USDA GMO/nonGMO Co-Existence Policy | An Environmental Justice Critique
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| Huichol yarn weaving of a sacred ceremony for maize |
USDA Co-Existence Policy Proposal
Statement of Dr. Devon G. Peña
The Acequia Institute
Submitted to USDA-APHIS | March 4,
2014
I am
submitting this statement to express opposition to the proposed USDA co-
existence policy. As a plant breeder, seed saver, traditional acequia farmer,
and agro-ecologist familiar with the scientific evidence on gene flow I am
unequivocally opposed to this policy. Asking for co-existence with GMO crops
means seed-savers and plant breeders like myself have to accept the inevitability
of severe business losses due to damage to our native seed stocks and active
plant breeding programs. I ask that you consider the fact that farmers like
myself are the keepers of the nation’s diverse bioregional ‘arks’ of native
seeds and these are the ultimate basis of all agriculture in this country. As
vulnerable traditional seed savers, we cannot accept co-existence. The
scientific fact of gene flow makes it so. Let’s not pretend the scientific fact
of gene flow is unsettled, like an agricultural crisis version of climate
change denial.
Working with friends, family, and neighbors, I produce
local heirloom varieties of the ‘Three Sisters’ (corn-bean-squash/pumpkin) for
a land race seed library grown and stored on a farm in Colorado’s Rio Grande
Headwaters bioregion. The preservation of multiple native gene streams is
necessary to the business of plant breeding and seed saving which is a central
focus of my agroecological enterprise and productive activity. The
introgression of transgenes from genetically engineered corn is a direct threat
to my livelihood because the open- pollinated nature of maize makes for
frequent cross-contamination events. Corn pollen can travel quite far – with
some studies showing distances of up to 30 miles or more depending on the
nature of regional wind patterns. The San Luis Valley is a high altitude
intermountain park known for strong winds and corn pollen can travel very far
under these conditions. The valley has an average elevation of 8000 feet and is
surrounded by a circle of mountains at 14,000 ft. and higher. We do our plant
breeding and seed stock production in this valley on a historic farm that is
organized and collectively run to serve as a grassroots agricultural extension
research station and farm school for acequiero growers of Colorado and New
Mexico.
Our seed
production is only one part of our operations on what is also the oldest
irrigation ditch in Colorado, the famous San Luis Peoples Ditch which was dug
out by hand in April of 1852. Among the many crops we steward on this land is a
local land race variety known as “maíz concho” (Zea mays spp.). This is a high
altitude short- season white flint corn. We prepare this by roasting the cobs
overnight in homemade adobe brick ovens. The following morning we typically
open the horno, husk the roasted corn, and then let these dry on racks under
the high altitude sun. After 18 distinct artisan steps, these dried roasted
corn become the famous chicos del horno, which are listed on the Slow Food USA
Ark of Taste, a catalog of endangered and rare seeds, foods, and artisan
methods of processing and cuisine deemed worthy of protection as part of our
nation’s natural, cultural, and historical heritage. These “First Foods”
traditions date back to Anasazi fire pits that were used to prepare the smoky
and dried corn for winter stores in the centuries before electricity or
refrigeration. This land race variety is unique to northern New Mexico and
south Central Colorado. The Gallegos-Rancho Dos Acequias white flint concho we
grow matures in 74 to 80 days at 8,000 ft. above sea level. This type of native
biodiversity is threatened by gene flow and the high probability of
introgression events. This will also affect our organic alfalfa production.
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| Vavilov Center for maize extends well into what is U.S. territory |
Like many
of my seed-saving and plant-breeding peers, I object to co-existence as a
pre-emptive strike on my civil and legal rights as a possible future litigant
seeking damages as a result of introgression and other contamination events.
This is an attempt to impose a policy of false détente between GMO and non-GMO
farmers and handlers. How will this relationship of coexistence and cooperation
be defined – whose values will reign supreme since there is a wide diversity of
antagonistic values? How would the co-existence regime be managed and by whom?
Who gets qualified and disqualified?
