Colbert on GMOs

It is little wonder the general public is so misinformed on effects of GMOs when this is where they get their news on the subject.  Of course it is funny and meant to be satirical, but for the average watcher who doesn't know much about the subject, what is message they're being sent?

We don't use GMOs because our ingredients aren't genetically modified

I found this label on the back of a juice bottle amusing.   

It is easy to stand on principle when there is no cost to doing so.

I-522 Tomorrow

Tomorrow Washingtonians will vote on I-522, which will require mandatory labeling of foods produced with biotechnology if passed.     

I came across this interesting (and apparently neutral) web site from Voter's Edge MapLight that catalogs the major arguments, donors, endorsements, etc. 

The list of donors on both sides is predictable, but after clicking through on the donations page, I found it interesting to see where the donations originated.  

This is not a fight between regular people but vested interested and organizations on both sides of the issue.  

Less than 1% of donations against I-522 are from individuals and only about 20% of donations for I-522 are from individuals.  The rest comes from "organizations" and "other" (I have no idea what "other" refers to).  

Also of interest is the location of donors.  Neither pro or anti I-522 camps can list Washington state as the largest source of donations.  The largest share of donations for I-522 (38.5%) comes from California and against I-522 (25%) are from Missouri (that's Monsanto).  Interesting that 7.5% of donations for I-522 are from the tiny geographic spot of D.C.   

Make no mistake about it, this is a proxy fight for something much bigger than whether people in WA see labels on GMO foods.   

For interested readers, I've already offered my thoughts on the substance of the debate here.

The Politics of GMOs and GMO Labels

I was fascinated by a graph Parke Wilde put up on his Food Policy blog a couple weeks ago, in which he noted that not everyone who supports biotechnology opposes mandatory GMO labels or vice versa.  He proposed segregating people based on their views to two questions.

people commonly fail two distinguish two separate issues:

Is GMO technology dangerous or beneficial?

Should GMO labeling be mandatory or voluntary?

This scatter plot separates the two issues by putting attitudes toward GMOs on the horizontal axis and attitudes toward mandatory labeling on the vertical axis.

And then he included the following graph:

I like Parke's distinction.  But, I think there is something deeper going on here.  It is politics.  

I've previously commented  on the remarkably high correlations among voter's preferences for gay marriage, GMO labels, and size of farm animal cages.  What this suggest to me is that there is a strong political-ideology undercurrent driving much of the food debates.

In the case of GMOs, the evidence I have suggests that where one falls on the labeling issue (and somewhat on the GMO issue) is driven by political ideology.   

In a survey I did with Brandon McFadden in California just prior to the vote on mandatory labeling for GMOs, we found that political ideology strongly correlated with voting intentions.  According to my calculations, moving from the "extremely liberal" category to the "extremely conservative" category led to a 22.5 percentage point reduction in likelihood of voting "yes" on Prop 37.  Liberals are much more likely to want to mandate GMO labels.

Interestingly, however, this isn't because they are more likely to think GMOs are unsafe. 

In a different survey I conducted this summer (nationwide survey, N=1010) , I asked people whether they agreed/disagreed that "genetically engineered foods are safe to eat."  On a 5 point scale (1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree), I find that "extremely liberal" folks answer 3.05 on average and "extremely conservative" folks answer a 2.82 on average, a statistically significant difference.  Liberals are (somewhat) more likely to believe GMOs are safe.  

So, there seems to be something of a tension between beliefs about safety and willingness to use the state to mandate outcomes one desires.  

I strongly suspect there is another dimension here that partially explains the liberal tendency to want to regulate GMOs: the tendency to see corporations and capitalism as corrupting forces - i.e., aversion to agribusiness in the food sector. Thus, even if many liberals support GMOs in theory (being "for GMOs" on Parke's graph), they may not in practice (being "for mandatory labeling" on Parke's graph).   

Does China Require Mandatory Labeling of GMO Foods?

Proponents of mandatory labeling of GMOs in the U.S. often make claims to the effect that "Come on!  Even China requires labeling!" (e.g., see here, here, or here for just a few examples).  The implication is that we must not, heaven forbid, fall behind China in our regulatory regime!?!  

How accurate is this characterization?  It is true that China has a labeling law on the books.  But, does that have any implication for what actually happens on the ground? Here is one description of what happens in China, published in the Vermont Journal of Environmental Law:

Almost ten years after the enactment of the MMAGL [Management Measures on Agro-GMOs Labeling], the status of enforcement is far from satisfying. Despite the mandatory GM food labeling requirements, not all GM foods are labeled, and there is a lack of standardization among GM food and GMO-free food labeling in China’s food market. Even when food products have GM food labeling, the labels are not clearly visible. In addition to the enforcement issues, the rulemaking is outdated. The very narrowly defined first batch of products under the MMAGL is insufficient to cover the broad range of GM food in the market.

Food with GM soybeans is one example. In 2007, China imported 37.8 million metric tons of soybeans, and the United States, Brazil and Argentina accounted for thirty-six, thirty-three and twenty-nine percent, respectively. “The United States (85%) and Argentina (98%) produce almost exclusively GM soybeans.” In 2007, sixty-four percent of Brazil’s soybean crop was GM soybeans. Therefore, a large percentage of soybeans in China’s market are imported GM soybeans. A market survey report conducted in Tianjin, China in 2008, however, revealed that none of the soybeans or soybean powder had GM food labeling. The lack of GM food labeling for soybeans or soybean powder in the market reveals insufficient compliance with the MMAGL.

and

Various reasons exist behind the lack of compliance and enforcement of the MMAGL. One of the most important is the enforceability of the legislation itself. There are several issues in terms of the enforceability in the rulemaking. First, the zero percent tolerance without a reasonable adventitious presence threshold is both unrealistic and misleading.

I’d be careful about holding up China as some sort of example of what would happen in the US if mandatory GMO labeling were to pass.