Buried in the comments section of an article in the Guardian about a UK retailer selling some American brands that contain GMOs was this comment that made me laugh:
“It should be noted that Frankenstein was not even a hybrid, let alone a gmo. He was a grafted individual, much like today’s grapevines in vineyards and apple trees.”
Here's an interview I did with the University of Nebraska's Market Journal on the outcomes of the most recent ballot initiatives on GMO labeling.
I have been keeping an eye on several ballot initiatives in yesterday's election. Not all results are finalized, but here's what we know so far:
In Colorado, mandatory GMO labeling was defeated by a wide margin, 66% to 34%, with 93% of precincts reporting.
In Oregon, mandatory GMO labeling is very close and still up in the air. With 88% of the votes counted, the "No's" are ahead by about 26,000 votes (659,404 to 633,132), giving the "No's" a current 51% to 49% margin.
A vote in Maui, HI to ban cultivation of GMOs is too close to call
Berkeley, CA passed a soda tax (75% in favor vs. 25% opposed)
The majority of voters in San Francisco, CA favored a soda tax (55% in favor), but the initiative required a 2/3 majority to pass. Thus, the soda tax failed in San Francisco.
Keith Kloor writes at Discover.com
“next time you hear someone say GMOs haven’t lived up to their potential, much less contribute to food security, remember the biotech crops and foods that never made it to market, and how Kimbrell [the founder and executive director of the Center for Food Safety, which for years has spearheaded opposition to biotechnology] and his fellow anti-GMO activists proudly take ownership of that.”
The evidence? The anti-GMO activist presents it himself at a recent anti-technology conference in New York:
““We stopped GMO potatoes, we stopped GMO wheat, we stopped genetically modified rice, and we stopped genetically modified salmon,” he said. (The last one has been in regulatory limbo for over a decade.) It’s impossible to quantify how much credit biotech opponents should receive for the failed commercialization of the aforementioned GMOs.”
Anti-biotechnology activists complain biotechnology hasn't lived up to its promise all the while fighting the approval of the most promising biotechnologies.
“One would think that the people who create new foods and the people who whip up new ways of enjoying them would have long been partners. But cooperation between plant breeders and chefs is historically rare; traditionally, breeders stick to the field and chefs to the kitchen, opposite ends of an increasingly long and complicated food chain. Lane Selman, an agricultural researcher at Oregon State University (OSU) and the emcee of the Portland feast, wants to change that. She recently founded the Culinary Breeding Network (CBN), a first-of-its-kind organization that fosters collaboration between cooks, farmers, plant breeders, and seed growers. Breeders are often “making a lot of the decisions alone, guessing what the consumer, chef, or institutional kitchen cook needs and wants from their produce,” Selman explains. She has chefs tour breeding plots to “witness diversity with their own eyes, hands, and mouths” and give breeders direct feedback. It’s a kind of immediate and powerful synergy that just makes sense: “Breeders bring knowledge of stored seeds and wild relatives. Chefs know how to evaluate flavor much better than we do.” Case in point: Mazourek was microwaving squash for taste tests until a chef educated him in proper roasting techniques.”
That's from an interesting article in Pacific Standard arguing that fruits and vegetables are about to enter a flavor Renaissance.