A spat among friends over GMO alfalfa

Last week, Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack announced rules that would de-regulate a genetically modified (GMO) variety of alfalfa.  This decision disappointed advocates for organic agriculture, because there are legitimate concerns that the new variety will sometimes spread to the fields of organic alfalfa farmers, who are not supposed to use GMO varieties.

Earlier, Vilsack had made some effort to explore a co-existence policy, which would permit GMO alfalfa, but with restrictions to ensure that it does not contaminate the fields of other farmers.  In the end, bowing to intense pressure from agricultural technology companies and major farm interests, USDA mostly skipped the co-existence idea and opted instead for what amounts to outright de-regulation.

Different regulatory agencies in different countries may react differently to the possibility of an occasional GMO plant in organic fields.  In the United States, although this possibility may not put organic farmers in much jeopardy of losing their certification, most organic farmers and organic-friendly food companies are upset by the USDA decision.

In this circumstance, it was surprising to read the ferocious attacks on big-business organic companies -- such as Whole Foods and Stonyfield Yogurt -- in a recent column by Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association.  Cummins was angry that these big-business organic companies had written favorably about "co-existence" while lobbying Vilsack and USDA.  Cummins felt these companies should have advocated more whole-heartedly for even stricter regulations against GMOs, not co-existence.

Cummins' column is strangely defeatist.  When USDA is deliberating between two policies -- outright de-regulation or "co-existence" (the first two policies on the left in the figure below) -- it seems more sound for organic consumers to think of "co-existence" advocates as relatively favorable to organic agriculture.  Later, if a policy argument arises between co-existence and stricter rules against GMOs (further to the right in the illustration), that would be the right time for Cummins to argue with Whole Foods and Stonyfield.

My interest in this debate goes beyond organic alfalfa.  The general principle, in any argument over incremental policy change, is that one should generally be thankful for any support that helps in putting together a winning coalition.

Update (March 4, 2011): First, after a friendly grilling from wise people, let me retreat a little from the broad tone of the post's final paragraph. I do still suspect that strong GMO critics picked the wrong moment to seek an intramural fight with business-friendly GMO critics in this case, but it is not more generally always true that strong advocates on any moral or social issue are obliged to be thankful for support from moderates. There are very good occasions to be impatient with moderates (see King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail).  I shouldn't have drawn such a broad conclusion. Second, on a more upbeat note, further fascinating discussion of this debate has continued at NPR, Huffington Post, and the Friedman School's student-run online periodical Sprout.

GAO: FDA lacks the power it needs to address structure / function claims

The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office this week recommended that the Food and Drug Administration take steps to clear up consumer confusion about health claims that food companies make on their products.

Currently, companies are allowed to make several types of claims:

• health claims -- aka REAL health claims -- which must have evidence that meets a standard called "significant scientific agreement"
• qualified health claims -- aka WISHFUL health claims -- which can meet a weaker standard of evidence, so long as the company admits the weaker evidence on the label
• structure / function claims -- aka STEALTHY health claims -- which purport not to be health claims (for example, a high-fiber product that "keeps your bowels moving" without explicitly claiming to "treat constipation"; or a high-calcium product that "builds strong bones" without explicitly claiming to "prevent osteoporosis")

Food manufacturers only use a few major officially recognized health claims, because, truthfully, there is not a lot of good evidence for many of the claims that companies might want to make.

FDA was forced several years ago to allow qualified health claims, because companies had sued in court over their First Amendment rights to make claims that had some scientific evidence, even if there was not enough to count as Significant Scientific Agreement.  However, the necessary cautionary statements about weak evidence are a turnoff for the consumer, so manufacturers have not made major use of these qualified health claims.

As a consequence, manufacturers have placed most of their bets on structure / function claims, which do not have to be backed by much evidence, because these claims pretend not to be health claims in the first place.  The only time FDA can take action against a structure / function claim is if it is blatantly false or misleading.

The most striking thing about the new GAO report is that it recommends FDA strengthen its ability to find out if such claims are false or misleading.  GAO points out that the Federal Trade Commission, which regulates advertising, has the authority to ask companies to present evidence for their claims.  FTC officials told GAO that they would be unable to enforce the rules without this authority to ask for evidence.  However, FDA lacks the authority to make companies share their evidence.  GAO recommended that FDA identify and request from Congress the authority it would need to effectively judge whether structure / function claims are false or misleading.

I am curious what Alex Tabarrok would say about this GAO recommendation.  Alex is a widely read economist blogger at Marginal Revolution, who tends to be ferociously (and thoughtfully and provocatively) critical of FDA on other regulatory issues.

IOM report on front-of-pack food labels

In recent years, many consumers have been confused by the wild and ill-coordinated array of front-of-package (FOP) food labeling efforts: Smart Choices, Smart Spot, NuVal scores, Guiding Stars, Heart Check, and so forth.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) in October released its Phase I report on front-of-pack labeling options.  This report is available for free download on the website of the National Academies Press (requires brief registration of email address).

The report is politely worded, but it essentially seeks to rein in some of the excesses.  In place of complex multi-nutrient schemes, the report recommends emphasizing just a few key nutrition components for which the research base is most solid and the connection to major chronic diseases is strongest: calories, saturated fat, trans fat, and sodium.  I was a little surprised that added sugars failed to make the list, but the report authors had some practical concerns about how sugars are measured, and they felt that listing calories addressed much of the concern about sugars.

The report seemed unfavorably disposed toward algorithm-based systems (discussed previously on U.S. Food  Policy), especially if the algorithm is proprietary or complex and not all the details are shared.

