When Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle,” he intended to show the harsh conditions of poor immigrants working in the meat packing factories of Chicago. Published in 1906, his book ended up being one of the earliest catalysts for American food regulation. People were revolted by the unregulated food industry and the awful truth behind where their meat came from.  Sinclair’s book led to a public outcry, and many called for more regulations for the food industry. And for good reason–throughout American history up until that point there had never been any serious attempts to regulate the food industry. 

We now live in an age of big farms and monoculture. It used to be that most of the food you ate was grown or raised fairly close to where you lived. As technology and jobs changed, and the demand for meat grew, food began to be produced on a larger scale. Read on to learn more about the changing food culture and the concept of “food sovereignty.” 

Eating Local?

During President Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure, the U.S. began regulating food and drugs produced in the country with the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906. This act prohibited “misbranded and adulterated foods, drinks, and drugs in interstate commerce.” This was regulated by the Bureau of Chemistry in the Department of Agriculture, which eventually became the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1930.

Today, food laws are still imperfect. But the American public is increasingly conscious of where and how food is produced. Debates regarding food production are happening all over the country. Most Americans eat three times a day. A 2011 study found that the average American eats roughly 1,996 pounds of food each year. With that much food at stake, it makes sense that people are concerned.

Recently in America there has been a push toward “eating local.” Many people want to go to farmers markets and buy their tomatoes and cabbage from the farmer who grew it. They want to buy their eggs from chickens that were raised in hen houses that they could visit, rather than from a place straight out of “Food Inc.” 

In short, people are more aware of where their food is coming from. And that is where “food sovereignty” comes in. It’s an issue that is starting to gain traction in the U.S. Those who advocate for food sovereignty feel that farming has become over regulated. The movement is global, and many farmers around the world are standing up for themselves and for food production as a whole.

What is Food Sovereignty?

La Vía Campesina, an international “peasant” movement, coined the term “food sovereignty” at the 1996 World Food Summit. The group defines it as such:

Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems.

With the increased demand for locally-grown produce in America, it’s becoming more popular for farmers to want to sell their produce to their local communities. But it’s also important to note that outside of the U.S., food sovereignty takes on a much more important role. Hannah Wittman, Annette Desmarais, and Nettie Wiebe, authors of “Food Sovereignty: Reconnecting Food, Nature and Community,” wrote: 

The stunted growth and high mortality rates of hungry children and the ill health and lost potential of malnourished adults are clear and tragic results of the chronic food shortages suffered by an increasing number of people. A growing number of households and communities fear for tomorrow’s meals, even though there may be enough food for today.

Shifting more power to local farmers would increase the availability of food. And food would not have to travel as much, making it less costly and more likely to be fresh.

In the U.S., Maine Leads the Way

The U.S. has very structured regulations for farmers. One state is breaking away from this model. On June 16, Maine Governor Paul LePage signed LD 725, or An Act to Recognize Local Control Regarding Food Systems. This act is the first of its kind in the United States. It shifts power from the state to local municipalities. The Bangor Daily News described the rationale behind the law:

Supporters of food sovereignty want local food producers to be exempt from state licensing and inspections governing the selling of food as long as the transactions are between the producers and the customers for home consumption or when the food is sold and consumed at community events such as church suppers.

There were already about 20 municipalities in Maine that had their own food sovereignty laws. Now with this statewide law, municipalities that apply for food sovereignty will be granted more control. 

The law allows small farmers to sell food within their communities with fewer government regulations. Maine Rep. Craig Hickman enthusiastically embraced the passage of the law. In an interview with the Bangor Daily News, he said, “Food sovereignty means the improved health and well-being of the people of Maine by reducing hunger and increasing food self-sufficiency through improved access to wholesome, nutritious, and locally produced foods.”

According to a 2012 USDA census, Maine has some of the youngest farmers in the country. And the field is drawing in more and more young farmers, partially due to the growing demand for local produce. As more farmers embraced this lifestyle, and consumers demanded local produce, Maine decided to change the regulations a bit to accommodate them.