Heirloom
plant breeders and seed savers have been actively creating the bio-cultural
heritage libraries and exchange networks of heirloom seeds for native crops for
centuries and many of us are stewards of horticultural varieties that are direct
millenary descendants of the extended Vavilov Center of Mesoamerica and the
American Southwest. Native American and Chicana/o plant breeders, seed savers,
and heirloom farmers and handlers are the oldest grounded agricultural
communities in the United States and direct heirs of the responsibility to
preserve and protect the integrity of these sacred seeds. We reject the policy
of co-existence as a fundamental misfit with the more equitable position of
environmental justice that requires respect for and preservation of religious,
cultural, ecological, and economic base values of disenfranchised and minority
farmers that co-produce and steward our nation’s agro- biodiversity, the very
essence of our collective cultural and biological heritage.
I also
believe that co-existence will also threaten those plant breeders, seed savers,
and farmers with roots in the heritage of African American, Latina/o, LGBTQ,
and other subordinated groups and communities including working-class women of
all colors who aspire to realize food justice and autonomy as producers and
keepers of organic heirloom and locally-produced native crops.
There are
tens of thousands of plant breeders and seed savers across the U.S., including
skilled indigenous farmers. These keepers of the seed ark are responsible for
the origin, preservation, and continued development of our nation’s native crop
genetic resources. Corn is an especially important example illustrated by the
recent case of Mexico’s decision to suspend future GMO corn plantings. This
establishes the principle that the millenary Vavilov Center crops are too
precious a heritage to sacrifice for the sake of the realization of the
aggressive and antagonistic claims articulated by Big Ag, a narrow interest
group fixated on a short-term profit-making calculus. We in turn are being
asked to co-exist with a technology and its ‘stacked’ product lines that
threaten the genomic integrity of the native crops of our extended North
American Vavilov zone. The scientific-based evidence overwhelming and
repeatedly confirms the high frequency of introgression events by transgenes
into native
genomes. Transgenes are highly unstable and mobile and once encoded in the
native corn genome are very difficult and expensive to select out.
Simply put:
As a seed saver and plant breeder I believe the coexistence policy infringes on
our ability to manage and protect this bio-cultural heritage and to defend our
own property rights against damages associated with the uses of commercial
agricultural biotechnology. But please bear witness to the indigenous concept
of property as relationship rather than as mere possession. Legal scholars have
shown that the moral obligations of indigenous cultural communities and First
Nations have the force of custom and common [sic] law. To ask deeply rooted
Native American and Chicana/o farmers to sacrifice the genomic integrity of
this bio-cultural heritage is a form of structural violence producing profound
environmental justice impacts in the disparate construction of a neo-regulatory
regime that co-existence will impose. This is anti- democratic to the core and
will privilege Big Ag and the moneyed interests against the very farmers and
seed savers who have always created the biological basis of agriculture itself.
What’s next? A ban on lawsuits for damages caused by introgression and gene
flows? Everything is reduced to another form of stacking, stacked arbitration,
and we are to consider this as a fair and balanced foundation for co-existence?
The
proposed policy violates the Obama Administration’s own self-professed
adherence to the Principles of Environmental Justice outlined in Executive
Order 12898. In the longer term perhaps the policy will not pass judicial
muster and it can be seen as a sneaky way of getting Monsanto and other
corporations another layer of protection against those who might have to bring
damage claims for genetic pollution. It could actually mean that farmers will
have to forfeit the ability to file future claims of economic injury and damages
against purveyors of biotechnology, since coexistence might imply a neutral
litigation-free dispute resolution process with the imposition of a NAFTA-like investor-state arbitration
scheme. We have already seen how well that has worked out for workers, labor
unions, and the environment. Arbitration of this sort always favors management
and concentrated capital above the claims of workers, farmers, and other
marginalized groups.
