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Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 05:32:28 -0800
From: "GMWatch" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: GMW: Another environmentalist apologizes over GMOs
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NOTE: Ken Cook is the President of the	Environmental Working Group.
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Another Environmentalist Apologizes Over GMOs
Ken Cook
Huffington Post, 18 January 2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-carr/another-environmentalist-apologies=
-gmos_b_2505033.html

I need to start by publicly apologizing for not engaging in the debate ov=
er genetically engineered crops, technically, genetically modified organi=
sms or GMOs, until two years ago.

When I co-founded the Environmental Working Group in 1993, Mark Lynas was=
 ripping up farmers' crops. Back then I dismissed people like Lynas, then=
 affiliated with those who criticized GMOs. Their attacks did not seem gr=
ounded in science and did not approach our very real food and farming cha=
llenges with the same research-based intellectual rigor that we practice =
at EWG.

Nor did I fight beside smart organizations like the Environmental Defense=
 Fund, Consumers Union and the Center for Food Safety to make the scienti=
fic case to the federal Food and Drug Administration in the late 1980s an=
d early 1990s. We should have persevered even when FDA decisions left adv=
ocates with no way to raise scientific objections, as we do with pesticid=
es.

At the time, it seemed quixotic to campaign against GMOs. The FDA and USD=
A were blithely rolling on their backs for multinational corporations tha=
t were poised to reap billions of dollars in profit from the technology.

Now I see the error of my ways.

Had I paid more attention, I might have foreseen how badly this technolog=
y would go awry. Toxic chemicals would be slathered on crops to battle GM=
O-resistant pests and weeds. According to a recent study by Washington St=
ate University professor of agriculture Chuck Benbrook, the use of herbic=
ides has increased by 527 million pounds, or 11 percent, since 1996, as m=
ore and more GMO crops have been planted.

I might have been prescient enough -- given EWG's experience with Monsant=
o -- to recognize that the company's assertions that GMOs were viable wer=
e not to be trusted.

And I totally missed the boat by failing to anticipate that GMO technolog=
y, as much as misguided government policies, has driven the spread of cor=
n and soybean monoculture across millions of acres of American farmland. =
In the last four years, farmers have plowed up more than 23 million acres=
 of wetlands and grasslands -- an area the size of Indiana -- to plant pr=
imarily corn and soybeans.

Oddly enough, Lynas did not extend an apology to the farmers whose crops =
he destroyed. And while he's apologizing to those farmers, he should apol=
ogize to the organic farmers he falsely impugns by suggesting organic foo=
d is less safe than food manipulated by scientists in Monsanto lab coats.

Regarding the safety of organics, Benbrook says:

"The most significant, proven benefits of organic food and farming are: (=
1) a reduction in chemical-driven, epigenetic changes during fetal and ch=
ildhood development, especially from pre-natal exposures to endocrine dis=
rupting pesticides, (2) the markedly more healthy balance of omega-6 and =
-3 fatty acids in organic dairy products and meat, and (3) the virtual el=
imination of agriculture's significant and ongoing contribution to the po=
ol of antibiotic-resistant bacteria currently posing increasing threats t=
o the treatment of human infectious disease."

Lynas drives home a fact that many of us know: to continue to feed the wo=
rld's booming population, we must intensify crop production. Yet even the=
 United Nations, in a recent report, notes that "in order to grow, agricu=
lture must learn to save" and highlights that herbicides can be replaced =
with sustainable practices like integrated weed management. While Lynas c=
laims to have discovered science, he seems to have missed the fact that f=
eeding the world would be a lot easier if more crops were consumed by peo=
ple rather than by animals or by cars burning environmentally-damaging et=
hanol.

The truth is, the scientific community has not reached a consensus on GMO=
s. Experts have grave doubts about the "coordinated framework" the U.S. g=
overnment employ to review GMO crops. Several smart people, among them jo=
urnalists Jason Mark and Tom Philpott and the Union of Concerned Scientis=
ts' Doug Gurian-Sherman, have categorically debunked Lynas's claims that =
the science is settled.

What the science does conclusively show is that we don't need GMO crops t=
o better manage water-polluting chemical fertilizer. So says the Leopold =
Center for Sustainable Agriculture, which recently found that a diverse c=
rop rotation reduced nitrogen fertilizer use by 86 percent while maintain=
ing yields. It concluded that diverse rotations "reduce the risk of creat=
ing herbicide-resistant weeds."

It turns out that we need better farmers and a better farm bill, not bett=
er seeds.

In short, I shouldn't have allowed unscientific, hysterical ideologues li=
ke Lynas to color my views about a fight clearly worth engaging -- and th=
at we've belatedly launched -- on GMO labeling. At least with labeling, L=
ynas and I agree that consumers deserve, as he says "a diet of their choo=
sing."

As this blog and others demonstrate, the debate about GMOs in not over. I=
n fact, it's just begun. Millions of Americans came out in support of fed=
eral and state initiatives to require labeling on food with GMO ingredien=
ts in 2012, their momentum helping new initiatives, such as I-522 in Wash=
ington, sprout up in the new year.

Luckily, Lynas assures us we are "entitled" to our views. As Americans, w=
e are also entitled to the right to know what we're buying, eating, and f=
eeding our families. That right, and its surrounding dialogue, have yet t=
o be silenced.

................................................................
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