November, he will try to sway the members of his party to support TPA for the victor.
The candidates will still disagree over many other details about how to create jobs and revive the economy--but in this gesture of magnanimity, they will have done the United States a great bipartisan service.
Dean Kleckner volunteers as Chairman Emeritus for Truth About Trade & Technology. www.truthabouttrade.org
By Tim Burrack: Arlington, Iowa
Dear Californian,
I can't vote on Proposition 37 this Election Day, but I'm watching it closely, all the way from my farm in Iowa.
This ballot initiative isn't just bad for California--it's bad for America.
Here's the problem: Prop 37 is an extremist measure that will raise food prices without making food safer or consumers more knowledgeable. Worst of all, it will stifle innovation all over the United States.
The fundamental idea behind Prop 37 is that there's something wrong with the kind of food I've raised and you've eaten for more than 15 years. This is a strange claim because there's nothing unusual about my corn and soybeans. They're just like the vast majority of the corn and soybeans planted and harvested in California and elsewhere: genetically modified to resist weeds and pests.
Because these crops carry a natural resistance to weeds that steal moisture and insects that munch on roots and leaves, they grow bigger and healthier. This means more food and better food for everyone--and less dependence on herbicides and pesticides.
American food security and the health of our environment depend on biotechnology. It allows us to grow more food on less land, which is the very definition of sustainable agriculture.
The backers of Prop 37 just ignore this, but they do say that consumers should know if their food contains biotech ingredients. The irony is that consumers who feel a need to avoid biotechnology already can do so: They look for the organic label.
So the brand-new labels mandated by Prop 37 are pointless, except in the eyes of special-interest groups that want to manipulate consumer preferences, in a bid to drive grocery-store shoppers away from conventional food and toward organic varieties. As a Stanford University study showed last week, organic food is not healthier than other kinds--but it sure is more expensive.
There's another profit motive at work behind Prop 37: trial lawyers. They're chomping at the bit to sue food producers for petty violations of arcane rules.
Ten years ago, voters in Oregon faced a ballot referendum similar to Prop 37. They had the good sense to reject it, especially after learning that it would cost families hundreds of dollars in additional food costs each year. In our slow-growth economy, this is a price that few can afford to pay, especially low-income families and seniors who live on fixed incomes.
Even Californians who don't alter their eating habits will see their bills go up as food producers redesign packages and processors segregate food so that it satisfies the complicated requirements of a new bureaucracy. Consumers, of course, will pick up the tab for these changes.
The damaging effects of Prop 37 will reach well beyond California's borders. The measure's success would give biotechnology an unnecessary black eye--at a time when we must rely on biotechnology more than ever before.
You've certainly heard about this year's drought. It was awful: probably the worst I've seen in a lifetime of farming. Yet biotechnology is on the cusp of making great strides in drought resistance, allowing crops to grow even when they don't receive much water. Farmers like me want and need access to those tools. Seriously, consumers like you should want me to have those tools as well!
California is the most populous and a very important state in the country. It has a well deserved reputation for starting national trends. If its voters decide to pass Prop 37, they will send a powerful signal that public opinion is turning against agricultural technology, despite their clear benefits. Researchers will shift to other fields. Food producers will worry about new regulations, approved not for reasons of nutrition or safety, but because the schemes of special interests have triumphed.
Cut off from promising new technologies, farmers across the country will find themselves growing less than they should: That's bad for California, bad for Iowa, and bad for America.
Tim Burrack raises corn, soybeans and pork on a NE Iowa family farm. He volunteers as a Board Member of Truth About Trade and Technology. www.truthabouttrade.org
It's a familiar bit of wisdom: Past performance predicts future performance. Employers use it when they hire workers, investors when they pick stocks, and farmers when they choose seeds. Parents even use it raising their children.
Does it also make sense in politics? With President Obama formally accepting the Democratic presidential nomination this week, voters will want to think it over. As they do, they should know that the old adage hasn't always applied to President Obama.
As an Illinoisan, I've been a nonstop constituent of Obama for seven years, since he joined the U.S. Senate. I've kept track of him the whole time--especially on trade, which is so important to farmers.
Farmers depend on exports. In a typical year, about one-third of the corn we grow will ship to customers in other countries. Those exports benefit not only agriculture but our whole economy. We need presidents and legislators who will work to reduce trade barriers to American agriculture.
Before becoming president, Obama had a disappointing record on trade. As a United States Senator he voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement, an important pact that has boosted U.S. exports to some of our nearest Latin American neighbors.
As a presidential candidate he did not merely oppose pending agreements, he threatened to withdraw from one that already existed: the North American Free Trade Agreement, a crucial economic partnership with Canada and Mexico.
If past performance predicts future performance, candidate Obama's pre-presidential performance on trade should have led to his becoming a very protectionist president.
Then something happened once elected to the White House: President Obama assumed the burden of leadership. He discovered that the United States depends on free trade, and that the exchange of goods and services with people in other countries helps Americans. It boosts prosperity, creates jobs, and improves diplomatic relations.
