Blog Posts

Assembly Members Linda Stender and David Wolfe with GE Labeling activists (FWW’s Jim Walsh back left) at the New Jersey Statehouse

By Seth Gladstone

Of the many busy days at the New Jersey Statehouse in Trenton, February 21 stood out. Legislators and hurried staffers weaved through the crowded hallways from committee hearings to caucus meetings and back. Lobbyists and reporters moved from hushed conversations to new hushed conversations. And activists devoted to causes ranging from gun control to education reform to Lou Gehrig’s Disease gathered in meeting rooms and offices to press their cases with lawmakers.

But perhaps the broadest and most diverse group of activists at the Statehouse that day were gathered for a single, united cause: the launch of a statewide campaign seeking legislation requiring the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) foods in New Jersey. Along with Food & Water Watch, a mix of activists and advocates from environmental, labor, health, student, farming, faith and business organizations were joined to tell legislators and the press, “Let me decide” when it comes to GE foods.

“Over the years, consumers have fought for labeling of calorie counts, fat content and ingredients lists so they can make smarter, healthier choices for their families,” said Jim Walsh, Food & Water Watch’s Eastern Region Director. “But as food production technology evolves, so should our food labeling. Consumers have a right to know which products on market shelves contain genetically engineered ingredients. In short, let us decide.”

Amanda Nesheiwat, a student leader with NJ Sustainable Collegiate Partners, echoed Jim’s sentiment. “Just as we label food with allergy warnings, we should label GE foods. The health risks tied to GE foods are reason enough not to give corporations the power to dictate the decisions that consumers should be able to make on their own,” she said.

 Joining the activists at the Statehouse were two state legislators representing two different political parties, both pledging their commitment to do all they could among their peers to move GE labeling legislation in the coming weeks and months. Assembly Members David Wolfe (R) and Linda Stender (D) both spoke passionately about their own personal motivations – family health, constituency health, and community health – for working hard to make a GE labeling law a reality in New Jersey.

 On a busy day at the Statehouse, optimism ran strong that New Jersey might become the first state in the union to label genetically engineered foods. The campaign marches on.

By Nisha Swinton

Supporters of the “Right to Know GMO CT” coalition united at the Legislative Office Building on Feb. 8 to ask the Connecticut General Assembly a candid question: Are you standing up for consumers’ rights to know whether or not the food they eat and feed their families with has been genetically engineered?
 
Food & Water Watch is excited to support the great work and grassroots power that GMO-free CT has initiated to pass groundbreaking legislation to label genetically engineered foods in Connecticut. The growing Connecticut Coalition includes GMO-Free CT, NOFA CT, Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch and many others – over 100 local, state and national organizations who are committed to ensuring Connecticut consumers know whether their foods are genetically engineered. Over the past few weeks alone, 109 businesses and organizations across the state have joined the coalition, 180 residents have attended campaign action meetings, and grassroots leaders have scheduled over 20 educational events around the state (for a full events listings visit: see www.gmofreect.org).

The vast majority of processed foods contain GE ingredients, which are largely untested, unlabeled, and potentially unsafe. Unfortunately, far too many American consumers remain clueless about whether or not their food is genetically engineered, but Connecticut residents are sharp, informed, driven and refuse to sit back in silence when it comes to demanding that GE food be labeled. Perhaps the most critical action we can take right now towards creating and sustaining an honest food system is to label GE foods. Once these foods are labeled, all consumers – regardless of where their live or how much money they make – become empowered with the knowledge to choose safety over processed chemicals.
 
“As someone who has lived in the Hartford area all of my life and worked as a reporter for several of the state’s newspapers, I am keenly aware of the sophistication and intelligence among Connecticut residents. I have faith that business owners, residents and coalition allies will not stop fighting until they know for certain that GE food labeling will become a way of life,” says Joanna Smiley, Food & Water Watch Public Relations Volunteer.
 
Rep. Phil Miller, D-Essex, and Diana Urban, D- North Stonington, in separate committees, introduced a bill to label GE foods, which is currently in the revisor’s office. Next steps and the exact timeframe is still to be determined, but we will keep building public support and awareness for the bill.

This Pike’s Place Market employee makes a good point – this is why Governor Inslee and Washington state legislators need to support the People’s Right to Know Initiative.

By Julia DeGraw

Food & Water Watch is proud to work on the “Label It WA” campaign to pass a genetically engineered food labeling law (I-522) in Washington State. Citizens deserve the right to know what’s in their food and it appears that Washington could lead the way in being the first state to pass a GE food labeling law.

