Vilsack Mistakenly Pitched "GMOs-Feed-The-World" to an Audience of Experts--Oops
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was getting lots of appreciative applause and head nods from the packed hall at the Community Food Security Coalition conference today, held in Des Moines, Iowa. He described the USDA's plans to improve school nutrition, support local food systems, and work with the Justice Department to review the impact of corporate agribusiness on small farmers. But then, with time for only one more question, I was handed the microphone.
"Mr. Secretary, may I ask a tough question on GMOs?"
He said yes.
"The American Academy of Environmental Medicine this year said that genetically modified foods, according to animal studies, are causally linked to accelerated aging, dysfunctional immune regulation, organ damage, gastrointestinal distress, and immune system damage. A study came out by the Union of Concerned Scientists confirming what we all know, that genetically modified crops, on average, reduce yield. A USDA report from 2006 showed that farmers don't actually increase income from GMOs, but many actually lose income. And for the last several years, the United States has been forced to spend $3-$5 billion per year to prop up the prices of the GM crops no one wants.
"When you were appointed Secretary of Agriculture, many of our mutual friends--I live in Iowa and was proud to have you as our governor--assured me that you have an open mind and are very reasonable and forward thinking. And so I was very excited that you had taken this position as Secretary of Agriculture. And I'm wondering, have you ever heard this information? Where do you get your information about GMOs? And are you willing to take a delegation in D.C. to give you this hard evidence about how GMOs have actually failed us, that they've been put onto the market long before the science is ready, and it's time to put it back into the laboratory until they've done their homework."
The room erupted into the loudest applause of the morning.
Secretary Vilsack knew at once what kind of crowd he was dealing with. Or so I thought.
He said he was willing to visit with folks, to read studies, to learn as much as he possibly can. He pointed out that there are lots of studies, not necessarily consistent, even conflicting. He said he was in the process of working on a set of regulations and had brought proponents and opponents together to search for common ground. And he was looking to create a regulatory system with sufficient assurances and protections.
At this point in his answer, Secretary Vilsack, who has a history of favoring GMOs--and even appears to be more pro-GMO than his Bush administration predecessors--was trying to sound even handed. Then he made a tragic mistake.
After a slight pause, he added in a warm tone, "I will tell you that the world is very concerned about the ever-increasing population of the globe and the capacity to be able to feed all of those people."
Moans, groans, hisses, even boos. Not rowdy, mind you. But clearly agitated.
You see, the people in the room were among the top experts at actually feeding the world. They included numerous PhDs who had spent their careers looking deeply into the issue. Among those present were several of the authors of the authoritative IAASTD report. The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development, is the most comprehensive evaluation of world agriculture ever. It was a three-year collaborative effort with 900 participants and 110 countries, and was co-sponsored by all the majors, e.g. the World Bank, FAO, UNESCO, WHO. The behemoth effort evaluated the last 50 years of agriculture, and prescribed the methods that were now needed to meet the development and sustainability goals of reducing hunger and poverty, improving nutrition, health and rural livelihoods, and facilitating social and environmental sustainability.
And GMOs was not one of those needed methods! It was clear to the experts that the current generation of GMOs did not live up to the hype continuously broadcast by biotech companies and their promotional East Coast wing--the federal government.
In fact, the night before Vilsack addressed the conference, the same audience heard a keynote by Hans Herren, the co-chairman of the IAASTD report, during which he reiterated that biotechnology was not up to the task. And this morning, Hans Herren was in the room when Vilsack tried to play the feed-the-world card. Bad move.
Vilsack responded to the crowd's rejection by saying, "And well you all can disagree with this, but I am just telling you this. As I travel the world, I am just telling you what people are telling me. They are very concerned about this."
Thus, he distanced himself from the contentious, and fallacious, argument. He was just reporting what others had told him.
And that may in fact be his problem with understanding the serious health and environmental dangers of GMOs in general, if he is simply, as he says, repeating what others--Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont--have told him over and over again.
It's true that I have mutual friends of Tom Vilsack who like and respect him and believe him to be reasonable and thoughtful. I have seen this myself, but not on the GMO issue.
Perhaps the reaction of the experts this morning will help to jar him out of his GMOs-feed-the-world mindset. Unfortunately, he is now deeply immersed in the second of this week's food conferences here in Des Moines, the World Food Prize. It features the major GMO promoters from around the world, including Bill Gates (who gives tens of millions to GMO development in Africa), and top executives of DuPont and Syngenta. Expect to hear constant chatter about how GMOs are the solution to world hunger which, unfortunately, may undue any of the restructuring that this morning's run-in with reality may have awakened.
In the meantime, if there are Q & A sessions at meetings where Secretary Vilsack is speaking or attending, I'll do my best to get to a mic.
International bestselling author and filmmaker Jeffrey M. Smith is the executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology. His first book, Seeds of Deception: Exposing Industry and Government Lies About the Safety of the Genetically Engineered Foods You're Eating, is the world's bestselling and #1 rated book on GMOs. His second, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, documents 65 health risks of the GM foods Americans eat everyday. Both are distributed by Chelsea Green Publishing.
Follow Jeffrey Smith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JeffreyMSmith
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In t.he EU we are very sceptic about GMO. The main trade dispute between the EU and the USA is about GMO food.
We don't want them because we are not sure of the consequenses.
Actually we will rather pay a fine to the WTO than allow those franken-foods in our shops.
The basic idea is sick and for the 3rd world it spells disaster.
The seed and the nessesary agro-chemicals has ruined many farmers in the developing world.