In 2013, many municipalities in Maine fought for food sovereignty. One of their complaints was about a new law that allowed small farms that sold less than $1,000 worth of chicken a year to slaughter chickens on their own farms rather than go to a slaughter house. The regulations it sought to change would require those farms to spend as much as $40,000 to be able to properly slaughter their chickens.

The Advantages of Food Sovereignty

Less regulations may give pause to the more cautious eater or the revolted reader who cannot get the images of “The Jungle” out of his or her head. But many local Maine representatives feel that this new act is a good thing for Maine. So what regulations are being repealed exactly? While the law states that food produced locally must still adhere to federal standards, these local farms do not require state licensing, nor do they have to go through state inspections of food produced, sold, and consumed locally.

The new law does not apply to every food producer and seller, however. Chain grocery stores and establishments selling large quantities of food must still adhere to the old laws. The new act is specifically designed for small farmers selling within their communities.

Betsy Garrold, the acting executive director of Food for Maine’s Future, felt that this will encourage many young and burgeoning farmers to enter the trade. She told the Bangor Daily News, “This means face-to-face transactions are legal if your town has passed a food sovereignty ordinance [and] you can sell food without excessive government regulations,” she said. “If we can feed ourselves, no one can push us around.”

Garrold felt that with the amount of farms in Maine, large and small, it is hard to make one law that regulates everyone equally. “Now if a small vegetable farmer wants to diversify their holdings and run a few meat birds, they can,” she said.

But Not Everyone is Onboard

Maine might be alone in its quest to deregulate farmers for a while. As of right now, no other states are moving to enact food sovereignty laws.

There are national food sovereignty groups, like the U.S. Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA). However, the group is more engaged in activism than writing laws. USFSA “works to end poverty, rebuild local food economies, and assert democratic control over the food system,” according to its website.

And while other states do not seem to be following Maine any time soon, not even all Maine farmers are pleased with the new act. When Maine began allowing certain municipalities more sovereignty back in 2013, Kevin Poland, a local Maine farmer, was less than pleased.

“It has nothing to do with encouraging local farming,” Poland said in an interview with NPR back in 2013. “There’s plenty of that here. What there should be more encouragement of is food safety. The state of Maine has laws that work,” he added.

Perhaps this is why other states have not joined Maine in passing their own food sovereignty laws. With all of the criticism that the food industry faces, it could seem counterintuitive to try to ease regulations on those who provide us with our food.

Global Impact

While Maine may be the first state in the U.S. to enact a food sovereignty law, other global initiatives have been on the forefront of this movement for decades. La Vía Campesina (The Peasants’ Way) started in 1993 as a way to support small farmers. The group is now a huge global initiative that has been one of the largest advocates of food sovereignty. 

La Vía Campesina says on its website that it represents, “164 local and national organizations in 73 countries from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Altogether, it represents about 200 million farmers.”

Most recently, the group supported a rally in Morogoro, Tanzania on June 23. The protesters felt that the government was not acting in the best interest of the Tanzanian people. In a statement on its website, La Vía Campesina said, “We know that our African elites in the public and private sectors have been for many years colluding in corruption with the evil transnational corporations which today represent the new face of imperialist neo-colonialism.”

Conclusion

Food sovereignty is a topic that is gaining traction around the world. Those fighting for it do so because they cannot comply with the regulations imposed by the government that are intended for larger farms. For small farmers selling food within their community, these regulations can be damaging. In America, it is less dire that we change our food sovereignty laws, but in other countries, the consequences are higher. Food shortages and government corruption are why farmers around the world want to take their food back into their own hands. 