"We need to export more of our goods because the more products we make and sell to other countries, the more jobs we support right here in America," he said in his 2010 State of the Union address. "If America sits on the sidelines while other nations sign trade deals, we will lose the chance to create jobs on our shores."
President Obama went on to support the passage of free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. They had been negotiated by the Bush administration, but languished as his administration held on to them and Congress refused to vote on them. With Obama's support, however, they finally made it through last fall and became a reality. Now we're trading more with each of these countries. The deal with South Korea is a truly big boon to American agriculture, especially for ranchers who produce beef.
President Obama also promised that the United States would double its exports in five years, by the end of 2014. Granted, the pledge began in the midst of a global economic slump, when our exports had sagged. Yet the goal was worthy, and we're on track to meet it. Last year, for the first time ever, the value of American goods and services sold to foreign customers topped 1 trillion dollars.
The Obama administration is presently trying to negotiate the Trans Pacific Partnership, an ambitious effort to improve the flow of trade along the rim of the Pacific Ocean.
President Obama has missed important opportunities. He refused to demand a renewal of Trade Promotion Authority, which would improve his ability to bargain with other countries. His administration has yet to finalize a single trade agreement on its own.
Yet, President Obama's record is much better than what many of us had anticipated. His past rhetoric and performance on trade did not predict his future performance.
If elected to a second term will President Obama become a stronger advocate for trade and promote an aggressive agenda that will result in American jobs? Or will he turn into the protectionist President we feared?
Between now and Election Day, the president must explain where he wants to take us.
John Reifsteck is a corn and soybean producer in western Champaign County Illinois. He volunteers as a Board Member for Truth About Trade & Technology. www.truthabouttrade.org
Many women don't have much time to study the policy details of the two presidential candidates. We're either running around with the kids or running around at work--and often we're trying to do both at the same time.
So when we want to learn what President Obama and Mitt Romney think about an issue like international trade, it's best when they provide one-stop shopping on their campaign websites.
Yet only one candidate devotes a page of his website to trade.
Reading it is a welcome breath of fresh air--a taste of substance in a race that occasionally seems to have lacked it. So after the near-non-stop news about the misbegotten words of Missouri senatorial candidate Todd Akin, it's time to focus on issues that most women really care about: jobs and the economy.
When we talk of job creation and economic growth, we have to discuss big drivers of both: imports and exports.
So whose website has more to say?
President Obama has a record to run on--and there's plenty to boast about. He signed free-trade agreements last year with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. His administration is in the process of negotiating the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would create a huge trade zone that includes the United States and at least eight other countries. The next round of TPP talks start in a week, in Virginia.
And yet his campaign website is virtually silent on free trade. There's a single mention of the three trade agreements, but it's buried at the bottom of a page and easy to miss. Beyond that and a reference to increased exports by 2015, there's nothing: No high-flying rhetoric, no policy objectives, and no specific promises about what he'd deliver in a second term.
In sharp contrast, Mitt Romney's website has a whole page devoted to free trade, with slogans, sub-sections, bullet points, and more.
"Open markets have helped make America powerful and prosperous," says Romney's trade page. "Indeed, they have been one of the keys to our economic success since the country was founded."
It goes on to list goals, such as reinstating Trade Promotion Authority for the president, finishing the TPP negotiations, pursuing new trade agreements with other countries, and building what Romney calls the "Reagan Economic Zone, in which nations committed to open markets will reduce trade barriers for mutual benefit.
And there's even more. One item that's not on his website but which his advisors have talked up in recent days is the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a trade zone in the Western hemisphere. This ambitious goal went unrealized during the Bush years due to opposition from Argentina, Brazil, and several other countries. It may yet be difficult to negotiate, but it's good to see that Romney considers it worth the effort.
As a rancher who produces beef, I have firsthand knowledge of the advantages of free trade. We sell to American customers, but much of our market lies overseas. "Approximately 95 percent of the world's consumers live beyond our borders, and selling our world-class products and services to them is the next great frontier for economic growth," says Romney's website. "The fewer the barriers to cross-border commerce, the more economic growth we enjoy and the greater the number of American jobs brought into being."
I'm fed up with politicians and pundits who want to lecture me about so-called women's issues. Right now, no issues are more important to women than jobs and the economy--and only one candidate has much of anything to say about reviving them through global trade.
Romney's trade policies are not without their problems. In an interview with the Detroit News last month, a press aide said that Romney does not currently support Japan's participation in TPP--even though this should be a top goal of the United States.
What's more, Romney sometimes sounds a bit too ready to launch a trade war with China. His website speaks of imposing new tariffs in retaliation for currency manipulation. I understand the need to talk tough with the Chinese, but everyone must understand that a trade war would be the result of diplomatic failure, not success.
Helen Reddy sings "I am woman, hear me roar." I love that song. But when it comes to roaring, I'd rather let the U.S. economy make all the noise--and I'm glad to see that Mitt Romney understands that free trade turns up the volume.