In this
environmental justice context, the term co-existence is disingenuous because it
arrives at a politically imposed environmental condition of production in which
seed savers and plant breeders are forced to face uncertainty and a condition
of such high risk that we can never guarantee ‘GMO-free’ native gene streams to
our clients, partners, and colleagues in the trade. That is not an equitable
co-existence and I consider this a clear violation and procedural inequity
under Executive Order 12898. The policy will have disparate impacts that have
not and need to be addressed and this will, among other analyses, require a
full predictive ecology of introgression and other contamination events.
This also
means Native American and Chicana/o farmers and seed savers are being asked to
accept yet another USDA discriminatory scheme since only farmers that grow GMO
crops currently get a discount on crop insurance that the rest of us can barely
afford to obtain for smaller-scale, family and community-based approaches to
organic, biodynamic, permaculture, and agroecological farming systems. This is
not an equitable basis from which to pursue a relationship with the USDA let
alone meekly accept the co-existence policy when we know the environmental
justice discussion has barely started. The co-existence policy analysis and
discussion must consider other procedural inequities that will later limit the
fulfillment of environmental justice principles.
In the end,
the policy of co-existence also admits that the biotechnology regime has itself
fallen to two principal adversaries: Super-weeds and Super-bugs. The irony of
course is that we’ve been here before. The old pesticide treadmill has become
the stacked transgenic traits treadmill. We have an obligation to question a
dangerous presupposition that co-existence is an equitable, ecologically sound,
and environmentally just policy. This remains a contested empirical problem
that has yet to be adequately addressed in the review process since EJ
activists and seed savers, plant breeders, and other traditional farmers were
not consulted from the starting point. We appear to have another procedural
injustice with manipulative participation rather than community-based
mobilization of citizen expert participation in the framing of the policy
debate. We should have been included as part of the framing process at start,
but were not. Also: Did this go directly to the National Environmental Justice
Advisory Board for comment? What languages have been used to translate relevant
documents? Has the process allowed for the fullest participation across the
linguistic diversity of America’s Native American and Mesoamerican Diaspora
seed keepers?
Coexistence
means that we have to adapt to the likelihood of transgenic contamination of
heirloom and /or organic cultivars through introgression and other disruptions
of our land races’ genomic integrity. If we have to we will ban and impose moratoriums in our states and bioregions where we are producing and protecting long-duration lineages of Native crops that are an essential part of the
Vavilov Center for corn, bean, squash, peanut, chili, amaranth, avocado,
tomato, and so much more.
According
to the USDA, coexistence is the principle that the relationships between GMO
and non-GMO farmers can be strengthened. A USDA Blog entry explains the
objectives of the coexistence policy initiative:
U.S. farmers in the 21st Century engage in many forms of
agriculture, including conventional, organic, identity-preserved, and
genetically engineered (GE) crop production. USDA is unequivocal in its
supports for all these forms of agriculture. We need all of them to meet our
country’s collective needs for food security, energy production, carbon offsets
and the economic sustainability of rural communities. Our goal is to promote
the coexistence of all these approaches through cooperation and science-based
stewardship practices.
Exactly
what the USDA means by “science-based stewardship” remains entirely unclear but
many of us doubt that this will include the needed protections for
agroecological and ethno-scientific methods and knowledge produced by
indigenous farmers and other so-called protected groups. If it does not, then
we have a serious environmental justice and civil rights problem unfolding
before our eyes.
Instead of
pursuing an agricultural coexistence policy, the Obama Administration needs to
assign an environmental justice inspector general to investigate the USDA for
continued discriminatory practices, especially as this involves inequitable
allocation of assets toward the larger corporate-run industrial GMO monoculture
operations that benefit from the scale of disproportionate investments the USDA
makes in support of these capitalist interests against organic and traditional
family farms and smallholder farmers.
This type
of discriminatory policy and decision-making has previously been subject to
successful lawsuits over civil rights violations by the USDA against African
American, Native American, Latina/o, and women farmers. (The settlements were
outrageously unfair). The coexistence policy will result in the enlargement of
the class of farmers who are experiencing the disparate impacts of a policy
that violates environmental justice principles by encouraging a new form of
institutionalized discrimination toward these protected groups and their
efforts to flourish as organic, identity-preserved farmers and producers of
heirloom varieties through heritage seed saving and plant breeding. This
actually also applies to breeding of farm animals.