Our field campaign is off to a great start. With our allies including Label It Washington and Seattle Tilth, we are laying the groundwork for victory. We hosted five days of action throughout the state collecting photo petitions from locations like the iconic Pike Place Market, University of Washington Vancouver and the Main Market Coop in Spokane. GE Food Labeling volunteers are having fun as they build this historic campaign in Washington.

On January 31, Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman certified the signatures that will ensure that I-522, “The Peoples right to know Genetically Engineered Food Act” will either be voted into law by the legislature or go to the ballot for public vote this November. On Feb. 14, the state legislature held a public hearing on the initiative, which was well attended with supporters of the initiative. From the hearing, it seems most likely that the legislature will choose to let the initiative go to a popular vote.

Kids in Seattle support I-522 to make GE food labels the law.

With the help of our volunteers we are well on our way to reaching our goal of 5,000 petition signatures calling on state legislators and Governor Inslee to endorse The Peoples Right to Know Initiative. Our Washington Organizers have also garnered endorsements from several Washington businesses and groups such as Dog Mountain Farm, and Lazy R Ranch who will also help pressure the state’s leaders to support labeling GE food in Washington.  We are making great progress but our job is not done. All of our voices need to be heard. If you also agree that we have the right to know what’s in our food please ‘like’ us on our Food & Water Watch—Washington Facebook page to join our campaign to help pass I-522 this November.

By Patrick Woodall

Finally, the U.S. Justice Department took some action to slow the rampant consolidation in America’s food system. Well, maybe not food, but close: beer. In January, the Justice Department filed suit to block a merger between the global beer baron that owns Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch InBev) and the largest brewer in Mexico that owns Corona (Grupo Modelo).

But this long overdue action follows decades of Justice’s antitrust cops being asleep at the switch. In 1980, there were 48 big breweries that supplied beer to the whole country and none had more than a quarter of the national market; today there really are only two: Anheuser-Busch InBev and SABMiller.

This consolidation occurred after an eye-popping wave of mergers stretching back to the Reagan administration. The two biggest American brewers were absorbed into the two giants running the industry today during President George W. Bush’s administration.

The beer section now looks a lot like the rest of the grocery store: although there are a lot of brands, most are owned by the big two. AB InBev owns Budweiser, LaBatt, Michelob, Becks, Löwenbräu, Stella Artois, St. Pauli Girl, Bass and a host of others. SABMiller owns Coors, Miller, Blue Moon, Leinenkugel, Pilsner Urquell, Fosters, Grolsch and almost 200 others.

These two companies control 80 percent of sales in the United States, and the 2,000 independent brewers (of the craft beer brands that have not been bought by the big two) control 6 percent of sales. These firms can and have raised prices – since consumers have nowhere to turn, even if they switch brands, their beer dollar is usually still going to AB InBev or SABMiller. And because the beer barons don’t like competitors, they can effectively prevent a lot of independent beers from showing up at the local stores by exerting pressure on wholesalers and distributors.

Sound like the rest of the food system? If the Department of Justice has noticed it’s not good for the beer system, maybe it’s time for them to take a look at the rest of the grocery store.

Beer drinkers have already seen fewer choices and higher prices due to industry consolidation and more mergers will make it worse. The most vibrant part of the beer industry – the thousands of independent, local, craft brewers – are being kept out of retail shelves by monopoly control of the entire supply, distribution and retail system by the big beer barons. And the deal isn’t dead yet: AB InBev has offered to restructure the acquisition to try and make it more palatable to the DOJ, but rearranging the deck chairs on this Titanic merger still gives the company a stranglehold on the beer market. Tell the Attorney General to take a stand against relentless consolidation in the food and beverage industry, and check out our executive director’s book Foodopoly for a more in-depth look at how consolidation has harmed the food system at large.

By Eve Mitchell

If we’ve learned anything in the past few weeks, it must be that the UK Food Standards Agency’s “If you tell us it’s there, we’ll look for it” approach is not a recipe for food safety.

As far as we can tell now the situation is that Irish authorities, almost by accident when trialling a new protocol, found a good deal of horsemeat in foods processed in Irish facilities, including for export. This led to widespread product recalls, more testing in Ireland and the UK and rapid assurances all round that everything was under control.

Further testing revealed even more adulterated meat, including products labelled beef that tested at 100% horsemeat. The wider the net is cast, the bigger the problem is revealed to be, and it is all too clear we are nowhere near understanding what we have been feeding our kids quite yet. If this is “under control,” we’re in trouble.

