Musings: Winning! Losing!

As the food industry and anti-GMO groups continue to wage war over labeling, Campbell Soups has copped a brilliant marketing move, introducing a label that discloses genetically modified ingredients in a favorable way.

At its What's in my food website, Campbell calls for a national approach to mandatory GMO labeling, while reasserting its confidence in biotechnology:

We continue to recognize that GMOs are safe, as the science indicates that foods derived from crops grown using genetically modified seeds are not nutritionally different from other foods. We also believe this technology will play a crucial role in feeding the world.

And then it deftly directs those who want to avoid GMO ingredients to its organic product line. 

Kudos to Campbell's for not caving in to the irrational calls to abandon GMO ingredients, and for educating consumers about food. Besides, Campbell's is realistic enough to know that it's impossible to source sufficient non-GMO and organic commodities to meet its needs. Three-quarters of the company’s products contain ingredients derived from corn, canola, soybeans or sugar beets, the four largest genetically engineered crops.

I think we're going to find that people will keep buying what they like to eat, and what they can afford, even if the label reveals the presence of GMOs. And thus the attempt by anti-GMO activists to kill GM crops via the stigma of labeling will fail. Big time.

Meanwhile, it's especially amusing to see anti-GMO activists laud Campbell, which means they're effectively endorsing a product that advertises that GM crops are safe and advantageous for farmers:

Winning! Losing! Somehow it all plays the same.

I found this recent piece in The Conversation interesting, as it touches on the roots of the anti-GMO drive:

You can trace the anti-GM movement to two things. First, increasing disillusion, especially in Europe, with the progress of left-wing ideologies in the former Soviet Union and its allies. And second, a growing awareness of environmental problems in the years following the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s landmark attack on synthetic pesticides, Silent Spring. These created a breeding ground in which movements like anti-GM could flourish: as the socialist cause faded, environmentalism began to take its place.

At the time, some environmental pressure groups were in need of a new vehicle through which to channel protest. Accordingly, these organisations adopted a vigorous and at times violent opposition to all things GM, including imports and, above all, their cultivation on European soil. They frightened enough people to create a public outcry.

Helping this along were scores of green politicians who saw political advantage in adopting postures which could frighten the population with threats to their food.

Gee. Sound familiar? We're seeing the exact same thing play out in Hawaii, albeit 20 years behind the times, per usual.

Meanwhile, in keeping with my own thinking as a leftist bewildered by the “progressive” opposition to agricultural biotechnology, Australian comedian JR Hennessy weighs in:

Every now and then you’ll come across a really thoughtless issue that conflates itself with proper, material progressive politics, wheedles its way into the discourse and won’t go away. For the green movement, one of the issues that keeps rattling around is genetically modified food, which has absorbed so much energy and airtime that you have to wonder what exactly the point of it is. It’s like a reasonably legitimised version of anti-vaccine paranoia, the latter of which we have largely banished to web forums with offensive colour schemes.

A fact remains: if, like so many in the Greens base, you believe that the future of human development is a progressive world where food security and sustainability are assured and the distribution of resources is somewhat equitable, you’re gonna have to pick between boosting crops with genetically modified foods, or some kind of reduction in population. And if we’re honest here, the latter is rarely achieved through pleasant or progressive means. And it’s normally not developed nations who are forced to enact population reductions.

So embrace it, mates. Vaccinate your kids and feed them nutrient-rich GMO food. They should be strong and healthy for the revolution.

From an anti-vaxxer website. Yes, people are this dumb.

I was thinking, too, that with the demise of HC&S on Maui, state lawmakers will be loathe this session to pass any bills that could further harm Hawaii ag. Which means the Center for Food Safety and Babes Against Biotech lobbyists will find it much harder to hawk their messages of fear. 

Besides, they're all gonna be heralding hemp, the new miracle crop. Hawaii activists who previously reviled "industrial ag" are now lining up behind industrial hemp. As Modern Farmer reported:

The one big benefit of hemp? Its environmental footprint is relatively small. It requires few pesticides and no herbicides. It’s an excellent rotation crop, often used to suppress weeds and loosen soil before the planting of winter cereals. On the other hand, it requires a relatively large amount of water, and its need for deep, humus-rich, nutrient-dense soil limits growing locales.

And hemp cultivation is highly labor intensive. Loflin, the Colorado farmer, took to social media to recruit 45 people to help him harvest his crop by hand over a weekend. “Use of a mechanical combine,” the Denver Post reported, “would have harmed the plants’ stalks.” That’s one reason prices are so high — about six times the cost of wood pulp.

Consider, for a moment, that the world's leading hemp exporters are China, Romania, Hungary and India — all of which have much, much lower labor and business costs than Hawaii.

Modern Farmer continues:

Production of hemp varies considerably year to year, but in general, it had been steadily but slowly rising. In 1999, 250 million pounds were produced, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization; in 2011, it was 280 million. That’s pounds, not tons.

Compare that to the 200,000 tons of cane sugar that HC&S produced each year.

Returning to Modern Farmer:

The FAO says the increase is mainly due to rising demand for food, supplements and body-care products made with hemp. Sales of such products are at the mercy of consumer whims. It would be better news for hemp if industrial uses comprised the main driver of demand. Once hemp becomes more commonplace, consumers might prefer to just go back to Aveeno lotions and Dreyer’s ice cream.

None of which is to say that the outlook for hemp is not bright. It certainly seems to be, as long as we keep things in their proper perspective.