Whole Foods Market and other organic retailers are being accused of caving in to manufacturers of genetically modified (GM) crops and helping them legitimize their products with consumers. The products are also known as GMOs or genetically-modified organisms. Monsanto and other producers of GMO seeds and crops prefer to call them “transgenic.”

 

According to Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association, Whole Foods, Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farm have “decided it’s time to surrender to Monsanto.” Citing a recent email to the stores’ customers, the publication says Whole Foods has agreed to stop fighting for the regulation of GM plants, such as alfalfa, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA, which recently authorized unrestricted cultivation of genetically modified alfalfa, says that almost all corn products, vegetable oil, sugar and soybeans produced in the United States are made from GMO crops, as are most processed foods, including breakfast cereals, salad dressing and chicken nuggets.

 

Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association, writes that “[Whole Foods] and their colleagues are willing to go along with the massive planting of a chemical and energy-intensive GE perennial crop, alfalfa; guaranteed to spread its mutant genes and seeds across the nation; guaranteed to contaminate the alfalfa fed to organic animals; guaranteed to lead to massive poisoning of farm workers and destruction of the essential soil food web by the toxic herbicide, Roundup; and guaranteed to produce Roundup-resistant superweeds that will require even more deadly herbicides such as 2,4 D to be sprayed on millions of acres of alfalfa across the U.S.”

 

In its defense, Whole Foods executives say that they oppose GM foods and have worked with the Non-GMO Project since July 2009, and that products labeled “USDA Organic” are free of GMO ingredients. They claim that GMO contamination of organic crops is almost unavoidable because of pollen drift.

-Noel Brinkerhoff, David Wallechinsky

 

The Organic Elite Surrenders to Monsanto: What Now? (by Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association)

Commins vs. Whole Foods: Organic Smacktalk (by Brth Anderson, Fair Food Fight)

Modified Crops Tap a Wellspring of Protest (by Julia Moskin, New York Times)

Genetically Modified Foods (Whole Foods policy statement)

Monsanto and FDA Fight Labeling of Genetically Modified Foods (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto to Protect against Contamination (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)