Now, days out from the expiration of the latest ban on non-essential travel between the U.S. and Mexico, it is unclear how the Biden administration intends to reckon with this legacy. But if our southern neighbors seek “hope at home,” they may find it in the form of policy changes cultivated within Mexico itself. 

On December 31, 2020, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador signed a decree that could enable Mexican farmers to reclaim their livelihoods within their home country. The order calls for the phase-out by 2024 of two pillars of American agribusiness: glyphosate and genetically engineered (GE) corn, particularly corn grain consumed as part of “the diet of Mexican women and men.” 

Glyphosate is an herbicide sprayed on corn and other crops that have been genetically engineered to tolerate its plant-killing properties. It is the active ingredient in Roundup, a flagship product of the company formerly known as Monsanto, that, in 2018, was acquired and fully absorbed by the German chemical company Bayer.

López Obrador’s decree was created with the explicit goals of rebuilding self-sufficiency and reclaiming food sovereignty, efforts that eroded under NAFTA due to a requirement that Mexico open its markets to U.S. corn. Mexico now purchases 25 percent of American corn exports, amounting to more than $2.7 billion annually. Nearly all of the 16 million tons of corn Mexico imports each year is used for livestock and industrial purposes, while corn for human consumption is grown domestically. Nevertheless, the imports represent one-third of Mexico’s overall demand for corn. 

Because of how the decree was phrased, it remains unclear whether GE corn for animal feed will be subject to the eventual ban. While Mexico’s Agriculture Secretary Victor Villalobos Arambula has assured U.S Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack that only grain for human food products will be affected, the vaguely-worded decree is subject to interpretation by the government ministries of Agriculture, Health, and Environment as well as CONACyT, the National Council of Science and Technology. The latter three of these four parties are more closely aligned with Deputy Minister for Agriculture Víctor Suárez, an agronomist and key architect of the decree, who advocates for banning all GE corn imports. 

Although the task is formidable, the phased prohibition could transform the multibillion-dollar grains trade between the United States and Mexico, and increase local farmers’ market share within Mexico. But in order to replace these imports, Mexican farmers would need to increase domestic production by nearly 60 percent, a goal dismissed as unrealistic by critics of the policy. Suárez acknowledged the daunting challenge in February, when he said, “Say we don’t reach the goal of substituting the 16 million tons [of imports], and we only reach the substitution of 10 million. Well, we would evaluate that along the way and…make the necessary adjustment …. We have to put the right to life, the right to health, the right to a healthy environment ahead of…business.”

This executive order not only advances a core commitment López Obrador made in his inaugural speech in 2018 around achieving self-sufficiency in grains. It builds on more than a decade of grassroots resistance against an earlier government decision to allow permits for GE corn cultivation, including the 2013 efforts of a coalition of Mexican social and environmental justice advocates, smallholder farmers, beekeepers, and scientists who filed a class-action lawsuit to halt further permitting of GE corn. The group argued that the crops would adversely impact small farmers whose livelihoods depended on cultivating the dietary staple (once the largest source of rural employment) and would threaten the biodiversity of native landrace varieties of corn that were already in danger of disappearing. “Our country must be oriented towards establishing a sustainable and culturally adequate agricultural production, through the use of agroecological practices and inputs that are safe for human health, the country’s biocultural diversity and the environment, as well as congruent with the agricultural traditions of Mexico,” the decree states.

Children in farming can work as long and as hard as adults, often for less money. A 16-year-old can work pretty much any farm job, while in many states, 12-year-olds can legally work on any farm with a parent’s permission as long as they don’t miss school (Luna did not attend school while working, testament to how lax enforcement is). Generally speaking under the Fair Labor Standards Act, an employer can pay a youth minimum wage of no less than $4.25/hr to employees under the age of 20 for the first 90 consecutive days of work, although they might not even pay that.  

Regardless of age, child farm workers are exposed to chemicals in the same ways as adults, inhaling them in the field and absorbing them through their skin. And it’s not just working kids who are exposed. Young, non-worker children brought to farms by parents who can’t afford daycare are also at risk, as are in utero fetuses of pregnant workers. At farm-adjacent migrant camps, children may inhale pesticide drift, or be exposed to chemical residue on their parents’ clothing. 

And yet, children, with their developing brains and metabolic rates that are slow to expel chemicals from their bodies, are significantly more sensitive to pesticides, and more prone to suffer their toxic effects. Organophosphates like chlorpyrifos have been linked to developmental disorders, while atrazine has been found to cause birth defects. Exposure to various pesticides both in utero and in children has also been linked to ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, and cancers like childhood leukemia. A recently published long-term study of now-banned DDT clearly indicates that some pesticides have the potential to affect children and grandchildren of those initially exposed, leading that study’s authors to call for better research into the transgenerational effects of other chemicals. Sarah Goldman, senior program coordinator at CLF who worked on the Center’s study, called impacts on pregnant women and children “a disproportionate burden, and a violation of their rights to reproductive autonomy and justice.”

As of 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Worker Protection Standard (WPS) prohibits children from handling hazardous pesticides until they are 18. Lead author of the CAFS study, Laurie Beyranevand, calls this a “good improvement,” despite the fact that adolescents’ brains aren’t done developing until they’re in their mid-20s. Otherwise, when it comes to pesticide protections, EPA’s chemical office does “very bad work,” especially when it comes to kids, said Nathan Donley, environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The 1996 Food Quality Protection Act was devised to protect children from chemical exposure through diet (it limits residues on food), and it mandated that the EPA add a tenfold safety margin when assessing pesticide risks for children from the foods they eat. However, a recent study found that it has largely failed to implement even those margins when assessing certain chemicals. EPA also does not have to assess the occupational pesticide risks incurred from working on a farm, and those levels of exposure in farmworker kids—both from diet and from work, as well as from other sources—add up. 