Anne Grae Martin

Anne Grae Martin is a member of the class of 2017 University of Delaware. She is majoring in English Professional Writing and minoring in French and Spanish. When she’s not writing for Law Street, Anne Grae loves doing yoga, cooking, and correcting her friends’ grammar mistakes. Contact Anne Grae at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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It’s a scuffle that pits a global non-governmental body against a formidable foe: the signatures of 110 Nobel Prize winners. The subject of debate? Genetically modified organisms (GMOs); specifically, a vitamin A enhanced grain known as Golden Rice. Last week, a cohort of past Nobel laureates–including physicists, chemists, economists, and doctors–signed a letter implicating Greenpeace International as carrying out a “global campaign to mislead consumers” about GMOs and Golden Rice.

Greenpeace is against GMOs in general, and has a section on its website dedicated to the modified grain. The group says Golden Rice is “environmentally irresponsible, poses risks to human health, and could compromise food, nutrition, and financial security.” Instead, the group favors solutions that already exist in communities with high levels of malnourishment or nutrient deficiencies, namely more varied diets and community gardens.

But GMO advocates say nutrient enhanced crop varieties–along with animals that have been modified to grow faster or eradicate viruses–can help millions of people around the globe. The letter, sent by laureates from 1962 to 2015, offers a scathing diagnosis of what they see as Greenpeace’s intentional sabotaging of efforts to send GMOs, like Golden Rice, to market. They wrote:

Greenpeace International has been at the forefront of these campaigns, spreading false information and fomenting unfounded fears that have led to individual and organizational [behavior] that have resulted in excessive regulatory burdens and delays.

Golden Rice was developed by German scientists 24 years ago. It has been heralded as a potentially life-saving strain, due to its high beta carotene count. Many rice varieties in Africa and Southeast Asia lack vitamin A, which leads to vitamin A deficiency (VAD). VAD can cause blindness and lead to an increased risk for infection and disease. Golden Rice has yet to hit the market, and some local anti-GMO groups in the Philippines–where the primary testing plots for the crop are located–destroyed testing sites a few years ago.

“Corporations are overhyping Golden Rice to pave the way for global approval of other more profitable genetically engineered crops,” Greenpeace issued in a press release.

For all the back-and-forth, a recent study conducted by researchers at Washington University-St. Louis found that Golden Rice’s issues go beyond barriers set up by anti-GMO groups such as Greenpeace. “The rice simply has not been successful in test plots of the rice breeding institutes in the Philippines,” explained Glenn Stone, lead author of the study, to Washington University’s student newspaper. “The simple fact is that after 24 years of research and breeding, Golden Rice is still years away from being ready for release.”

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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What’s for dinner tonight? Perhaps steamed corn, infused with some delicious dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. Or maybe, if you’re feeling bold, you’ll eat some tofu bites containing glyphosate, which the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified in March as “probably carcinogenic in humans.” Corn, soy, sugar, papayas, milk, zucchini—the list goes on; the number of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, is multiplying. The U.S. House of Representative’s decision on Thursday to pass a law that would block states from mandating GMO labels only contributes to the danger that these GMO or genetically engineered (GE) foods inflict on farmers, on the environment, and on consumers.

So what are GMOs exactly, and why are they causing such a scene on Capitol Hill? Genetically modified organisms are plants or animals that are genetically altered to exhibit traits that are not natural, primarily a resistance to pesticides and herbicides. It may sound brilliant to have developed crops that can withstand the chemicals necessary to cultivate large amounts, but GMOs are often untested, require dangerous chemicals in their farming, and may be a threat to organic foods and to the environment. In the United States, GMO foods require no pre-market testing. Unlike with drug production, where there is mandatory testing on animals, mandatory human clinical trials, mandatory tests of carcinogenicity, fetal impact, neurological impact, and at least some limited allergy testing, none of those steps are required for these crops.

