4 Sep (Alliance for Natural Health) – USDA calls it “coexistence,” but it’s just a way for GMO farmers to harm whomever they like—without consequence. Many countries across the globe ban genetically engineered crops and foods. The USDA, rather than banning GMOs, aggressively supports them and claims that GMO crops will coexist alongside non-GMO crops.
The USDA’s Advisory Committee on Biotechnology and 21st Century Agriculture (AC21) was formed in 2003 but met infrequently after 2008. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack recently revived it; the committee plans to meet three or four times a year from now on, and ANH-USA attended the August 27–28 meeting. The committee is composed of members from the biotechnology industry, the organic food industry, the seed industry, the food manufacturing industry, and consumer and community development groups.
Given the assumption that GE crops and non-GE crops have to coexist—no one even considered the possibility that GE crops would not be allowed—the committee was asked whether there should be compensation mechanisms to address economic losses by farmers where the value of their crops was reduced “by the unintended presence of GE materials.” That’s code for transgenic contamination, where the wind carries spores or toxic pesticides from a farm growing genetically engineered crops and blows them to a farm growing organic crops, rendering them non-organic and thus worthless.
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Tags: AC21, Monsanto, Tom Vilsack, transgeneic contamination, USDA