Other laws are similarly lax. The Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA) requires that hazardous pesticides be so labeled, as well as provide clear directions on how to safely use them. However, labels are written in English only, which means they are inaccessible to the many migrant Spanish or indigenous-language-speaking farm workers who need to understand them. That includes 18-year-olds who are certified to use them, and it includes parents of younger children who may return home with residue on their clothing, unaware that they are exposing their kids to toxins.

FIFRA also requires any company registering a pesticide with EPA to prove that it “will not generally cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment.” However, as the CAFS study explains, EPA interprets this to mean that “a pesticide may present a high risk to workers, but those risks must be balanced against the economic benefits to society.” Basically, said Donley, this has allowed the agency to justify any harm to farmworkers as “necessary.” 

Additionally, EPA “says kids [and pregnant women] should not apply or handle chemicals, but it’s not saying anything about exposure to chemicals while working on a farm,” said Beyranevand. And although data from the U.S. Government Accountability Office shows that children in ag account for just 5.5 percent of all U.S. child workers but more than 50 percent of all work-related fatalities, it doesn’t specifically highlight “what harmful things they’re being exposed to in the workplace so we could meaningfully understand what’s going on.” 

In fact, although some states, like California, Hawaii, New York, and North Carolina, mandate reporting of pesticide exposures, there’s no comparable federal law. “The bottom line is that we don’t monitor for ongoing exposure or low levels of exposure, and we do not do a great job with [monitoring for] acute exposures,” said Amy Liebman, a director of environmental and occupational health at the Migrant Clinicians Network. “It’s almost amazing that we don’t have national surveillance systems in place. This ultimately hurts farm workers.”

In an emailed statement to The Counter, EPA asserted its commitment to children’s health. The agency said that it had analyzed post-application dermal exposure in children—considered the main route of exposure—performing hand labor tasks in farm fields. It determined that, assuming kids and adults work the same number of hours, pesticide exposure “is constant for workers 12 years and older through adulthood. Children younger than 12 years old are less productive so their exposures would be lower.” Meaning, the youngest kids are presumably exposed to less pesticide by virtue of working shorter hours, while older kids and adults are exposed to the same amount.

Center for Biological Diversity’s Donley calls this statement “smoke and mirrors. Children…are more sensitive to pesticides and that isn’t taken into account.” Also, EPA is required to assess how pesticides accumulate in children through their diets and any residential uses they may be exposed to. However, Donley points out, again, that the agency doesn’t consider occupational exposures in assessing cumulative pesticide buildups in kids; if they did, they’d likely hit on a higher, potentially unsafe, number.  And the negative impacts on growing children, said CLF’s Goldman, can last a lifetime.

Mitigating pesticide dangers for kids who work on and live next to farms, even if the political will existed, is no simple task. Liebman sees training of clinicians and related care providers about the signs and symptoms of pesticide exposure, of which many of them are unaware, as a critical piece of a large and complex puzzle. “We need to equip them to think about, I have an agricultural worker in front of me; what do I need to think about differently?” she said. Towards similar ends, her organization in 2019 implemented a program which trained 39 farmworker parents to be community health workers. Within two years, those workers in turn were able to reach and teach another 253 farmworker families; pre- and post-assessments showed a 322 percent increase in parental knowledge of the routes of chemical exposure in kids. Liebman also believes federally funded health centers that treat farm workers—of which there are an estimated 1,300 throughout the country—need to offer “enabling services” like interpreters, transportation, and outreach workers to better deliver healthcare to farmworker families.

Migrant Justice is banking on worker organizing as being the most propitious way to engender change. Inspired by the model adopted by Florida’s Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the organization collaborated with dairy workers in Vermont to develop standards for the types of PPE they know they need to protect themselves from chemical exposure. It’s not age-related, but nevertheless, “children are better protected,” said Luna. “If you are 17, 18, 19, and feel that a mask isn’t fitting, you have a right to ask for the right size to avoid harming yourself, and you can’t be fired for asking for these types of protections.”

Ultimately, said Beyranevand, EPA could choose at any time to update the WPS, with an eye to the specific risks experienced by children working in ag. “These are not kids selling stuff at their family’s farm stand,” she said. “I don’t think people understand how inhumane their situation is, and that our food system is grounded in an awful system.”

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]]> https://thecounter.org/americas-biggest-retailers-foodservice-companies-gmo-salmon-aquabounty/ Thu, 11 Feb 2021 20:11:24 +0000 https://thecounter.org/?p=55430 For decades, Americans have been teased with the impending arrival of genetically engineered salmon. If a boycott campaign continues apace, they may have to wait even longer. Earlier this month, a coalition of environmentalists and grassroots organizers announced they had successfully pressured Aramark, one of the country’s largest foodservice companies, into agreeing not to sell […]

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AquaBounty says its first bioengineered salmon will be harvested in March, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be easy to buy.

“Avoiding potential impacts to wild salmon populations and Indigenous communities, whose livelihoods are deeply connected to and often dependent upon this vital resource, is core to our company’s commitment to making a positive impact on people and the planet,” reads a corporate policy memo from Aramark, which runs cafeterias in schools, universities, hospitals, prisons, and office buildings around the country.

Dana Perls, food and technology campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said Aramark’s pledge emerged from private conversations with the company. “We let them know about the environmental risks, the health risks, and the concerns about the impacts to Indigenous communities,” Perls said, and that the salmon would go “against their sustainable sourcing policies.”

(Genetically modified foods are safe for human health, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Aramark did not respond to media inquiries.)

Other companies that pledged not to sell GM salmon include America’s largest supermarket chains, such as Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons, and Ahold Delhaize, the parent company of Food Lion and Giant. Signatories also include the foodservice companies Sodexo and Compass Group, and restaurants like Red Lobster.

All this opposition, despite the fact that the AquAdvantage salmon isn’t even ready for market.

The bioengineered fish, genetically modified to grow twice as fast as conventionally bred salmon, was created in 1989, and approved as safe to eat by the FDA in 2015. Even though it’s currently sold in Canada, it’s yet to hit the market in the United States. That was expected to change in 2019, after FDA lifted a ban on its import.

