As soon as the topic of coexistence came up. Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association fired off a shot, with USDA Recommends “Coexistence” with Monsanto? We say Hell No!

The Agriculture Department is dutifully drafting a comprehensive “coexistence policy” that supposedly will diffuse tensions between conventional (chemical but non-GMO), biotech, and organic farmers. Earlier this week industry and Administration officials met in Washington, D.C. to talk about coexistence. Even though the Organic Consumers Association tried to get into the meeting, we were told we weren’t welcome. The powers that be claim that the OCA doesn’t meet their criteria of being “stakeholders.” The unifying theme in these closed-door meetings is apparently that Monsanto and the other biotech companies will set aside a “compensation” fund to reimburse organic farmers whose crops or fields get contaminated. That way we’ll all be happy. Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dow, and Dupont will continue planting their hazardous crops and force-feeding animals and consumers with GMOs. Organic farmers and companies willing to cooperate will get a little compensation or “hush money.” But of course our response to Monsanto and the USDA’s plan, as you might have guessed, is hell no!

There can be no such thing as “coexistence” with a reckless and monopolistic industry that harms human health, destroys biodiversity, damages the environment, tortures and poisons animals, destabilizes the climate, and economically devastates the world’s 1.5 billion seed-saving small farmers.  Enough talk of coexistence.

It is no small wonder to me why Ronnie was not invited. Even so, he gets the whole thing wrong about “hush money.” The USDA was not proposing a cross-pollination compensation fund, actually, the Organic Seed Alliance was, along with several other organizations.

The minutes of the USDA meeting in question are available online, and there is some good discussion there, worthy of its own post. Matthew Dillon from the OSA was on the phone talking about the hush money compensation fund idea, and Bill Freese was well, not talking about coexistence at all but instead weed resistance to glyphosate. Mark McCaslin from Forage Genetics was talking about what they’ve done to foster coexistence in the 4 years they’ve been waiting for the USDA’s shiny new EIS, and Doug Goehring from the North Dakota Department of Agriculture made the radical suggestion that if the proverbial “bull” gets out of its pen to tear up your neighbor, that “Maybe you’ve got to establish two fences on both sides.” (A much more workable situation with pollen flow, actually – it’s called incompatibility genes.) The USDA also explained the three deregulation options and how it might work to place geographic restrictions on alfalfa fields.

In the short time between this December meeting and the close of the comment period, while you heard some talk about End Times for Organic agriculture if GE alfalfa was approved, Whole Foods surprised me when it announced on its company blog that it supported the 3rd option, in favor of approving GE alfalfa with geographic restrictions. Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farm opined similarly, in what would seem to be a coordinated fashion. When the USDA laid down its decision on the alfalfa in question, all hell broke loose in the organic community. (And I’m not talking about Michael Pollan deciding to reclassify alfalfa as a grass.)

The first to come out swinging was Ronnie Cummins, of course. He accused the “Organic Elite” of surrendering to Monsanto.

In the wake of a 12-year battle to keep Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation’s 25,000 organic farms and ranches, America’s organic consumers and producers are facing betrayal. A self-appointed cabal of the Organic Elite, spearheaded by Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, has decided it’s time to surrender to Monsanto.

To support this thesis, Cummins weaves together a surprising web of campaign contributions and tales of greenwashing and “Natural” fraud. Them’s fightin’ words. But the response did not come from those food companies first, instead, it came from the Non-GMO Project, which was also criticized. In Team Organic will Never Surrender to Monsanto, Director Megan Westgate corrected some of Cummins’ false claims, while calling for him to work together with them to fight genetic engineering. In her response, however, I would like to point out two very curious statements.

The first is her opening statement about the rush of radical activism. While trying to appeal to Cummins’ desire for a return to radicalism, this is instead adding to the legitimacy of such actions. While Megan only interrupted a inaugural ceremony, others thinking along the same lines have destroyed field stations and research in UC Davis in 1999 to uprooting GE grapes in France last year. While she is trying to convince Cummins’ that her organization is sincere about being totally-completely-non-negotiably anti-GE, there is a danger in promoting the direct action style of “combat” in what it can lead to. “Combat” was her choice of words, and it does not promote civil political dialog.