Carol Keiser owns and operates cattle feeding operations in Kansas, Nebraska and Illinois. She volunteers as a Truth About Trade & Technology board member. www.truthabouttrade.org
By Duane Grant: Rupert, Idaho
As our kids return to school this fall, we hope that their schools will bring out the best in them. We want their teachers to accentuate the positive and downplay the negative.
That's exactly what biotechnology will do for genetically modified potatoes: It amplifies the desirable genes and minimizes the undesirable ones that inhibit the plant's ability to feed people.
Consumers are going to love what biotechnology can do for potatoes. Not only will GM potatoes look and taste better than the conventional varieties we already love--they're going to be healthier as well.
GM potatoes are still a couple of years away from full commercialization, but as a potato producer, I'm looking forward to seeing and experiencing the results in my own fields.
I've seen promising results from field trials of GM potatoes that don't bruise as easily as today's potatoes, nor do they turn brown as quickly after cutting. They generate significantly less acrylamide, a chemical compound that can form when many starchy foods are heated at high temperatures. It's already harmless in small doses, but GM potatoes render it even more irrelevant.
They're likely even going to be less expensive, because less bruising and browning means fewer potatoes will go to waste as they move from farm to fork.
Those are first-generation benefits--the advantages we'll enjoy immediately. Second-generation benefits include potatoes packed with more vitamins and nutrients.
Everything about potatoes will be better. Forgive me for sounding like Bubba from "Forrest Gump" when he talks about shrimp, but GM potatoes will improve all kinds of food we already love: baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato salad, French-fried potatoes, and so on.
Best of all, these upgrades will be the result of biotechnology's ability to make the most of the potato's own genetic diversity. Potatoes are one of the hardiest crops on the planet. Native to the mountains of Peru, potato plants have adapted to frigid cold, blistering heat, and deadly plant disease--just about every sort of stress nature can hurl at them.
In other words, biotechnology works with great material that's already a part of the potato's genetic makeup.
Through a process called "intragenics", researchers can isolate genetic elements from a plant, rearrange or link them in beneficial ways, and stick them back into the plant without using anything besides its own DNA. It's like traditional plant breeding that has been around for hundreds of years - just more precise.
This is a cutting-edge technique, but a relatively minor change compared to what we already do with other fully-accepted GM crops such as corn and soybeans, in which genes from different species may be transferred into the plants to help them fight insect pests.
GM potatoes are amazing in another way as well. One criticism of some crops improved with biotechnology is that if their pollen floats into neighboring fields, they can impact the harvests of non-GM farmers. While the safety of the food is not an issue at all, nevertheless this is the source of anxiety for some.
Yet organic potato producers have nothing to fear from pollen drift because commercial potatoes reproduce from cuttings of tuber, not seeds. Although potato plants will bloom with flowers, they reproduce on farms in a completely different way. So pollen drift between organic, conventional or biotech potatoes is of no concern.
The biotech revolution has improved our stewardship of the environment. Now that we've had more than 15 years of experience with GM crops, we see the advantages plainly. Productivity has gone through the roof, allowing us to grow more food on less land. We've cut back on tillage, conserving soil. We've also reduced our reliance on herbicides. Because of all this, GM crops are an essential component of sustainable agriculture--and the advent of biotech potatoes marks another step in the right direction.
This extraordinary crop, with its benefits for the environment, consumers, and farmers is now in the midst of regulatory approval. So, here's my two cents: Welcome to the biotech revolution, potatoes. It's about time.
Duane Grant grows potatoes, malt barley, sugar beets, corn, dry beans, alfalfa, wheat and onion seed on a family farm in Idaho. Mr. Grant is a member of the TATT Global Farmer Network. www.truthabouttrade.org
By Tim Burrack – Arlington, Iowa
I've been growing sweet corn for more than 40 years--and this summer's sweet corn is the very best I've ever eaten.
Perhaps you weren't expecting this bit of good news amid all the bad news about corn. The nationwide drought has ravaged this year's crop. I can certainly share plenty of horror stories: Most of my corn is in poor shape.
Want to hear me complain about the drought? I didn't think so. Let's accentuate the positive: My sweet corn was excellent this year.
For the last few summers, I've set aside a small field for sweet corn, giving it a little extra attention because I donate the harvest to my church. The church ladies use it for a big social event, deliver it to shut-ins, and give it the community.
So I put a little water on my sweet corn--just enough to help it beat the dry heat.
Yet there's another important reason why the sweet corn was so good: Biotechnology was the essential ingredient.
For the first time in my area, I had the opportunity to grow genetically modified (GM) sweet corn. Before long, however, it's going to be everywhere: Wal-Mart recently announced that it was willing to carry this new product.
And that's really good news.
Today, more than 85 percent of the corn grown in the United States already benefits from biotechnology. These crops possess a remarkable ability to fight weeds and pe