In India the suicide rate of farmers in hopeless debt for that reason is skyrocketing.
If you really want to help feed the world you can do 2 things.
1. help control waste. 30% of the agricultural production of the poor countries is lost on the way from farm to table because of lack of storage facilities and transportation.
2. Make it impossiple to patent the local crops and make those farmers pay for something, that originated in their backyard.
Vilsack is too old school for his important position. I was hopeful at first but his love of ethanol is showing through... ethanol, corn, gmo those three things are totally in bed with each other. I hope he starts thinking about what our country and the world he wants to help is goling through. Organic products are being wiped out by GMO contamination, farmers are getting sued and pesticides are killing us. Weve had enough abuse. Now we have to contend with cloned animals and nanotechnology in our food. Will the science experiments in our food supply ever stop?
OK, I see where someone else says that Vilsack himself offered labeling as a "priority":
"He offered his priorities for protecting organic farmers and organic production systems: labeling [of GM products] to provide consumers a stronger voice in the marketplace ..."
http://www.cfra.org/blog/2008/11/19/different-view-vilsack
And here someone quotes a November 10, 2007 in the Des Moines Register article that says:
"Obama said he wants food labeled for its country of origin, and marked if it’s genetically modified"
http://www.biofortified.org/2009/01/obama-will-probably-not-label-ge-foods/
So then why has there been virtual silence about the issue from the anti-GM side (which I consider myself a part of) since the election? Why didn't you, Mr Smith, ask Vilsack about this campaign promise?
The profit motive encourages all kinds of gambling, doesn't it? And when it is unwarranted...
I guess what annoys me the most about capitalism - corporatism - as it is practiced in America is that it shields individuals from personal responsibility for any negative consequences arising from their greed.
Say that some GMO causes significant, widespread, and irreversible harm. Will the CEO and executives who made the decision to shove the product down the consumer's throat - even if that took buying off FDA and USDA officials - be held personally accountable?
Nope...the corporation will be, and those executives will float safely away on their golden parachutes...just like on Wall Street, and in banking.
Way to go, Mr. Smith!
Bravo, Mr. Smith. I do hope you get to ask another question, but you gotta take this thing much further, I believe. Your interchange and insights should be on the Editorial Pages of the most important PRINT media in the USA, I believe, and I encourage you to get in touch with the NY Times, the WSJ, the Washington Post, etc., all of the big ones, please....Americans are asleep at the wheel when it comes to GMO, including I fear Bill Gates.
As a working scientist with a background in agricultural sciences and practical knowledge of molecular biology (pros & cons) - although not directly in crop transformation or breeding,... I can state with some authority,...
The only real good that the currently mass-marketed genetically modified crops do is increase corporate profits.
Using a GMO with engineered herbicide resistance only encourages unstainable monoculture agriculture, poor management practices with an eye to scale of production rather than quality of production, and locks the farmer who uses those crops into using one and only one type of seed.
There are a few decently thought out GMOs, that actually solve real problems (such as the genetically modified Papaya that gives resistance to its worst viral pathogen) - but they are few and far between.
If we really want to get serious about feeding the world, we should focus more on delivery systems for existing food staples, eating less meat, and on practical global population control. Give women access to birth control, education, and employment opportunities. That will start to fix the problem.
"Give women access to birth control, education, and employment opportunities. That will start to fix the problem."
As far as I know, I've had access to birth control, education, and employment opportunities ALL MY LIFE. I still do. Where the heck you been???
You have obviously been in the US. In much of the developing world the previous statement is true. Here in Uganda the population will DOUBLE in 15 years and that is even with a high prevalence of AIDS.
You need to look at things from a global view instead of with tunnel vision focused on the US. Hate to tell you but the US is only 5% of the world's population. 95% live outside the borders.
Much like yourself - I have pretty much been in the USA, Canada & Australia,... where birth control and economic opportunities for women are at least relatively available abitcrunchy,...
Not so true in most of Africa, large chunks of (especially rural) Asia, and the poorer areas of the rest of the world.
Population growth in places like America, the EU, Australia, Canada & even China is relatively moderate at least in part BECAUSE women have access to opportunity and control over (mostly) when and if they have children.
Pay attention to what is going on outside of our borders. Think about it for a couple of seconds,.. then write a more intellegent response.
"The only real good that the currently mass-marketed genetically modified crops do is increase corporate profits."
Truth be told, they don't necessarily do that! Studies have shown that GE seeds have not yielded more crop.
No they haven't increased yields abitcrunchy - if you bother to re-read my post you will see I didn't say that.
Profits for the big corporations IS NOT the same thing as increased quantities of actual food.
When it comes to food safety in America. You can't say the fox is guarding the hen house. Because you can't be sure those organisms are actually chickens anymore.
That's because genetically modified food flows along undetected in the American food supply. Even though some experts say it is a feature of 70 per cent of everything we eat and drink.
Like most Americans, you're not sure if genetically modified food is safe or not. Europe and most of Asia agrees with you. For now, they've shut the door to GMOs But apparently President Obama knows things you don't. He's appointed the former lobbyist and VP for Monsanto, the world leader in GMO production, as the food czar of the Food and Drug Administration. Does that appointment make food safer in America? Or does it make America safer for food industry profits? You decide.
Forty years ago there was a guy telling the world industrialization was poisoning our oceans. His name was Jacques Cousteau. Today there is a guy named Jeffrey Smith who is saying uncontrolled, untested industrialization of our food supply may be doing the same to us.
If you believe you are what you eat. Then is there a more important issue than this?
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