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Fishmonger Ryan Yokoyama catches a salmon tossed to him at the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle. Washington state voters will decide next month whether to approve Initiative 522, which would require food and seeds produced entirely or partly through genetic engineering to be labeled as such for retail sale. In television ads featuring Pike Place Market fishmongers, organic farmers and others, supporters have hammered the consumer's right to know whether the foods they buy were produced with genetic engineering, noting it's not different from other food labels.

(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

By Don Merrick

It was disappointing to read Elizabeth Hovde's opinion on Washington State's Initiative 522 ("GMO labeling loses its appeal after a close look," Oct. 6). Her "look" was anything but "close."

She simply articulates the corporate position, a well-developed and evolving play book position used in Oregon in 2002 to reject Measure 27.

In fact her rationale is not too far removed from The Oregonian's position published in the September 24, 2002, issue titled "Vote no on labeling food: A national organic certification program is a better way to inform people about genetically engineered ingredients." Granted, the national organic certification program rejects GMOs but it does not demand labeling and would run into a buzz saw of opposition if it did.

It is important to note that the spending by biotech corporations and their supporters striving to reject Oregon's Measure 27 in 2002, California's ballot initiative in 2012, and Washington State's Initiative 522 is approximately ten times more than those supporting labeling. Almost all of this corporate cash comes from large international corporations such as Monsanto or related trade associations that allow corporations to cover up their involvement. Of course these corporations benefit immensely from continued sales of GMOs or, otherwise, they fear retaliation or litigation.

But what do proponents of labeling expect to accomplishment with this reductionist approach? The answer is best articulated by Norman Brasick, president of Asgrow Seed Company, a subsidiary of Monsanto, quoted in the Kansas City Star on March 3, 1994: "If you put a label on genetically engineered food you might as well put a skull and crossbones on it."

In order to take a closer look at research on this subject, Hovde would need to investigate reliable opponents of GMO agricultural methods such as the Organic Consumers Association or the Center for Food Safety.

I encourage her and anyone else interested in a balanced review to consult these sources. You'll see that the rest of the world, with few exceptions, rejects GMOs based on solid science and logical conclusions. You'll see that the European Union and the United Nations consider GMO agriculture, and the more encompassing industrial agriculture for that matter, unsustainable. The EU and UN have extensive experience with an agricultural system referred to as agroecology that is sustainable and shows promise to remain so as human populations grow in the coming decades. Acroecology practices world-wide are the holistic answer to industrial agriculture and its subset, GMO agriculture.

So why is the U.S. government and large food corporations so keen on perpetuating the use of GMOs? I believe the answer to that question was best stated by renowned physicist and environmental scientist Amory Lovins: "Genetically engineered crops were created not because they're productive but because they're patentable. Their economic value is oriented not toward helping subsistence farmers to feed themselves but toward feeding more livestock for the already overfed rich."

Again, it's the unwritten policy of large international corporations: profit over people and rejection of anything that resembles the EU acceptance of the precautionary principle.

-- Don Merrick of Tigard is a social activist on environmental and agricultural issues.