“People [are] excited,” he said, of the dozens of emails he’s received from alpha-gal syndrome sufferers. “Some of them even listed what they would like their first order to be.”

But it may be wise to not count our pork chops before they’re plated. FDA’s approval only covers a single hog farm in Iowa with the capacity to produce 1,000 “GalSafe” pigs per year. In addition, it appears that the nutritional element of this approval may be ancillary to the medical possibilities at hand. Revivicor, the company that applied for FDA’s green light, is a developer of pig-based organs for use in human medicine, and yesterday’s approval is the first step in its efforts to develop heart and kidneys that can be transplanted in people.

“GalSafe is one step on our journey to address the shortage of transplantable organs in the US,” said Dewey Steadman, head of investor relations at United Therapeutics Corporation, the parent company of Revivicor. “If there’s other market opportunities along the way, great!” (Use of GalSafe pigs as specific medical products still has to go through further review, Steadman said.)

Here’s another catch: FDA only evaluated Revivicor’s claim that GalSafe pigs are, in fact, free of alpha-gal and safe to eat. But because Revivicor did not provide data or make claims related to food allergies, FDA didn’t “evaluate food safety specific to those with [alpha-gal syndrome].” In other words, GalSafe pigs aren’t expected to trigger reactions in people with red meat allergies, but FDA has not scrutinized any allergy-related guarantees. “People with an alpha-gal allergy that would like to consume meat from these pigs but have questions should talk to their doctor,” an agency spokesperson said in an emailed statement. This caveat is worrisome for some consumer interest advocates, who believe that FDA jumped the gun with its approval.

“It shouldn’t have been approved until they had adequately addressed the allergenicity of the product,” said Jaydee Hanson, policy director for the Center for Food Safety.

He also took issue with Revivicor’s assessment of the environmental risks related to the production of these genetically engineered pigs—specifically the risk it poses to wildlife in the case of escape. Revivicor asserts that this possibility “is extremely low.” However, Hanson drew parallels between yesterday’s announcement and FDA’s 2015 approval of genetically engineered salmon. Last month, a federal judge ruled that the agency failed to fully consider the environmental consequences of an escape, and ordered it to conduct another review. The decision was the result of a lawsuit filed by a coalition of groups including the Center for Food Safety. Hanson said the organization is considering litigation related to yesterday’s approval. 

Others still believe that this development could be a major boon for allergy sufferers, and are working to vet its effect on eaters quickly. Commins’s team is set to begin conducting blind allergy tests of GalSafe pork among allergy sufferers within the next three months. Revivicor’s involvement is limited to the supply of the pork, he told me. Commins also added that he himself has previously sampled the pork under an FDA-approved sensory test. “It tastes just like normal pork, so to speak.”

Part of the rising prevalence of alpha-gal syndrome is due to increased awareness of the issue. However, Commins said, it’s also potentially driven by a booming population of tick-carrying deer and a climate crisis that is making more swaths of the United States hospitable to ticks.

For those of you already working up an appetite, there’s a long road ahead before GalSafe sausage hits store shelves. Revivicor is currently “evaluating potential partnerships with pork producers” to raise and distribute products. Maybe keep Benadryl on hand for now?

Update, December 16, 2020, 1:30 p.m.: A previous version of this story mistakenly stated that a judge struck FDA’s 2015 approval of GM salmon down. The approval remains in place while FDA conducts another environmental review.

Note: The feature photo for this story is of non-GM pigs.

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]]> https://thecounter.org/genetically-modified-salmon-aquabounty-fda-environment/ Fri, 06 Nov 2020 19:33:12 +0000 https://thecounter.org/?p=51625 A federal judge ruled on Thursday that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) should have more thoroughly considered the potential for genetically modified (GM) salmon to escape their pens and threaten other salmon before approving them for sale in the United States. It’s the latest judgment in a lawsuit that has challenged everything from the […]

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Though GM salmon currently pose little threat to their wild counterparts, the ruling suggests longer-term consequences haven’t been fully considered. Advocates see the case as crucial to the future of regulating genetically modified animals.

According to an emailed statement from AquaBounty President and CEO Sylvia Wulf, the decision will have no impact on the company’s current operations on Prince Edward Island, Canada, where it produces its eggs, or in Indiana, where it raises (and will soon harvest) its salmon for sale. The company is also planning a new farm in landlocked Kentucky. While Wulf noted that the company is “disappointed with some of the conclusions reached in the judge’s decision,” she also insisted that nothing about the ruling fundamentally threatens the legal status of the company’s product. 

“This case did not call into question FDA’s approval regarding the health and safety of our AquAdvantage salmon,” she wrote. “The focus of this decision was on the potential environmental impacts, and the judge confirmed the ‘low’ threat to the environment of our salmon.”

Specifically, Judge Chhabria’s decision rested on a gap in FDA’s analysis of the potential risk the salmon pose to the environment. (The agency is required to take environmental impact into account under both the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, and the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, he ruled.) The agency determined that it was unlikely the salmon would escape from their confinement, and that even if they did, they were unlikely to survive in the wild (they are “effectively sterile”), and that even if that happened, they were unlikely to establish populations in the wild. However, the agency didn’t analyze what might happen to wild salmon if the GE salmon somehow escaped, reproduced, and started a free-salmon colony in the open ocean. Therefore, the judge concluded, the FDA’s environmental assessment was incomplete. 

The decision acknowledges that this may sound like a technicality. But the judge argues that the initial assessment will become more and more important as the industry grows and companies look to establish salmon farms closer and closer to wild populations. He’s not worried about the indoor farm in Indiana, or the planned farm in Kentucky—instead, he thinks the FDA is obliged to consider what might happen years in the future. As such, the agency will now be required to assess the potential environmental consequences of escaped GE salmon establishing a wild population. (Again, this possibility is extremely unlikely at present, given that they are grown indoors and cannot reproduce.) 