The second thing that stuck out was how Megan Westgate described herself “As a founding board member of the Non-GMO Project, and its first (and only) Executive Director”. This implies that she both founded the Non-GMO Project and directed it from the beginning. Neither is true. Nor is her description of its history in the following paragraph, where she says that the organization started in Tuscon, Arizona. It started in Berkeley, California, and it mimicked the approach initially going on in Tuscon (which Megan doubtlessly was involved in by her description) of contacting manufacturers to pressure them to not buy GE crops for use in their food. Later, when the food companies (Whole Foods, Organic Valley, Stonyfield Farm and several others) took over the project, they made her the Executive Director even though there was someone else who ran it before her – they just didn’t have the title of “Executive Director.” How do I know all this? Robin Jane Roff, a geography researcher wrote half of her thesis on it, and what not only a volunteer for the project at one point, but also interviewed the then-organizer. The Non GMO Project’s history is briefly described in No Alternative, a peer-reviewed article. Suffice to say, both Cummins’ and Westgate’s descriptions of the history and purpose of the Non-GMO Project are wrong.

My take on the Non-GMO Project is that it is an organization  intended to create a niche market for non-GE foods. As such, it has even been saying that being certified organic is not enough to avoid genetic engineering – you have to get certified as such. Insofar as it verifies products of being below a certain amount of GE material, it is not a greenwashing effort. However, in the past year they have begun to market themselves by trying to raise doubts about the safety of GE foods, and presenting their verified products as being “safe” from those risks. As they are trying to build a brand name, they need people in their target demographic to want to pay more for the ‘verified’ food products, which is probably why the public response to Cummins and the OCA is not to condemn the accusations of “surrender” but to instead try to make peace. His audience is their niche market.

And I almost forgot one detail that makes the Cummins vs Westgate argument more interesting still – Ronnie Cummins is on the communications committee of the Non-GMO Project. Sounds like harmonious communication. (See note at bottom)

Publicly, the response from these food companies (and other anti-GE organizations) was all along the lines of “fighting the common enemy” – that being Monsanto, of course. Within a day of each other, Whole Foods and Stonyfield Farm said pretty much the same thing. Blogs and twitter accounts lit up with chatter. (In what was a smart move for their group, they are trying to rally around raising money to sue the USDA over the alfalfa decision and more.) In particular, I would like to mention Barth Anderson at Fair Food Fight, who gives an animated summary of other parts of this story that I have left out, and whose opinion I will come back to.

In private, however, Whole Foods circulated an email that went a little further. This was revealed by Cummins in his next tirade against Whole Foods and more, titled Monsanto Nation: Exposing Monsanto’s Minions.He took umbrage at the following passage from their no-longer-internal memo:

Why is the OCA spreading misinformation? That’s a hard question for us to answer. Perhaps because we don’t share their narrow view of what it means to support organics, or perhaps because we do not support them with donations. Either way, it’s a shame that an organization that claims to “campaign for health, justice and sustainability” can’t simply tell the truth. This just confuses consumers. Despite all their noise, no industry leaders listen to the OCA – but uninformed consumers might. Their fear-mongering tactics, combined with the OCA’s lack of transparency about its funding sources, underscore the fact that it is neither credible nor trustworthy. We can only assume their activities are intended for further fund-raising.

Ouch. Cummins’ response was less visceral, but still focused on trying to divert them from their current business practices, and trying to highlight how much this event has pushed these organizations to campaign harder against GE. He also considers campaigning against Whole Foods. (The full Whole Foods email is available here for context, courtesy of the OCA.)

While the chatter about this deregulation event is dying down, it has revealed something very interesting about the landscape of opinion about genetic engineering amongst its opponents in the organic community. Some are willing to pursue options for coexistence of GE and non-GE, while others are unwavering in their position and will accept nothing short of no-GE-whatsoever. In other words, that one farmer’s right not to grow trumps another’s right to grow. In response to Cummins and the Organic Consumers Association, the organizations that advocated for co-existence could have used this opportunity to call out the unilateral stance of the OCA and how it reveals the kind of thinking that leads to polarized debate and likely, a complete loss for their side. Ronnie Cummins is probably not the ally that they seek, and the next time they talk about anything smacking of co-existence this will come up again, and again.

