Twenty years after the first genetically engineered foods became available, the public debate and concern over GMO foods shows no sign of easing.

A USDA study shows that a GM alfalfa has gone wild in alfalfa-growing parts of the West. This may explain GMO contamination incidents that have cost US growers and exporters millions of dollars - and it exposes the failure of USDA's 'coexistence' policy for GMOs and traditional crops.

The US Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) has long maintained that genetically engineered (GE) crops can co-exist with traditional and organic agriculture.

According to this 'co-existence' narrative, if neighboring GE and traditional farmers just sort things out among themselves and follow 'best management practices', transgenes will be confined to GE crops and the fields where they are planted.

J.R. Simplot Co.'s second-generation Innate potato has been approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

2,4-D crops: An unsustainable techno-fix for the failure of herbicide-tolerant GM crops

Author: Antje Lorch

Publisher: TWN

Year Published: 2016

Why old herbicides are returning

“Less herbicides, less toxic herbicides, protecting the environment and farm workers from impacts of agro-chemicals, stopping soil erosion.” Those were the slogans to promote the

first generation of genetically modified (GM) crops, engineered to be tolerant to herbicides. This envisioned golden future was all too brief, however, and is in fact already past. After the introduction of Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops – tolerant to the herbicide glyphosate – in the USA and a few other countries, weeds soon became resistant to glyphosate and have posed increasing problems to farmers. Instead of stepping back from herbicide-tolerant crops, the GM industry is now stepping up the

development of new GM crops that are tolerant to multiple – and often older, more toxic – herbicides. Among them: GM crops engineered to be tolerant to 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D).

Jackson County, Oregon, has just joined the small but growing ranks of “GE-free zones” in the U.S., which prohibit the cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) crops. It’s at least the eighth county in the country to create such an ordinance, and efforts are springing up to pass similar measures in other places.

Campbell Soup Co. , splitting from major food-industry rivals on an increasingly contentious consumer issue, declared its support for a federal labeling requirement for genetically modified organisms and said it plans to cite GMOs on its packaging.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Consumers Union, the policy and advocacy division of Consumer Reports, today praised Campbell Soup’s decision to label its products made with genetically engineered ingredients nationwide, not just in Vermont where a mandatory labeling law will go into effect in July. The company, the first major food company to agree to label products with these ingredients, often referred to as GMOs, also announced its support for a national, mandatory and uniform labeling system for foods containing GMOs.

Jean Halloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives for Consumers Union, said, “Campbell Soup has taken an immense step forward today. Their decision to disclose which of its ingredients are genetically engineered will give consumers the information they want and deserve, even going beyond what’s required in Vermont’s labeling law. This is an important development for consumers, who time and again have voiced overwhelming support for GMO labeling.”

Organic Farmers Win GMO Fight in Jackson County, Oregon

Organic farmers are racking up new victories in the fight against “franken-food,” as a growing number of counties line up to bar genetically engineered (GE) crop cultivation throughout the country.

A federal judge in Jackson County, Oregon, recently upheld a consent decree that designates the region a “GE-free zone,” a ruling which officially protects the decree from appeal, granting new protections to farmers, consumers and the environment.

That means organic and traditional farms in Jackson County will be protected from chemicals produced by Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont and other biotech giants. The ruling follows the passage of other similar ordinances in at least eight U.S. counties, including in Hawaii, California and Washington, along with another Oregon county. As the Washington Post pointed out on Monday, more bans are on the horizon, with Costilla County in Colorado pushing for its own GE-free zones.

“GE-Free Zones like Jackson County are important to the future of our food because they allow farmers to grow traditional and organic crops without risk of transgenic contamination,” George Kimbrell, senior attorney with the Center for Food Safety (CFS), said.

The Yurok Tribe has passed a tribal ordinance banning genetically engineered organisms such as GMO corn or altered salmon from its territory.

The growing trend toward GMO-free and organic sugar has captured the broader sugar industry's attention, though the product's still represent a small niche.