Why Maurice Robinette took up the cause to force genetically altered food producers to disclose their products to consumers.
By Tim Connor
One of the last times we saw Maurice Robinette he was standing at a podium in downtown Seattle addressing the National Organics Standards Board (NOSB). This was in April of 2011 and the issues he wanted the prestigious board to address were all about so-called “genetically modified organisms” or GMO for short.
In the context of modern agriculture, GMOs are crops like corn, tomatoes, and soy beans that have been genetically engineered to suit a commercial purpose. This is not your grandfather’s farm in the dale. It involves genetically modifying crops via unnatural means to prolong shelf life, boost yields and combat insects. And it is a technology that comes with a politically powerful multinational corporate parent—Monsanto.
Maurice Robinette at the Lazy R Ranch west of Spokane.
When he spoke in Seattle last year, Robinette didn’t mention Monsanto by name. But that wasn’t necessary. Everybody in the room knew what and whom he was talking about, given that the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsac, had only recently authorized Monsanto to proceed with the cultivation of what is known as “Roundup Ready” alfalfa.
Roundup is Monsanto’s brand name for the widely-sold herbicide glyphosate. By genetically modifying alfalfa, Monsanto created a variety of the protein-rich forage plant that can withstand the toxic applications of its wildly successful herbicide. This feat of gene-splicing opened up a profitable door for the giant corporation to sell both Roundup and Roundup-resistant alfalfa to hay farmers.
That didn’t go over very well with organic farmers like Maurice and his feisty daughter and business partner, Beth. That’s why the two of them made the trip to Seattle last year for the chance to offer a firm but respectful public protest and share their story with a federal board that makes important policy recommendations to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
In a nutshell, here’s the Robinette’s story, thus far:
The Robinette’s successful Lazy R Ranch beef operation has been shifting in recent years to appeal to customers who prefer the taste and health benefits of grass fed beef, raised without hormones or antibiotics. As Maurice shared with the NOSB, the Lazy R’s transition has been financially assisted by a USDA program that promotes organic farming. The Robinettes’ goal (which they achieved earlier this year) is to gain USDA organic certification for the pastures where they grow the forage that goes into their beef. When they spoke before the NOSB last year they were most of the way there.
Putting aside their personal ethical, moral, and public health concerns about serving up a GMO-tainted product, there is a stark financial dilemma. You can’t put the USDA organic label on food that’s been genetically modified. Moreover, USDA guidelines are ambiguous, at best, as to when the inadvertent contamination of organic crops with GMO should result in the loss of USDA certification.
The irony of this saga is hard to miss. Here was the Obama Administration—regularly lambasted by political critics for over-regulating corporations—allowing Monsanto to go ahead with Roundup Ready alfalfa, to the detriment of smaller, entrepreneurial businesses like the Robinettes.
The Robinettes care less about the USDA’s fine print than they care about their very close and trusting relationships with the people who seek out their beef. To them, any measurable quantity of GMO contamination in the food chain leading to their beef is too much. It’s easy for the Robinettes to avoid feeding their cattle GMO corn because, well, they make a selling point of not feeding corn to their cattle. But their plans are to continue using their organically grown alfalfa for feed, so long as they can verify by testing that its not been contaminated with GMO.
This is where Secretary Vilsac’s decision confronted the Robinettes with a problem. Roundup Ready alfalfa flowers just like regular alfalfa, and when it does it attracts bees. The bees then do what they’ve done throughout recorded history, they carry pollen from plant-to-plant, field-to-field, transporting genetic material. As the Associated Press reported shortly after Vilsac announced his decision, the notion that bees won’t transport pollen from GMO alfalfa to traditional alfalfa and organic alfalfa is without scientific validity. It’s just bureaucratic arm-waving.
With Vilsac’s decision, Maurice said, the USDA was promoting “genetic trespass.” In a blunt analogy that drew chuckles from his audience in Seattle, Maurice said that if one of his bulls trespasses onto a neighbor’s pasture and breeds with one of the cows he would be responsible and rightly so. Then to his punchline: “I can stop my bulls, but not my bees.”