“That the court today said that the Food and Drug Administration didn’t do its job by adequately considering the potential environmental risks of this technology is extremely significant,” said Tarah Heinzen, Legal Director of Food & Water Watch, one of the plaintiffs in the case. “And it should go a long way in ensuring that FDA does a much better job of analyzing risk if it considers future approval of similar genetically engineered animals.” 

Food & Water Watch and other groups have also argued that FDA does not have authority to regulate GM salmon—a claim rejected by the same judge as part of the same case earlier this year. We wrote about that decision in depth in January. 

Yet despite losing their arguments claiming that FDA lacks regulatory authority over GM salmon, Heinzen says this decision is a win. “We know that FDA can’t fast-track or greenlight these types of approvals without doing its due diligence and following the requirements of NEPA and the Endangered Species Act. And we’ll see what happens when they review their analysis, and whether that changes the ultimate outcomes,” Heinzen said. “But just knowing that there will be that additional process in place, and that FDA will have to do a much closer analysis before approving any future GM animals, I think will allow for a much more robust public process, and will allow for potential risks to be much more thoroughly considered,” she added. 

In the words of our columnist Pat Clinton, who has been following AquAdvantage salmon since 2015: “They may have thought that being raised in a tank meant they didn’t have to swim upstream against raging currents. They were wrong.”

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]]> https://thecounter.org/new-bayer-engineered-seed-raises-questions-among-experts-on-future-weed-control/ Fri, 10 Jul 2020 18:14:52 +0000 https://thecounter.org/?p=46029 A new genetically engineered corn seed designed by Bayer to be sprayed by up to five herbicides could represent the future of farming, providing growers with more pesticides to combat the problem of weed resistance. But for how long? That’s the question raised by weed scientists, who say farmers need to start switching to non-chemical […]

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This article is republished from The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. Read the original article here.

As Big Ag companies continue to play wack-a-mole with herbicide-resistant weeds, experts are divided on the future of weed control.

A new genetically engineered corn seed designed by Bayer to be sprayed by up to five herbicides could represent the future of farming, providing growers with more pesticides to combat the problem of weed resistance.

But for how long? That’s the question raised by weed scientists, who say farmers need to start switching to non-chemical options to keep weeds under control.

Over the past 50 years, weed resistance has become a significant problem for agriculture in the U.S., with more than 165 unique species of weeds becoming resistant to chemicals. The problem has increased significantly since the introduction of genetically modified crops and use of accompanying herbicides in the 1990s. 

The new seed, which Bayer has petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture for approval, could be sprayed by glyphosate, glufosinate, dicamba, 2,4-D and quizalofop, giving farmers multiple options for weed control. 

The USDA has a public comment period for the seed open until July 7. As of July 3, 15 comments have been submitted.

On July 1, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, took effect, bookmarking one of President Trump’s signature campaign promises: a replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). 

The USMCA, the mammoth deal governing virtually all trade between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, has been in the works since the early days of Trump’s presidency, and it’s won broad support from food and agriculture groups. Trump called NAFTA “perhaps the worst trade deal ever made,” vowing to renegotiate the deal with more favorable terms for U.S. companies. As the New York Times reported on Wednesday, there’s still a lot to iron out—key provisions, like stronger labor protections for Mexican workers, have yet to come to fruition. 

The agreement addresses some long-term sore spots for U.S. farmers, opening up new avenues for dairy exports to Canada and attempting to force Mexico to allow imports of genetically modified crops. Other food-related provisions are relatively minor, the products of “side letters,” which are basically bonus agreements between two countries that clarify issues like whiskey sales and cheese names. 

Here are some of the changes, major and minor, for U.S. producers and consumers:

1. A California wine aisle in British Columbia

A side letter between U.S. and Canadian trade officials mandates that the 29 grocery stores in British Columbia which only sell locally sourced wine must begin stocking wine made in the U.S. As the Vancouver Sun reports, there are 1,100 other wine and liquor stores in the area that sell alcohol from around the world, so the addition of another couple dozen won’t substantially change the drinking habits of too many Canadian oenophiles. And as Politico reports, Canadian vineyards are likely not too concerned—a host of other regulations still give domestic wine a home court advantage.

2. GMOs in Mexico

  Though it’s technically already legal for genetically modified products to be sold—but not grown—in Mexico, the Mexican government has been slow to approve import permits for things like GM corn. That might change with USMCA: Last month, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said he’d use some language in the agreement to force Mexico to approve these products. The USMCA has also sparked concern among Mexican farmers, environmentalists, and anti-GMO advocates because it may crack open a door for biotechnology companies to patent Mexico’s native corn varieties and eventually challenge a ban on planting genetically modified corn in the country. Here’s an explainer from Food and Power on how that could happen. 

3. Parmesan by any other name ….

One of the side letters between the United States and Mexico affirmed a list of cheese names that can be used without restriction in each country, including Gouda, Havarti, Mozzarella, and others. Yet there are a few conspicuous absences: Feta, Parmesan, and Asiago did not make the list. That’s because the European Union has sought to protect those names, insisting that Parmesan can only come from Parma, and Greeks have a lock on proper feta. Mexico will not market U.S. cheese imports labeled with these names, though the U.S. will continue to allow domestic cheesemakers to call their products what they like. Dairy bigwigs, largely pleased with the deal, are still a little cheesed off about the omissions, telling Food Dive that it appeared the EU had “just done a better job of negotiating” with Mexico, and that changing labels on American-made parm would be a “pretty hard hit.” What this means, in practice, is that Kraft can’t sell it’s Parmesan canisters in Mexico without calling them something else, like “Parmesan-inspired” or “Salted Wood Pulp.” 