Perhaps the most damning section of the report is an illustrative comparison of how the various systems rated the same set of products.  For example, the IOM report compared six grain products: regular oatmeal, instant oatmeal, unsweetened toasted oat cereal, sweetened toasted oat cereal, crisped rice cereal, and an apple cinnamon cereal bar.  These foods reflect the options that a grocery shopper really might face on a supermarket shelf, choosing the family's breakfast supplies for the next week.  All six products would win the Smart Choices and Heart Check standards, which seem fairly permissive.  NuVal would give a higher score to regular oatmeal and a lower score to instant oatmeal, while the Nutrient Rich Foods Index and Guiding Stars would do just the opposite.  Sensible Solutions would favor only the two oatmeal products plus unsweetened toasted oat cereal (not the sweet cereal and cinnamon cereal bar).  Taken as a whole, the comparison makes the current status quo in the grocery store aisle look like a big confusing mess.

A future report from the same committee will investigate what consumers actually understand.

Quick links

I have been blogging lightly in recent months, but there's plenty of fascinating things to read elsewhere.

The Farming Life.  The Daily Yonder has an eloquent essay by a young farmer and mother: To Farm Is To Let Go.

Food Safety.  Marion Nestle explains that the CDC's new food safety numbers (reducing the estimated annual deaths from 5,000 to 3,000) do not mean our food supply has gotten safer.  She credits the New York Times and USA Today for reporting this key point correctly.  Peter Katel has a fine feature in CQ Reporter (not free), reviewing food safety issues and controversies.  In related news, just today, I was pleased to see that the food safety bill finally passed for real. 

Sustainability.  Four leading public health organizations have issued a shared set of principles.  A healthy, sustainable food system is health-promoting, sustainable, resilient, diverse, fair, economically balanced, and transparent.  It is a nice short single page of guidelines.  Of course, the future document that explains what to do when principles come into conflict, and tradeoffs are required, may take a little longer to write.

Miscellaneous.  Regina Weiss asks whatever happened to those Department of Justice and USDA hearings about agribusiness.  Krista Tippett has an inspiring radio essay, with chef Dan Barber.  Grist reports on animal welfare abuses at a Smithfield plant, based on an investigation by the Humane Society.  Ethicurean's latest feature discusses farm-to-school moving to the next level in Ohio.

U.S. food in pictures

A theme for me this year has been "see for yourself."  For a policy teacher from the East Coast, it has been both fun and fascinating to get about the country a bit.  Here are some photographs related to U.S. food and agriculture from my travels in the last several months.

Cargo preferences cost $140 million that could have helped the hungry

Cargo preferences are the regulations that require a large part of U.S. food aid to be shipped in U.S. ships.  The regulations are more cumbersome and expensive than you might think, leaving even some U.S. businesses out of luck, simply because they use other countries' ships for parts of a cargo's journey.  The losers from these policies are the world's hungry.

We think of a food aid as a way to demonstrate American generosity to the world, but the governments of countries that receive the food aid instead see a tragically mixed message, a sort of gesture toward generosity combined with greed at the expense of some of the poorest people in the world.

Cornell professor Chris Barrett in today's Washington Post explains:

Cargo preference was launched in 1954 alongside modern American food aid programs. By requiring the U.S. government to ship three-quarters of its international food aid on U.S. flag vessels, the policy was intended to maintain essential sealift capacity in wartime, safeguard maritime jobs for American sailors and avoid foreign domination of U.S. ocean commerce. But in a comprehensive - and, to date, the only peer-reviewed - analysis of available shipping data and shipping vessel ownership records, we found that cargo preference falls well short of these objectives. Our study of the shipping data and the fiscal 2006 food-aid shipment records - the only full year records were available - from the U.S. Agency for International Development found that by restricting competition, the policy costs U.S. taxpayers a 46 percent markup on the market cost of ocean freight. 

Along with my Friedman School colleague Dan Maxwell, Barrett wrote the authoritative book on U.S. food aid.

NYT had it right, Daily Yonder wrong

The Daily Yonder thinks the earlier New York Times article about checkoff promotions is mistaken. Here is my comment on the Daily Yonder site:

This post understates the federal government role in the checkoff promotions, such as the Dominoes cheese pizza campaign.

The federal government established the dairy checkoff program, the Secretary of Agriculture appoints the board members from a slate of candidates proposed by the industry, USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service must approve every promotion campaign in writing, and the federal government uses its power of taxation to enforce the collection of the funds that sponsor these campaigns. If a cheese producer fails to pay, the U.S. Department of Justice takes them to court.

Your post says, "Industry Group Uses Its Own Funds To Promote Its Products." That is incorrect. A minority of producers -- especially those who produce a distinctive product and benefit little from general commodity advertising -- object to these checkoff assessments. It is not they themselves who decided to pay, and it is not an "industry group" making them pay, it is the federal government making them pay.

When dissident producers took the checkoff programs to court, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the checkoff programs, only because the federal government attorney convinced the justices that these programs are from top to bottom federal government programs, and their every message has official status as "government speech."

Other products sponsored by these checkoff campaigns: McDonald's McRib, Quiznos Steakhouse Beef Dip sandwich, Wendy's Bacon Cheesburger, and Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust Three Cheese Pizza. The checkoff programs encourage us to eat more beef, more pork, and more cheese all at the same time.

This blog post is full of misdirection -- saying the checkoff programs are not using "your tax money." This is like telling me that the government is not using "my tax money" for the war in Iraq or welfare checks or whatever you object to -- sure, the government is collecting the tax that funds those activities but they can reassure you that your particular tax payment was not the actual dollars used. Who cares which tax dollars were used for which purpose? If the federal government collected the tax, and the purpose is bad, we have a right to object.

Congress should either: (a) stop having the federal government enforce the checkoff assessments, or (b) expect that the checkoff messages serve our public health goals at a time when health care costs are threatening to bankrupt the government.