| On
Wednesday, April 19th, the United States
Department of Agriculture (USDA) released
a report reviewing the first decade of
genetically engineered crops in the United
States. As
we might have expected from the USDA,
this report has a favorable spin to it
about the adoption of genetically engineered
crops.
The
report looked at the issues from three
perspectives:
1)
Seed suppliers/technology providers
2) Farmers
3) Consumers
Seed
suppliers/technology providers
The
report states that there have been nearly
11,600 applications for field testing of
biotech crops since 1987 and 92 percent
have been approved by the USDA’s
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
Nearly 5,000 of the applications have been
for corn, followed by soybeans, potatoes,
and cotton. More than 6,600 of the approved
applications included varieties with herbicide
tolerance or insect resistance.
Farmers
The
report indicates that by 2005 in the United
States, 87 percent of the soybean crop
was from herbicide-tolerant soybeans and
60 percent of the cotton crop was from
herbicide-tolerant cotton. Apparently a
lot of the cotton has dual biotech properties
since 52 percent of the cotton is also
insect-resistant. Insect-resistant corn
accounted for 35 percent of the total acreage
in 2005.
Consumers
The
report states "Most surveys and consumer
studies indicate consumers have at least
some concerns about foods containing GE
ingredients, but these concerns have not
had a large impact on the market for these
foods in the United States."Although
the report did not point it out, the
reason these concerns did not have a
large impact is that most consumers don't
know they are eating biotech foods. One
interesting fact is that the report states "from
2000 to 2004, manufacturers introduced
over 3,500 products that had explicit
non-GE labeling, mostly food products,
with annual totals ranging from 854 in
2003 to 631 in 2004."
What
the USDA report totally failed to address
whatsoever is the growing concern that
organic crops are being contaminated
by the cross-pollination from genetically
engineered crops.
In
our opinion, this omission is inexcusable
and the USDA must be called on the carpet
for continuing to ignore this growing
problem. The USDA is clearly allowing
the biotech industry to benefit at the
expense of the organic industry.
The
release of this report actually provides
an excellent opportunity for us to put
pressure on the USDA and members of
Congress to address this issue.
If
you would like to read the 36-page USDA
Report, please visit the following link:
http://www.thecampaign.org/usda0406.pdf
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