Today’s revelation is that horsemeat from the UK exported to France into the human food chain, quite possibly for processing and re-entry to the UK, contained the veterinary drug phenylbutazone, often called Bute, which is unsafe for human consumption. There are now two very serious issues at play: 1) criminality in labelling due to what has all the hallmarks of major international fraud, and 2) criminality in presenting unfit meat for sale. Read the full article…

Last night in the Republican Party’s response to President Obama’s State of the Union address, Senator Marco Rubio unintentionally added some dramatic flair to his speech when he paused to reach off-camera for a bottle of Poland Spring water. Now we have a response of our own to the “sip heard around the world.”

Dear Senator Rubio, 

First, what an epic sip! When thirst strikes, Senator Rubio, it strikes regardless of where you are or what you’re doing. In this case it struck a few feet too many to your left during your formal response to the State of the Union. Yikes.

While we’re sure you weren’t intentionally plugging Poland Spring, we’d like to offer a few suggestions for your next on-camera appearance: Read the full article…

By Sam Bernhardt

FWW’s Sam Bernhardt and members of GMO Free PA coalition at the PASA conference on Feb. 8, 2013.

People across Pennsylvania are fired up about holding big agribusiness accountable and giving consumers access to basic information about the food they are buying and eating through the labeling of genetically engineered (GE) food.

Pennsylvanians care about our farmers and labeling GE food means fighting back against the growing control of corporations like Monsanto, giving power back to farmers around the state. Agriculture is our state’s largest economy, with $5.7 billion in sales each year. And the strength of this industry isn’t just from a few behemoths: our state has over 63,000 farms, growing a wide range of produce. My personal favorite is Kennet Square, the mushroom capital of the world and home to the annual Mushroom Festival. Read the full article…

By Eleanor Bravo

After working with allies throughout the state, we were pleased when, in December 2012, New Mexico Senator Peter Wirth pre-filed a proposed amendment to the New Mexico Food Act to require the labeling of genetically engineered food and feed. In just a few weeks, Food & Water Watch and its allies, including La Montañita Co-op, Ole NM, Occupy New Mexico, Edible Santa Fe, Louie Hena of the Tesuque Puebo and Clarissa Duran, member of Seedsavers successfully drummed up grassroots support for Senate Bill 18 with more than 500 petition signatures and an event at the State Capitol Roundhouse widely covered by the press. Read the full article…

By Anna Ghosh

We all deserve the right to know what’s in our food and to decide for ourselves whether or not to buy and eat it. Concerned citizens have been fighting for protections to make sure their food was healthy for centuries and the fight for transparent food labels has been a major part of that effort.  

Food & Water Watch has been fighting – and winning – campaigns to defend consumers’ right to know what’s in their food since our inception in 2005. As a result of our campaign, Starbucks committed to make its stores rBGH-free in 2007, and in 2008, we successfully fought in nine states to keep rBGH-Free labels on dairy products. In 2009 we won a campaign to get the federal school lunch program to specifically allow schools to use federal dollars to choose rBGH-Free milk for their students.

Since 2010, we’ve collected more than 150,000 signatures opposing the FDA’s approval on AquaBounty’s GE salmon, and in 2011 and 2012, along with our allies Center for Environmental Health, Center for Food Safety, Sum of Us, Corporate Accountability International and CREDO Action, we collected more than half a million signatures from consumers refusing to purchase GE sweet corn and asking Walmart not to sell the biotech corn. We’ve also been involved in collecting and submitting official comments to oppose the approval of every new GE crop that has been considered since we started in 2005. Read the full article…

By Mitch Jones

Two recent news items highlight the need for policy makers concerned about climate change – which should be all of them, but sadly it isn’t – to rethink their recent approach to reducing carbon emissions.

When President Obama gave his Inaugural Address on January 21, he highlighted the need to take action on climate change. The mention of climate change, after the issues was largely ignored in the election before Sandy hit, was lauded by environmentalists as a sign that the Obama administration was going to do some to curb emissions. What that something would be was left unsaid.

Just three days after President Obama’s speech, carbon prices in Europe’s cap and trade system plummeted to an all time low, causing speculation that the trading regime stands on the verge of collapse. My colleague Geert de Cock wrote a post last week that explains how and why the carbon market in European has failed. Food & Water Europe has joined with other organizations across Europe calling for the EU trading system to be abolished.

The collapse of the EU system – basically a pay-to-pollute scheme – shows that as we move forward to combat climate change in the US we cannot return to the policies put forward as recently as 2009. In that year the US House passed a cap and trade bill that would have created a nationwide carbon market. And the initial news is that the administration is looking at actually reducing emissions, rather than hoping a system that hasn’t worked anywhere, will suddenly start working.

We need to address climate change now, but not by adopting pay-to-pollute deregulatory schemes cooked up in right wing think tanks. We need to truly reduce emissions, building on successes like the increase in fuel efficiency standards implemented by the Obama administration, and committing to ending our addiction to dirty fossil fuels.