4. More dairy to Canada, but still too much dairy

The U.S. and Canada have fundamentally different approaches to regulating dairy production. In the U.S., farmers produce as much as they can sell, and the government subsidizes the industry regardless of production levels. By contrast, Canada operates under a supply management system, in which the government sets production levels for the nation’s dairy supply. It may sound strange, but it guarantees farmers will have a market for their product and that they can break even when they sell it. (Supply management has actually drawn some interest from American producers in recent years as milk prices have fallen below the cost of production.) Anyway, U.S. producers—and Trump—have long wanted to sell more of their excess U.S. dairy to Canada, and they’ve found a win with USMCA: Canada raised the percentage of dairy it will import from the U.S. as part of the new trade agreement. Counter reporter Sam Bloch penned an explanation on this phenomenon back in 2018, but this takeaway from one Canadian dairy producer kind of says it all: “It’s not going to resolve any of their issues, but they have another dumping ground for their surplus product.”

5. Labeling recognition for American Rye Whiskey, regional mezcals, and “the rum of Mexico”

Another side letter between the U.S. and Mexico agrees to start adding new booze categories to the list of liquors recognized by each country. Already, in the U.S., all bottles labeled “tequila” and “mezcal” must come from Mexico. Similarly, in Mexico, anything you find labeled “bourbon” or “Tennessee whiskey” will have been distilled in the U.S. The side letter specifies that American Rye Whiskey sold in Mexico will come only from the U.S., and the U.S. will recognize Bacanora, Sotol, and Charanda. The first two spirits are regional mezcals, and Charanda is known as “the rum of Mexico” and must be made from sugar cane grown at or above 1,500 meters over sea level. According to The Mazatlan Post, the high elevation and volcanic soil give the sugar cane a distinctive flavor and higher sugar content. 

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]]> https://thecounter.org/fda-approves-genetically-modified-cotton-human-consumption/ Thu, 17 Oct 2019 16:09:07 +0000 https://thecounterorg.wpengine.com/?p=19962 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this month greenlit a genetically engineered form of cotton for use in human food. That’s right, cotton. The stuff of t-shirts and mom jeans and bed sheets and window drapes. Researchers believe that a modified species of the plant can create a new, cheap protein source for both people […]

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]]> The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this month greenlit a genetically engineered form of cotton for use in human food. That’s right, cotton. The stuff of t-shirts and mom jeans and bed sheets and window drapes. Researchers believe that a modified species of the plant can create a new, cheap protein source for both people and animals.

American farmers produce 9.6 billion pounds of cotton every year—worth $7 billion in value—and contribute to a third of the world’s exports of the crop, according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA). To this day, the lion’s share of value is rooted in its fibers—the fluffy, white material that grows in big, round bulbs after flowering. What’s game-changing about the new, GM version of the crop—developed by Keerti Rathore, a professor of plant biotechnology at Texas A&M University—is that it won’t affect the cotton fibers we’ve come to wear and love. Instead, its potential lies in the way that it alters cottonseeds, a byproduct of the plant.

Unlike the seeds we’re used to eating—sesame, poppy, sunflower—cottonseeds contain a chemical called gossypol, a toxin which can cause symptoms in humans including severe respiratory distress, impaired immune and reproductive functions, and even death. (In the 20th century, scientists conducted research on gossypol as a cheap main ingredient for non-hormonal male birth control. That research was later abandoned due to concerns about toxicity and a lack of cultural support.) Gossypol is also toxic to most animals, except for ruminants like cattle, whose multi-chambered stomachs allow them to break it down—some cattle feed currently contains cottonseed. 

But gossypol notwithstanding, cottonseeds also contain unlocked potential. In particular, they have high levels of protein, which could make them a valuable part of the food system. For more than two decades, that’s what Rathore has been trying to do. “If it was possible to utilize the protein locked up in the cottonseed directly for human nutrition, we could meet the basic protein requirements of over 500 million people [per year],” Rathore estimates. “That’s the amount of cottonseed that’s annually produced in the world. And all we are doing right now is just feeding cows.”

Since 1996, Rathore has worked to “silence” the gene in cotton plants responsible for producing gossypol in seeds. In 2006, he encountered a breakthrough by using a biological process called RNA interference that disrupts an organism’s normal biological functions. Rathore found that targeted interference could reduce gossypol levels in cottonseeds, while allowing other parts of the cotton plant, such as its stem, flower, and roots, to retain normal levels of the chemical.

That last quality is important to retain because what’s toxic to eaters also happens to serve as a natural bodyguard against pests. One species of cotton that lacks gossypol—named Hopi cotton after the Native American tribe that has long cultivated it—has proven to be more vulnerable to insects when planted in certain regions.

“You can grow Hopi cotton in places like Arizona [and] New Mexico, the reason being that these are very dry states and the insect pressure is much lower compared to, say, Texas or Mississippi,” Rathore says. 

Rathore’s 2006 findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Soon after, Cotton Inc., the nonprofit arm of the cotton industry’s checkoff program, began funding part of Rathore’s research.

In the years since, Rathore and a select group of farmers have conducted greenhouse and field studies of the genetically engineered seed to ensure consistency in cotton yield, seed yield, and gossypol content. Field tests took place in Texas, Mississippi, and North Carolina, three cotton-growing states with somewhat different climates. In 2015 trials, gossypol levels of Rathore’s GM cotton clocked in at 260 parts-per-million on average, well below FDA’s 450 parts-per-million cap. For context, gossypol levels for the control group reached 8,300 parts-per-million.

In September 2017, Rathmore submitted the cotton to both USDA and FDA for approval. Last year, USDA deregulated the genetically engineered cotton, giving farmers free rein to grow the crop. FDA’s move this month gives producers permission to use it as an ingredient in human food, as well as animal feed.

There’s still a bit of time before low-gossypol cotton becomes a part of the food system. Rathore tells me that his team is in talks with seed companies, which will be able to sell the genetically engineered species to farmers if they license Rathore’s technology. Beyond the bureaucratic aspects, low-gossypol cottonseeds also face the challenge of overcoming the cultural stigma surrounding genetically modified foods. 

Cottonseed products aren’t categorically groundbreaking. Cottonseed oil, which is chemically processed to be gossypol free, is a commonly available cooking oil. But Rathore envisions that cottonseeds may one day be used in a wide range of snacks, such as baked goods, granola bars, or by themselves, roasted like peanuts. Last year, Rathore told the San Antonio Express that cottonseeds have a “mild, nutty” taste.