It’s funny, but only as dark humor. The Robinettes are in the final stages of negotiating conservation easements for their pastures that will essentially require the land be used as organic pasture in perpetuity.
“They’re organic now, and will be forever,” Maurice says steadfastly.
The irony of this saga is hard to miss. Here was the Obama Administration—regularly lambasted by political critics for over-regulating corporations—allowing Monsanto to go ahead with Roundup Ready alfalfa, to the detriment of smaller, entrepreneurial businesses like the Robinettes.
Beth testifying before the National Organic Standards Board last year.
Shortly after protesting Vilsac’s decision before the NOSB, the Robinettes took steps to reduce their reliance upon alfalfa as forage for their cattle. In simplest terms, if GMO is detected in Lazy R Ranch alfalfa, the Robinettes have a contingency plan to divert their cattle away from the tainted pasture.
“It (alfalfa) is the preferable forage, by far,” Maurice explains. “But I’m not so dependent upon it that I can’t work without it.” That’s less true of the still young, organic dairy industry, he added, where milk cows require the high quality protein that alfalfa features.
The fact that the Robinettes quietly solved their business problem—by revising their operations so they could readily move their cattle onto uncontaminated pasture–hasn’t stopped either one of them from continuing to be politically active. Maurice is now working to gather signatures for a Washington state initiative, Initiative 522.
The initiative, entitled “The People’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act,” does what Maurice asked the National Organic Standards Board to support last year. It would require food products be clearly labeled if they contain ingredients produced via genetic engineering.
“The thing of it is,” Maurice says, “is that when you go to the grocery store and buy food you have no idea, currently, whether it contains GMOs or not. Although if you were to do further research and see if there was any canola and/or corn in the product you are buying—which also includes high fructose corn syrup—it is a very high probability that you are consuming GMO material. But most folks don’t pay attention to the list of ingredients, they just buy a box a crackers and a can of beans.”
Maurice readily acknowledges that the GMO labeling should help the Lazy R and other organic growers. The higher prices they currently ask for their products are clearly connected to the added satisfaction and peace of mind consumers get for knowing how the food was grown.
The GMO labeling would take the communication with the consumer a step further, distinguishing GMO products from those grown with traditional or organic methods.
“If the [GMO] label is there,” Maurice says, “you will be able to make a choice, an informed choice. You cannot do that now.”
I-522 is an initiative to the legislature, which means that if Robinette and the other signature gatherers get enough voters to sign on, the legislature can:
•adopt the measure, so it becomes state law.
•decline to adopt the measure, which would automatically require it be put on the ballot for the next state general election.
•change the wording of the measure and pass it, which would automatically mean putting both versions—the ballot initiative language, and that adopted by the legislature—on the ballot for voters to choose from.
Proponents of I-522 are trying to gather at least 320,000 signatures to ensure that enough signatures can be validated to meet the number required (a little more than 241,000) to move the measure to the legislature for a vote.
“If we’re successful gathering the 320,000 signatures,” Maurice says, “that’s going to do a lot to bring the issue to light, especially to a lot of legislators. And I think the thinking here is, is this legislator or that one going to say ‘yes, you have a right to know,’ or, ‘no, you don’t have a right to know.’ And that’s a difficult position to be in. So even if we aren’t successful in gathering all the names, we’re going to raise public consciousness, and especially the legislature’s consciousness, to a much higher level than it is now.”
The movement to label GMOs has been gather steam, particularly on the West Coast. There is a similarly composed initiative in California, Proposition 37, that is getting national attention due to the breadth of the agricultural industry in California. Unlike I-522 in Washington, though, Prop 37 will be decided directly by California voters. With public opinion polling in California showing that a healthy majority supports the labeling initiative, millions of dollars in political advertising are flowing into the state to try to kill it, with $4.2 reportedly coming just from Monsanto alone.
UPDATE, October 1, 2012. Living On Earth reports that a new $3 million French study links Roundup Ready corn to increased tumors in rats.
–CFJ