Just over half of Americans say they wouldn’t buy a food they knew was genetically modified. Another 87 percent say they want to see GM labels at the grocery store. That’s one reason why Connecticut’s recent failure to require labeling is so surprising, says Treehugger. Now, genetically-modified food is controversial among consumers, farmers, and scientists, and it’s difficult to find a consensus on GM benefits and risks. The World Health Organization, for instance, while noting some potential human health hazards like gene transfer, maintains GM safety is a case-by-case issue.   

But the biggest opposition in Connecticut didn’t come from scientists. The reason the bill failed appears to be pressure from Monsanto, which reportedly threatened state legislators with legal action. This was the same tactic that got a GM labeling provision thrown out in Vermont last month, as the one thing cash-strapped states don’t need is a big lawsuit.

Back in 2007, then-candidate Obama said he supported labeling requirements for GM foods. But after years of silence and a high-profile national campaign last fall to get action from Washington (and another one earlier this year), many states have taken matters into their own hands. Mostly, it’s been slow going. In Minnesota, a bill requiring labels failed in March. Legislators voted down a similar bill in Washington state recently, reportedly after facing pressure from, you guessed it, Monsanto and other biotech firms.

But in California, voters have the ability to bypass their legislature in statewide ballot initiatives. Last week, they filed almost a million signatures to do just that, and this November, a GM labeling requirement will be on the ballot. The campaign took a swift ten weeks, says MarketWatch, and culminated in rallies across the state. Given that a clear majority of Californians support the initiative, it seems likely to pass.

What happens in the rest of the country is less certain. Even as state activists and legislators debate GM safety and labeling, the Department of Agriculture is set to approve a new GM corn crop which poses potential health hazards to farmers and consumers. The crop is resistant to a herbicide called 2,4-D, a chemical now used on golf courses to kill large weeds, reports Huffington. 2,4-D, an active ingredient in Agent Orange, has been linked to health problems like cancer and birth defects, but now may coat millions of acres of modified corn. GM safety may be a case-by-case question, but many scientists are concerned about this one.

And for the USDA, and Obama, all this is nothing new. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the department hasn’t denied approval for a GM crop since they began appearing in the mid-1990s. Last year, after Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack got cold feet about a White House plan to allow unrestricted GM alfalfa, he fell back in line almost immediately. The reason, says Tom Philpott in Grist, was almost certainly political pressure from an administration with strong ties to agribusiness and biotech.

Even if states like California can enforce labeling requirements, changing how we grow food to reflect people’s concerns about GM is much more difficult. What all this means is that GM skeptics have an uphill battle, not just from big chemical companies or inactive state legislatures, but also from the federal government.  

Image by Darwin Bell, licensed under Creative Commons.  

Sources: Treehugger, WHO, Mother Jones, Grist, Organic Consumers Association,MarketWatch, Huffington, OnEarth, San Francisco Chronicle. 

Americans are going to find their wallets shrinking along with their waistlines. Why? The price of food is exploding, reports the Economist. The price of wheat has gone from $200 a metric ton in May to more than $400 a metric ton in early September. Agflation—escalating food prices—normally results from food shortage. The strange thing about this recent bout of agflation is that we have plenty of food. This year humans will have grown 1.66 billion metric tons of grain—a world record. The reason why food prices are exploding is that we’re eating differently.

The world’s growing population has always demanded more grains. But this new boom in demand comes from another source: wealth. Newly wealthy people in China and India want to toast their success with tasty meat. And growing meat takes a lot of grain. In 1985 the average Chinese person ate 44 pounds of meat a year. This year, the average Chinese person ate 110 pounds a year. That’s the taste of prosperity.

There’s another reason for ballooning food costs. Americans have more mouths to feed than ever. And by mouths I mean gas tanks. America’s bright idea to slake our thirst for oil is to convert one-third of our corn into ethanol. Not only are our bellies paying the price for our ethanol-spree, so are taxpayers. Ethanol is bankrolled by hefty government subsidies. The Economist writes: 

America 's ethanol program is a product of government subsidies. There are more than 200 different kinds, as well as a 54 cents-a-gallon tariff on imported ethanol. That keeps out greener Brazilian ethanol, which is made from sugar rather than maize. Federal subsidies alone cost $7 billion a year (equal to around $1.90 a gallon).

Why such subsidies? The ethanol lobby plays a strong role here. The Utne Reader reports in its May-June 2007 issue that in the 2004 and 2006 election cycles groups connected to the ethanol industry gave $1.2 million to political candidates. So candidates enjoy the double-boon of reaping industry campaign contributions while touting a popular (but largely misunderstood) salve for our environmental woes.

As for the shift in food prices, the bad news is that these changes are probably permanent. The worse news is that while rising grocery bills may put a strain on American bank accounts, the real losers will be poor countries. The Economist cites Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize winner for economics at the University of Chicago, who has figured that if food prices rise by one third, the standard of living will fall 3 percent in rich countries and more than 20 percent in poor ones.

—Brendan Mackie

Photo by tlindenbaum licensed under Creative Commons.