Then there’s the possibility of using cottonseed meal—which is what remains of cottonseeds after oil is extracted from them—into feed for aquaculture operations. As The New Food Economy has reported, the seafood farming industry has long sought plant-based replacements for key ingredients in fishmeal— namely forage fish and fish oil, which are limited in supply. In recent years, feed producers have experimented with the likes of soy, canola, and even wood. However, researchers have also criticized the production of these substitutes for the land-based resources required to harvest them.

Unlike those ingredients, cottonseed is already readily available as a byproduct of cotton farming, and thus has a lower marginal environmental cost, says Kater Hake, vice-president of agricultural and environmental research at Cotton Inc.

“The use of [cotton] products doesn’t require any additional fertilizer or water or land,” Hake says. “Right now the protein can only be used for ruminant animals, primarily cattle. Being able to take that protein to other sources is just a wonderful thing [for] the total food supply.”

Some research regarding the extent to which cottonseed can be used as an aquaculture feed substitute has been published for species like black sea bass, shrimp and mitten crabs. In these studies, scientists found various, positive replacement thresholds that have no adverse effect on growth. Similar research for human appetites remains to be seen.

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]]> https://thecounter.org/monsanto-bayer-roundup-moms-across-america/ Tue, 27 Aug 2019 20:29:55 +0000 http://thecounterorg.wpengine.com/?p=18839 A recently released trove of emails shows that Monsanto’s plans to defend Roundup, its signature, controversial weedkiller, included an idea to “beat the shit” out of an advocacy group that claimed it caused diseases in children. Documents made public as part of the discovery process in ongoing litigation against Monsanto’s parent company Bayer show that […]

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]]> A recently released trove of emails shows that Monsanto’s plans to defend Roundup, its signature, controversial weedkiller, included an idea to “beat the shit” out of an advocacy group that claimed it caused diseases in children.

Documents made public as part of the discovery process in ongoing litigation against Monsanto’s parent company Bayer show that executives sought advice from public university research scientists in dealing with blowback from Moms Across America, a California-based nonprofit with ties to the organic industry. The group leads campaigns against genetically modified organisms, and coordinates testing for chemicals and toxins in the food supply, according to a recent tax filing. 

On June 28, 2013, the group’s executive director, Zen Honeycutt, posted an open letter to Hugh Grant, then-CEO of Monsanto, on the organization’s blog. The letter asked Grant to stop selling Roundup-ready seeds, citing concerns about the chemical glyphosate, which is sprayed on the crops that are genetically modified to tolerate it. 

“We know you want to help the world. We ask you to have the courage to acknowledge that GM practices and Roundup are hurting our world,” she wrote, citing studies by a controversial research scientist, Stephanie Seneff, who suggests glyphosate may be a key contributor to increased rates of obesity and autism in the United States. “The auto industry issues a recall when their product is suspected of causing harm. We ask you to recall Roundup … until the consumption and long-term use of such products are proven safe.”

The letter also stated that when the mothers take their “children off GMOs, and feed them organic food, their symptoms either disappear or dramatically improve,” which Honeycutt admitted is not scientifically substantiated. This iffy-yet-persistent claim flies in the face of widespread scientific agreement that genetically modified food is safe to eat. (Only about one-third of American adults agree, Pew Research found.)

The newly published emails show how Monsanto pounced on the group. Five days after the open letter published, Dan Goldstein, a company executive, sent Honeycutt’s letter to Wayne Parrott, a University of Georgia crop scientist, and Bruce Chassy, a University of Illinois biochemist.

In emails to The New Food Economy, both scientists say they were not employed by Monsanto, but nonetheless had business dealings with the company. Parrott acknowledged the company paid for travel to conferences “on a few occasions,” and Chassy’s university received at least $57,000 to support his work, according to WBEZ in Chicago. “If money given to the university bothers you, then support higher state budgets,” he says.

“Monsanto is considering response options. I wanted you both to at least be aware of the activity,” Goldstein wrote them in 2013. “In the longer haul this suggests a child health focus for the anti-GMO campaigns in the future. Or perhaps I should say it is confirmative as all three of us have watched the evolution in this direction over the past several years. Any advice or ideas for responses would be gladly accepted.”

“Bottom line, start defending yourselves and do not expect others to come to your defense while industry remains silent,” Parrott responded. “Start by buying ‘our side of the story’ ads.”

Chassy agreed. “The anti-GM crowd has very cleverly out-flanked the naive belief that providing good science-based information will win the day. They have published papers, bad papers but they don’t care. They have filed lawsuits, flawed suits but they don’t care,” he wrote. “The funniest part about the letter is how it says my children got better when I fed them organic. There you have it. That’s your enemy. Beat the shit out of them and put them on the defensive and you won’t have this problem.”

“I have to say that you are spot on,” Goldstein replied. “I have been arguing for a week to beat the shit out of them and have clearly lost. We don’t want to be seen as beating up on mothers, nobody will listen to it anyway, it has to be done by third parties, it’s an industry problem not a Monsanto problem … I have heard it all this week.” 

The scientists didn’t back down. “Rolling over and playing dead is not an option. Silence implies being guilty of every thing you are accused of,” Parrott wrote on July 3, 2013.

“You can beat up the organic industry that paid for and wrote that letter,” Chassy agreed. “With a little imagination you can even make it fun. For example, Stonyfield Farms campaigns against GMOs, and they are owned by Danone. So here we have a French company spending millions to bash an American company in America. Wow could I do something with that on the 4th of July.”

On its website, Moms Across America names a number of organic companies as donors, including Organic Valley, Nature’s Path, Dr. Bronner’s, and the Organic Consumers Association. Additionally, the group sustains itself by selling unregulated health supplements. 