This is one interesting exchange, but it is part of a wider issue that appears to be troubling the non-GE sector of American agriculture: to be non-GE or anti-GE? To coexist or to impose? (To commit absolutely to a philosophy or do what makes money?) The USDA was considering an option that could have changed how GE crops would be regulated, something that would have been better, from their perspective, than the complete deregulation that did occur for alfalfa. If these organizations instead backed the coexistence proposal, would the outcome have been different? Strangely, I have heard many people complain that the USDA didn’t choose the third “coexistence” option, but when asked, none of them supported it when it was proposed. I guess agreeing to co-existence would mean giving up on the pure anti-GE campaign to just be non-GE. There is an identity crisis going on in the organic and non-GE community, and all it took was giving a third option to reveal it. The next step should be to explore the diversity of opinions and see what people actually think, not a handful of opinion-leaders. Those opinion leaders are saying that co-existence is not possible.

How about actual co-existence? Let me return to Barth Anderson:

But let’s face up to the cold, cruel reality on “coexistence,” organic activists and bloggers. Organic ag has been coexisting with Monsanto and GE crops — for years — and to believe otherwise is lunatic, crazypants denial. To claim that organics will never coexist with biotech when GE corn is popping up in Mexico of all places; to show the unmitigated gall of telling organic farmers that they shouldn’t receive compensation for damages or expect organic consumers to endorse such a thing; to believe that fighting for a ban is better than giving farmers the regulations they need to exist in the real world alongside biotech ag — it’s the absolute, astonishing height of absurdity.

Coexistence is not the death of organics, and compensation is not “hush money.”

While everyone seems to be talking about compensation and losing organics and political pressure, etc, there is a glimmer of good news about the prospect of getting disparate segments of agriculture to cooperate. For several years there has been an agreement in place in the Imperial Valley, CA, where most alfalfa seed is grown. The agreement states that none of their GE alfalfa is to be grown there, to protect the markets of the many non-GE alfalfa seed producers. Coexistence, without any lawsuits, grandstanding, or name-calling. You mean farmers talk to each other and figure out solutions between each other and companies like Forage Genetics? Amazing!

While rifts appear to have emerged between those who are happy with compromises and those who are not, for now these anti-GE organizations appear to be trying to get along again. Ronnie Cummins will be talking Thursday evening during a live internet broadcast about the issue of “coexistence” (in scare quotes) with genetic engineering, for those interested. It will likely be an attempt to bring wavering opinions back in line with their uncompromising viewpoint, which will ultimately only make it harder for them all.

Note: As of 10-18-2011 the Communications Committee page on the Non-GMO Project site is gone. The committee still exists, according to this document, however there is no information about who is on this committee on the site anymore. From the Google Cache of 10-08-2011, the committee consisted of these people:

Communications Committee Members:

Bob Gerner, The Natural Grocery Company
Brie Johnson, Straus Family Creamery
Corinne Shindelar, Independent Natural Food Retailers Association
Franklin A. Santana, Down to Earth ALL VEGETARIAN Organic & Natural
Jeffrey Smith, Institute for Responsible Technology
Ken Roseboro, The Organic and Non-GMO Report
Maria Emmer-Aanes, Nature’s Path Organic Foods
Mark Squire, Good Earth Natural and Organic Foods
Nona Evans, Whole Foods Market
Patrick Conner, The Big Carrot
Phil Bereano, Activist & Scholar on GMO Issues
Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association
Todd Kluger, Lundberg Family Farms
Tom Wright, Sustainable Business Practices
Trudy Bialic, PCC Natural Markets

The first thing that occurs to me in this discussion about the hybrid seed is that there still is a lot of misinformation flying around about it. Beverly Bell, who ‘sounded the alarm’ about farmers supposedly planning to buy and then burn the donated hybrid seed, continues to make stuff up about the situation. While Monsanto never offered to donate GE seeds, Bell claims that the Haitian Agricultural Ministry rejected such an offer. Ronnie Cummins from the Organic Consumers Association assumes it to be true and expands upon the tall tale:

“Monsanto wanted initially to dump GMO seeds on Haiti, but even the corrupt Haitian government knew that this would spark a rebellion, so Monsanto cleverly decided to dump hybrid seeds instead.”