Like other
attempts at ‘enforced cooperation’, the imposition of a top-down expert- driven
apparatus will force all farmers to get along while continuing to privilege the
corporate GE sector in all areas of the Department’s mission – research,
subsidies, insurance discounts, disproportionate share of direct payments and
credits. The policy instead should start with a moratorium on further commercial-scale
planting of transgenic crops – and especially the second generation of even
more toxic treatment protocols planned by Monsanto, Bayer CropScience,
Syngenta, and others to respond to the massive failure of glyphosate-resistant
and Bt transgenic crops that have resulted in a “GE treadmill,” with super
weeds and resistant bugs and worms, and accompanying the reality of the
generalized collapse of biodiversity in refuge buffers and corridors around GMO
plantings.
The
proposed policy will encourage further simplification by obscuring the most
serious and intractable problems posed by a specific set of implicit
anti-science assumptions that undergird the concept of coexistence in a world
defined by gene flows. This involves the genetic science equivalent of climate
change denial and requires that we somehow accept or ignore the indisputable
facts of introgression, horizontal gene transfer, and resistance of weeds and
insects that have been meticulously documented through more than three decades
now of an emergent predictive ecology of transgenic crops.
While it is
also true that U.S. farmers follow different models, the USDA has over the past
half-century consistently demonstrated program budgetary and research and
development biases toward ever-larger capitalist growers. Beyond the scandalous
decades of racism and gender discrimination in the credit markets and local FSA committees,
the USDA’s other agencies have also failed to deliver equitable support and
services to nonGMO producers. Pro-GMO investments outstrip those allocated to
nonGMO heirloom farmers across all the sub-agencies including AMS, ARS, NRCS,
NIFA, REE, etc. GMO biosafety reviews are also discriminatory, especially in
failing to ever before seriously consider the NEPA and 12898 implications posed
by the threats posed by introgression to Native American, Chicana/o, and allied
seed savers and plant breeders.
I know many
farmers from diverse backgrounds who want off the stacked-traits GMO treadmill
but are having a hard time figuring out how. One farmer, from North Dakota,
told me she hates the emptiness of a GMO monoculture – the veritable lack of
life on the ground and underneath in the glyphosate-ridden soil. She despises
the huge scale of mechanization and the massive fuel costs. Above all, she
hates the continuing decline of the towns and communities around her and the
tragic ineffectiveness of these treadmill biotechnologies. “I became a farmer
because of my family ties to this region only to see how this modern industrial
form of agriculture is destroying it.”
Many GMO
farmers do not want to coexist. Instead, they want to find a way out of the
dominant paradigm of biotechnology. They seek alternatives and want to be
farmers again rather than growers enslaved to precision contracts. An increasing
number are sickened by their status as GPS-tethered contract growers. They are
stressed and sickened by the heavy debt and economic stresses of the high
annual costs associated with being a Monsanto, Bayer Cropscience, or Syngenta
contract grower. If the USDA supported these farmers, this could significantly
enlarge the number of producers who would choose to adopt less costly organic
and nonGMO practices, joining the fastest growing segment of the agricultural
producer sector. The USDA has no idea how to help them. It cannot provide much
guidance or material and technical support for the growing number of farmers
who wish to make a transition from GMO to nonGMO. Few USDA staff members
encouraged collaborative research with farmers despite the fact that a growing
number of them want off the GMO treadmill. The USDA has been too busy
discriminating against the new minorities because it was preoccupied with
retrofitting and servicing the unending demands of GMO corporate factory farms.
The USDA
should be focusing on GMO Contamination Prevention. I close with the hope that
the USDA will understand that the only way to protect agricultural biodiversity
is through a nonGMO environmental policy. There is to be no coexistence if
Monsanto, et al. get the right to contaminate our seeds and cause irreversible
damage to our nation’s native seed saving and heirloom plant breeding economy.
Sincerely,
Devon G.
Peña, Ph.D.
Founder and
President
The Acequia
Institute
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