The emails are part of a huge cache of documents that have been gradually released since 2016, when alleged victims started suing the chemical giant. Last year, Dewayne Johnson, a former groundskeeper, won a jury trial in San Francisco, alleging that Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After finding that Monsanto had obscured the health risks of Roundup and other herbicides, a jury awarded Johnson $289 million, which was later reduced to $78 million. Thousands of plaintiffs are waiting in the wings, saying they also suffered from using glyphosate-based weedkillers.

The batch of files released by Johnson’s law firm Baum Hedlund include company emails, documents, transcripts, and test results that show Monsanto had been trying to suppress information about glyphosate as far back as 1979. The trove reveals how the chemical giant monitored and discredited journalists, and considered taking legal action against activists, including the singer Neil Young. Emails also show how Monsanto orchestrated a Republican effort to undermine the credibility of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), and cut taxpayer funding for it over the glyphosate issue. 

The emails also reveal the chemical giant itself had doubts about the safety of the herbicide. In 2014, Donna Farmer, a Monsanto toxicologist, told a spokesman that promotional copy about glyphosate “cannot say it is ‘safe’ … we can say history of safe use, used safely, etc.” 

After IARC classified glyphosate as probably carcinogenic to humans in 2015, a scientific consultancy hired by Monsanto was preparing to submit an abstract for a paper as a rebuttal, potentially titled “An Expert Panel Concludes there is No Evidence that Glyphosate is Carcinogenic to Humans.” In an email, Tom Sorahan, an epidemiologist at the University of Birmingham who consulted for Monsanto, cautioned that “we can’t say ‘no evidence’ because that means there is not a single scrap of evidence, and I don’t see how we can go that far.”

The document releases happen to coincide with new federal action on glyphosate. Next week, the Environmental Protection Agency will close a routine assessment of glyphosate, which it had delayed in May to extend public comment. The rulemaking is courting public resistance, with comments imploring the agency to take Roundup and other herbicides off the market. But that type of opposition dogged Monsanto for years. In his emails with Chassy and Parrott, Goldstein noted that a petition to increase glyphosate use on specialty crops had been slammed, with nearly 11,000 negative comments submitted in two days.

“We are on the way to being corporate road kill,” he wrote. “It will not be a pretty sight, but all I can do is stand by and watch.”

Bayer, the company that now owns Monsanto, did not reply to a request for comment by press time. We will update this story if we receive a response.

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]]> https://thecounter.org/avocado-breeding-gene-editing-disease-resistance/ Tue, 20 Aug 2019 12:00:44 +0000 http://thecounterorg.wpengine.com/?p=18685 From toast to theme restaurants, the avocado has soared in popularity in the United States. Consumption is up from 436.6 million pounds annually to 2.4 billion pounds between 1985 and 2018. Researchers from Texas Tech University and the University of Buffalo have studied avocados in a way that is best described as a 23andMe test. They compared […]

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]]> From toast to theme restaurants, the avocado has soared in popularity in the United States. Consumption is up from 436.6 million pounds annually to 2.4 billion pounds between 1985 and 2018.

Researchers from Texas Tech University and the University of Buffalo have studied avocados in a way that is best described as a 23andMe test. They compared the roots of the Hass cultivar (a Mexican-Guatemalan hybrid) and a Mexican strain, to West Indian, Guatemalan, and other Mexican varieties. They discovered that the avocado genome has naturally evolved over time to increase its resistance to disease—a finding that could be significant for the future of avocado breeding.

The discovery could help growers breed more disease-resistant avocados, and eventually lead to varieties that are drought-resistant or less temperature sensitive, and can be grown in northern and drier climates. More growing options could help supply match demand and protect shoppers from a price hike like this year’s. In early July, avocado prices were 129 percent higher than they were at the same time in 2018.

Despite the study’s findings on disease resistance, researcher Victor Albert, one of the study’s authors, says that avocado tree roots are susceptible to fungal rots. One possible solution, he says, is to use genome-assisted breeding—that is, identify a gene that performs a protective function, look for that gene in various avocado varieties, and then breed new strains that contain the desired genes. (CRISPR guacamole, anyone?)

Albert says that the avocado species was a “natural study topic” for him. In addition to being a professor of biological sciences at the University of Buffalo, he is an evolutionary biologist with interests in the genomic bases that differentiate plant species. He believes that climate change and accompanying disease changes are the biggest factors that impact avocado agriculture, and felt this research would be helpful for the future of avocado breeding.

In order to conduct the study, researchers had to isolate the DNA from avocado leaves and—in computing terms—sequence it in a “massively parallel fashion on state-of-the-art genomics equipment,” Albert says. In lay terms, that means they used several computers simultaneously to gather data on the avocado that they then analyzed in comparison to other plants to “see what avocado’s secrets were,” as he describes it.

Albert says he has high hopes for the impact of their research: “What we’ve found might help keep the price of guacamole low for the future … and the farmers still in business. At least that’s the hope!” The next step is for bioengineers to locate the genes involved in temperature and drought tolerance.

But Michael Clegg, an academic researcher and retired professor of biological sciences from the University of California, Irvine, estimates that it will be 20 to 30 years before we see any economic value from the findings. That’s due in part to the high costs of field tests. And even that might not be enough time. “We tend to underestimate the time it takes for an innovation to develop from basic knowledge to final product, and this is especially true in plant improvement,” he says.

In the meantime, the avocado’s popularity has a downside. In 2016, Michoacán, the Mexican state that produces most of the country’s avocados, dealt with illegal deforestation to keep up with demand and a hike in activity from criminal organizations like Los Caballeros Templarios (The Knights Templar). Local residents voiced concerns that the growers’ use of chemicals caused breathing and stomach problems for their children.

And lower prices aren’t good news for everyone. “While growing more avocados means lower prices for buyers, it also means there’s a loss of value for growers,” says Albert.