However according to Monsanto, they never offered GE seeds, ever.

Bell and Cummins both repeat the claim that hybrid seed cannot be saved, or is worthless to save. Also not true. The traits of saved hybrid seed will have a distribution of combinations of their parents’ traits, but will still grow. I would like you to watch this short video which contains an interview with an “Agronomist” named Mark who is taking part in apparent protests against Monsanto in Haiti.

I put “Agronomist” in scare quotes because they profess to having expertise in agronomy and yet they make false statements that a responsible agronomist would not make. Again, he repeats the claim that hybrid seeds cannot be saved, but he also continues to drum up opposition to the seed donation on the idea that they could be GMOs! (Even though the interviewer points out that they are not.)

There is also a very troubling thread of paternalism going on here. After the dire food needs of developing countries, the most troublesome issue as I see it is when people in industrialized nations decide to tell people who are worse off what they can or cannot do. It seems that everyone’s got a vision for the ideal agricultural situation in Haiti – some would like to see them produce enough food to feed the country with hybrid seed, others would like to see them stick to traditional (low-yielding) open-pollinated varieties. Few have mentioned the possibility that Haiti could develop its own local high-producing hybrids down the road. So is everyone just telling the Haitians what to do? No, there is an asymmetry.

The seeds are donated to the nation of Haiti, and will be distributed within the country at a low price to those that wish to buy and plant them. The seeds are not being given out for free, which keeps local seed producers from being driven out of business by having to compete against free seed. No one is forced to grow these seeds if they don’t want to (unless of course you agree that Haiti has a shortage of  seed). And farm inputs to help the seeds grow are also being donated.

The above protest was organized by Mouvman Peyizan Papay (MPP), the organization that Mark the “agronomist” works for. I find it troubling that someone who is conveying false information about hybrids is intimately connected with the initiation of this protest, which means that they could have misled all these protesters with the justification for the protest. (The protest was also apparently against the Haitian president, which is why I called it an ‘apparent protest against Monsanto.’) If they have led the farmers to believe that the seeds cannot be saved, then they have treated these people as mere means to some political or social end, which is wrong.

Indeed, what is the reason for the protest? Is it just to convey the message that ‘We think money would be more help to us than seed and we would like our government to understand that,’ that would be one thing. But I don’t think so. The purpose of this protest may be to stop the hybrid seed donation, which is where the paternalistic asymmetry comes in.

Monsanto is not limiting the choices available to the Haitian farmers by making this donation, however, several well-meaning people and organizations are trying to limit their ability to choose this seed. By continuing to falsely claim that the seeds are genetically engineered, or covering up the fact that the seeds can be saved but just do not breed true, they are also trying to mislead the farmers into rejecting the seed on prejudice.

Developing countries have many different kinds of food and farming systems, and they should be able to choose how they want to do it. I mentioned before that maybe there could be a local hybrid seed economy, with a few breeders specializing in hybrid versions of Haitian crops. (I’m sure that Monsanto would like to open up a Haitian breeding station and sales office  someday as well.) Part of the reaction to this seed donation is the fear of change – that small subsistence farmers in Haiti will be unable to adapt to a changing agricultural system and will be left behind to continue into poverty. At the same time, preventing them from having the option of moving beyond mere subsistence is also leaving them behind in a different way. Haiti imports at least 50 percent of its food, continually leaving them dependent upon foreign aid in both food and money (which the agronomist above preferred). Tariffs and subsidies play a role, but do does local production capacity.

In response to the dependence argument, Ewan commented,

The norms of farming have changed over time – with the advent of hybrids seed saving has become less the norm and more an oddity – this is a trend you’ll often see when a manufacturing process becomes so highly specialized as to require experts to do it – breeders create new hybrids, farmers farm – breeders probably wouldn’t make the best farmers (they’re trained as breeders) farmers probably not the best breeders etc – that’s how any discipline advances, higher specialization leading to a better end product.