The American Medical Association has stated that mandatory testing should be required before GE foods and ingredients are introduced on the market, but lawmakers continue to ignore medical research centers, farmers, and constituents who oppose or at least want labels on GMOs. Maine, Connecticut, and Vermont have all passed laws mandating the labeling of genetically modified foods for consumers but unfortunately these three states are the exception, not the rule. Last week, a majority of Representatives voted in favor of a law that prevents states from mandating GMO labels, stating that labeling GMO foods is “misleading.” Supporters of the bill said that labeling foods that contain GMOs sends a message to consumers that the products are risky, and that according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), GMOs are not dangerous. However, that information is based on testing by scientists who are funded and influenced by the companies who own GMOs. Opponents of the bill called banning the labeling of GMOs “an infringement of the public’s right to know what’s in their food.”

Currently, 64 countries worldwide require the labeling of GMOs, including all 28 nations of the European Union, Russia, and China. Our lack of GMO labels is not only causing us to fall behind most other developed countries, but is also failing the satisfy a vast majority of Americans who support GMO labeling. A total of 92 percent of Americans want GMO foods to be labeled and in the past two years, more than 70 labeling bills or ballot initiatives were introduced across 30 states.

In 2012, some of America’s most profitable chemical companies teamed up with large food companies to defeat California’s Proposition 37, an initiative that would have required labeling of genetically engineered foods. Monsanto, PepsiCo, CocaCola, Nestle, and several other companies spent over 45 million dollars to block the legislation. Why? Because keeping consumers in the dark about the dangers of GMOs can be profitable, and requiring labels would allow consumers to question what they’re consuming before they buy. The companies that own GMO seeds, which are patented, sell their seeds to farmers who then buy herbicides from the same companies who also own the chemicals. This brilliant business model is racking up millions for these corporations, but is causing people to consume more and more dangerous herbicides.

Another concerning symptom is that weeds are becoming resistant to the hazardous chemicals. Genetically engineered crops are designed to survive weed killers. Corporations like Monsanto that create these herbicides and pesticides claim that herbicide use has decreased since the introduction of GE crops; however, before GE crops were cultivated, weeds resistant to Roundup did not exist. There are now 14 known species of Roundup-resistant weeds in the U.S. alone, known as “super weeds.” Super weeds have been reported on half of all U.S. farms and cost farmers millions of dollars a year to control. With more weeds becoming resistant to Roundup, farmers now have to spray larger quantities of even more toxic herbicides on their crops to kill weeds, like 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-d), a component of the poisonous Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War. GMOs intensify the problem of herbicide use and create more super weeds that are immune to harsh chemicals, disrupt the environment, and contaminate water systems.

In 2010 the President’s Cancer Panel reported that 41 percent of Americans will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. The panel pointed to chemicals, primarily herbicides in our air, water, soil, and food as the primary cause of this increased cancer rate. Later that same summer, the journal Pediatrics reported in a peer-reviewed study that there is a direct correlation between pesticide exposure and increased ADHD diagnoses. In 2011 a study revealed that the insecticide in GMO corn was detected in the umbilical cord blood of pregnant women. With 90 percent of soy and 85 percent of corn now genetically engineered, and super weeds on the rise leading to harsher chemicals being used on our food, GMO consumers are being exposed to more and more dangerous chemicals. And without GMO labels, shoppers have no idea if the foods they are eating are a part of that group.

Congress’s decision last week to block any mandatory labeling of foods made with genetically engineered crops proves that corporate influence in Washington is taking away our right to choose what we consume. Genetically modified foods can and should be labeled, and Congress has an obligation to listen to the 92 percent of Americans who support the right to know what they are consuming via GMO labels. The FDA’s Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act states that the consumer has a right to know when something is added to food that changes it in ways a consumer would likely not recognize, and that indicates labeling should be required. Just like juice from concentrate, wild versus farmed, country of origin, and many other mandatory labels we see on our foods, GMOs should also be visible, since the chemicals that come with them are not. We have a right to know and a right to choose. It’s time to question whether the FDA and Congress are here to protect us, the people, or to protect a handful of chemical companies that want to keep us in the dark.

Emily Dalgo

Emily Dalgo is a member of the American University Class of 2017 and a Law Street Media Fellow during the Summer of 2015. Contact Emily at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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