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]]> https://thecounter.org/fda-gene-edited-cattle-antibiotic-resistant-crispr-dna/ Thu, 15 Aug 2019 20:09:45 +0000 http://thecounterorg.wpengine.com/?p=18649 How do you get a better cow? You breed it. For decades, cattle ranchers, dairy farmers, and others have relied on a billion-dollar animal genetics industry to get fitter, happier, and more productive livestock, working with specialists to find the best parents in the barn, and paying top dollar for elite semen. It’s a costly […]

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]]> How do you get a better cow? You breed it. For decades, cattle ranchers, dairy farmers, and others have relied on a billion-dollar animal genetics industry to get fitter, happier, and more productive livestock, working with specialists to find the best parents in the barn, and paying top dollar for elite semen. It’s a costly process, and some farmers mate selectively for generations before the whole herd comes out right.

Imagine if that could happen faster—say, in a year or two, instead of decades. That’s the promise of gene-editing, a still-emerging technology in agriculture. Biologists use precision technology, such as CRISPR, to break the double helix, delete sections of those DNA strands, and then insert new genes that can occur naturally in other breeds. Boosters say these “molecular scissors” are a high-tech, rapid update on traditional cross-breeding, which has been practiced since time immemorial. 

Those advocates include Recombinetics, a Minnesota-based animal genetics company. Its signature accomplishment is the “polled,” or hornless, Holstein dairy cow, which scientist Dan Carlson achieved by “turning off” the gene for the horns that farmers otherwise mechanically remove for safety reasons. That mutation occurs naturally in other breeds, like the Angus beef cow, and can be achieved rapidly through gene editing. This is why Mitch Abrahamsen, a company executive, has said his gene-edited animal is the same as one that’s cross-bred conventionally. 

It turns out he’s wrong about that. Last month, scientists in the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Veterinary Medicine found that Recombinetics’ polled cattle had some notable irregularities. During a routine data run, they unexpectedly found foreign, non-bovine DNA that had bound itself to the animal’s genetic sequence during the edits—specifically, genes from the lab material. And while no one’s saying that the mutation is unsafe, either to humans or animals, no one can guarantee its safety either. It’s casting the slam-dunk claims about gene editing in doubt, and animal scientists are calling to pause the rush to food of the future.

The discovery was an accident. Alexis Norris, an FDA bioinformatician, was tinkering with new, unfinished software that the agency will use to analyze massive caches of information associated with products⁠—like gene-edited animals and cell therapies⁠—that biotech companies hope to bring to market. For testing purposes, she grabbed data from the hornless cow’s genome from Carlson’s published research, which is available online. Almost as a lark, she threw in the part of the genetic code where Carlson had turned off the horns, because it was small and quick to process.

That’s when Norris saw something unusual. Gene editing is often described as a cut-and-paste job. As geneticists remove parts of the strands, they’ll insert new material, called DNA templates, that adhere to the newly exposed ends. The templates are introduced to cells through a bacterial molecule called a plasmid. In this case, it wasn’t just the templates that adhered. It was the whole plasmid. These vehicles commonly carry genes that are associated with resistance to neomycin and ampicillin, which are antibiotics used to treat common cattle ailments, like E. coli infections and pneumonia. Essentially, the cow was cross-contaminated with antibiotic-resistant lab material.

“When you create a DNA break, and that could be with a genome edit, the cell wants to repair itself,” says Heather Lombardi, who directs animal bioengineering at FDA. “Ideally, it will repair itself correctly. But it can also integrate any DNA that’s around. There’s that potential.”

The discovery that gene editing can, in fact, introduce foreign DNA to an animal, could be an item of concern to the livestock industry. Under current regulations, food from gene-edited animals is treated as if it came from genetically modified animals—that is, animals that were mutated in a way that couldn’t have happened naturally. What’s the difference? Think about the hornless Holstein. Theoretically, it’d be possible to breed one naturally, by mating cows on the farm. Compare that to the AquAdvantage salmon, which was created with genetic material from an eel—a progression that could only happen in a lab. 

The AquAdvantage took over 25 years to be cleared for market, a fate that other companies are trying to avoid. Recombinetics has argued that milk from gene-edited cows wouldn’t be a novel innovation, but identical to what we’re already drinking. In the parlance of FDA, that milk would be “generally recognized as safe” to eat, and wouldn’t have to endure the decades-long approval process. (The company’s 2016 application for market approval failed.) Meanwhile, pork farmers eager for disease-resistant swine have asked the United States Department of Agriculture, which has a closer relationship with the livestock industry, to take over regulation of gene-edited animals. 

This isn’t the first time a plasmid has stuck to an edited gene. In a pre-print study of Norris’s discovery—that is, an academic article awaiting peer review—the authors found multiple instances in other experiments. It’s happened to scientists who use CRISPR to edit fish and mouse genomes, and others who use an older gene-editing tool called ZFNs. Those integration errors are often not major findings, leading Lombardi and Norris to suspect that they’re underreported or overlooked. In a statement, Tad Sonstegard, an executive at a Recombinetics subsidiary called Acceligen, acknowledged that the company hadn’t found the foreign plasmid, but added that it now screens specifically for them.

It should be noted that the extra DNA introduced to the cow isn’t dangerous. The antibiotic resistance is controlled by another DNA sequence, called a promoter, that’s coded for bacteria. For that reason, Lombardi says the trait is “unlikely” to turn on in cows. Laura Epstein, an FDA spokeswoman, said the agency couldn’t comment on whether or not the finding would affect any kind of petition to approve hornless Holsteins, but added that the genes aren’t a safety risk, per se. (Recombinetics hasn’t re-applied since its failed bid in 2016.)

Ultimately, the finding shows that scientists still have much to learn about gene editing, and that it clearly isn’t just a quicker form of selective breeding. “It’s still sort of a young technology, and there’s improvements that are still being made,” says Lombardi. “Things can go wrong that you don’t intend to happen, and they’re not always detected. And so we say, although it may not present any additional risk or safety concern, we think we should look at it to make sure.”

Correction: After this article published, FDA contacted us to note that the antibiotic resistance is “unlikely” to turn on in cows, but that outcome isn’t certain.

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