Along with the misinformation about hybrids, there has been an upwelling of opposition to the very idea of hybrids themselves. Ronnie Cummins doesn’t like them, people on blogs don’t like em, there are even companies trying to literally bank off of a recent opposition to hybrid seed. But what these people are missing is that although you have to pay someone to produce your hybrid seed (or take special measures to produce them yourselves), the yield or other trait benefits you get outweigh the cost of producing them. Otherwise farmers wouldn’t buy them. Helene who recently stopped by Biofortified said

you want to create “hybrids” (though from what I’ve read Monsanto’s version of hybrids could never occur on their own in nature), fine

In Givin’ props to Hybrids, blogger DeLene writes about a recent paper about hybridization and its demonization as being unnatural. While DeLene is talking about hybrids between species (and animals at that), these perceptions are connected. Hybrids happen in nature, more often than genetic ‘purists’ would like to think.

Finally, the shape of the discussion about the Haitian hybrid seed donation reveals what it is really about. First, when the claim was flying around that the seeds were genetically engineered, that was the reason why the seed donation was bad. Then when that wasn’t even true it was because the seeds are hybrids and that is why they are bad. Now, the discussion is shifting away from hybrids to how the seeds have been treated with common “toxic” fungicides to prevent them from rotting in the soil. The real reason, which will come as no surprise to those who read this blog regularly has little to do with any of those reasons – it is mostly because the donating organization is Monsanto. Look at all the people cheering the symbolic destruction of these seeds on the Non-GMO Project facebook page. You’d think that they would be happy that the seeds aren’t genetically engineered. Nope – it’s entirely about Monsanto.

I for one, think that the seeds should be treated with fungicide. Besides my personal experience with the difficulty of getting non-treated seeds to germinate well in my lab’s nursery field each year, there is a real biosafety reason why seeds donated to Haiti must be treated for fungi: To protect the farms of Haiti from contamination with new strains of crop-eating fungal pathogens that are not native to the island. If any organization is sending seeds grown from crops elsewhere in the world and they are not treating the seeds to kill hitchhiking bugs, they are putting Haitian agriculture at risk. Whenever my lab sends seeds to be grown in our Winter Nursery in Puerto Rico or Mexico, we have to not only treat the seeds, but also include one seed from each packet in a big batch to test for pathogens before importation.

Imagine an alternate situation where Monsanto did not treat the seeds with fungicide – I could easily imagine the opposition claiming that Monsanto is trying to infect Haiti with exotic fungi so that they will become dependent upon them in some other fashion. Does Monsanto have to anticipate every bio-political move and misunderstanding before making a humanitarian gesture? Damned if you do…

I would like to end on one important point. Some people are saying that Monsanto is only doing this for PR purposes. You’ll have to ask them about that because I’m not privy to any motivations other than what they have already said publicly. They sound like they are genuinely trying to help, although people suspect otherwise. And you know what? It doesn’t matter. Monsanto’s intentions do not affect whether or not these seeds will help Haitian farmers. Buy the seeds. Plant them. Grow enough food to feed your family and your neighbors’ too. Thumb your nose at Monsanto and don’t buy hybrids after this again. What matters most is that the people in Haiti have the power to grow what they want and rebuild the food security of their country however they see fit. And if Haitian farmers decide that they like or don’t like these seeds, and choose to grow or not to grow them in the years ahead, that is their choice, not yours or ours. That’s what it comes down to.

I’ll leave the last phrase to Helene:

I think it’s wrong to prevent anyone from having a choice

Thumpetty thump thump,
Thumpety thump thump,
Look at Franky grow.
Thumpetty thump thump,
Thumpety thump thump,
In all the farmers rows.

Franky the Snowmaize knew
That Greenpeace was out that day,
So he said “Let’s run and
We’ll have some fun
Now before I’m plucked away.”
Down from the city,
With pitchforks in their hands,
Running here and there
Carving circles in his hair saying
Donate if you can.
He led them down the streets of town
Right to U.S.D.A.
And he only paused a moment when
He heard a judge say “Political Hay!”
Though Franky the Snowmaize
Eliminates some sprays,
But he waved goodbye saying,
“Don’t you cry,
I will grow again someday.”

Thumpetty thump thump,
Thumpety thump thump,
Look at Franky grow.
Thumpetty thump thump,
Thumpety thump thump,
In all the farmer’s rows!

Merry Frankmas and a Happy New Year!