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YES! Magazine
By Erin Sagen
If Initiative 522 succeeds, it could push manufacturers nationwide to begin labeling foods that contain genetically modified organisms.
After California failed to pass Proposition 37—a bill that would have required labeling of food containing genetically modified organisms, or GMOs—last November, the attitude among its supporters was surprisingly cheery.
"We’re looking forward to continuing this battle," Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association told YES! shortly after the bill was rejected by voters. Cummins was not the only labeling advocate who was optimistic about the future.
Despite being outspent about five-to-one by opponents—a group including corporations like Monsanto, DuPont and PepsiCo—Prop 37 was defeated by a relatively narrow margin, with about 47 percent of voters supporting it and about 53 percent voting against it. Those results left backers of the measure with plenty of confidence to move forward.
And they wasted no time. On the heels of Prop 37's defeat, labeling advocates placed another bill on the ballot, this time in Washington state. With that bill, known as Initiative 522, they're turning California's loss into a campaign that already looks promising.
If it's successful, I-522 could become the most important labeling law in the U.S. Connecticut and Maine recently passed labeling laws, but are unlikely to influence whether food is labeled at the national level because their respective populations are too small. With a population greater than Connecticut and Maine combined, Washington would have a greater impact, putting pressure on food companies nationwide to consider labeling.
It would pick up where California left off. And it would also be the first state where voters, rather than the state legislature, directly decided to require labeling of genetically modified food.
Learning from California
"You have to get organized and start early," said Elizabeth Larter, communications director for Yes on 522, Washington's pro-labeling campaign. Petitioners in the state gathered over 350,000 signatures to put the measure on the ballot in November, exceeding the minimum number by more than 100,000.
Yes on 522 has many advantages that eluded California's campaign—including more support from conventional farmers—but, Larter said, she does not see the point in comparing the two states.
"I can't speak to California's efforts, but I know you just have to move forward," she said. "I know that because of Prop 37, people who wouldn't be involved in the political process are." And that, according to her and many others, is huge.
"It brought the issue of [GMO] labeling to the national stage," said Stacy Malkan, who served as media director for Yes on 37. "There is incredible momentum right now to label," she said. "It's unstoppable."
Malkan reflected on what her campaign learned during the race, especially from the opposing side, who "carpet-bombed California the night before the election with deceptive advertising." Television ads, especially ones saying the measure would increase the costs of groceries, were incredibly effective at swaying voters to the other side, she said.
"It's very important voters understand that grocery costs will not go up," she added. "But there's better chances for [I-522]. There's more simplicity in the language of the bill and more awareness among consumers."
Shifts in Awareness
When it comes to GMOs, a lot has happened since last November.
Grocery chain Whole Foods announced that all products in its U.S. and Canadian stores must have GMO labeling by 2018, and a poll conducted by The New York Times this year found that "Americans overwhelmingly support labeling, with 93 percent of respondents saying that foods containing such ingredients should be identified."
Malkan has noticed that shift. "I think food companies will eventually realize it's not worth billions of dollars in spending to defeat because more and more customers will demand labeling where they shop."
And it's not just shoppers who are demanding more accountability about GMOs. In Washington, farmers are doing so as well, but for different reasons.
In April, an Oregon farmer discovered growing on his property a strain of genetically engineered wheat that had never been approved for commercial use by the Department of Agriculture. The discovery preceded a series of similar discoveries throughout the country: In June, two wheat farmers in Yakima, WA, and a farmer in Kansas filed suits against agricultural giant Monsanto. Since then, more farmers—from Idaho, Kansas and Washington—have joined the fight.
The various lawsuits are claiming the discovery of the unapproved wheat has hurt the farmers' exports: Japan and South Korea banned certain imports of American wheat shortly after the Oregon incident, and the European Union urged its 27 nations to increase testing of imports.
A new sense of urgency can be felt among producers of food, according to Katherine Paul, media director at the Organic Consumers Association. "Washington has more support from farmers and fishermen than California did. The response has been overwhelming. People are fired up."
Paul added that the Organic Consumers Association has "been working on GMOs for more than a decade, but it's only become a mainstream public health issue in the last year."
It's an incredibly important time to act, Malkan said. She pointed out that while only a few GMO crops are currently in production—especially corn, wheat, soy and cotton—more are currently being developed. "In Washington state, that means apples and genetically engineered salmon," she said.
This time around, if labeling passes, it would send a message on behalf of consumers, farmers and citizens alike.
The measures passed in Connecticut and Maine are important, said Paul, but I-522 is different. "It's voter-approved. It will force national labeling."
Visit EcoWatch’s GE FOOD page for more related news on this topic.
By Sue Branford and Thais Borges
Ola Elvestrun, Norway's environment minister, announced Thursday that it is freezing its contributions to the Amazon Fund, and will no longer be transferring €300 million ($33.2 million) to Brazil. In a press release, the Norwegian embassy in Brazil stated:
Given the present circumstances, Norway does not have either the legal or the technical basis for making its annual contribution to the Amazon Fund.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro reacted with sarcasm to Norway's decision, which had been widely expected. After an official event, he commented: "Isn't Norway the country that kills whales at the North Pole? Doesn't it also produce oil? It has no basis for telling us what to do. It should give the money to Angela Merkel [the German Chancellor] to reforest Germany."
According to its website, the Amazon Fund is a "REDD+ mechanism created to raise donations for non-reimbursable investments in efforts to prevent, monitor and combat deforestation, as well as to promote the preservation and sustainable use in the Brazilian Amazon." The bulk of funding comes from Norway and Germany.
The annual transfer of funds from developed world donors to the Amazon Fund depends on a report from the Fund's technical committee. This committee meets after the National Institute of Space Research, which gathers official Amazon deforestation data, publishes its annual report with the definitive figures for deforestation in the previous year.
But this year the Amazon Fund's technical committee, along with its steering committee, COFA, were abolished by the Bolsonaro government on 11 April as part of a sweeping move to dissolve some 600 bodies, most of which had NGO involvement. The Bolsonaro government views NGO work in Brazil as a conspiracy to undermine Brazil's sovereignty.
The Brazilian government then demanded far-reaching changes in the way the fund is managed, as documented in a previous article. As a result, the Amazon Fund's technical committee has been unable to meet; Norway says it therefore cannot continue making donations without a favorable report from the committee.
Archer Daniels Midland soy silos in Mato Grosso along the BR-163 highway, where Amazon rainforest has largely been replaced by soy destined for the EU, UK, China and other international markets.
Thaís Borges.
An Uncertain Future
The Amazon Fund was announced during the 2007 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali, during a period when environmentalists were alarmed at the rocketing rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. It was created as a way of encouraging Brazil to continue bringing down the rate of forest conversion to pastures and croplands.
Government agencies, such as IBAMA, Brazil's environmental agency, and NGOs shared Amazon Fund donations. IBAMA used the money primarily to enforce deforestation laws, while the NGOs oversaw projects to support sustainable communities and livelihoods in the Amazon.
There has been some controversy as to whether the Fund has actually achieved its goals: in the three years before the deal, the rate of deforestation fell dramatically but, after money from the Fund started pouring into the Amazon, the rate remained fairly stationary until 2014, when it began to rise once again. But, in general, the international donors have been pleased with the Fund's performance, and until the Bolsonaro government came to office, the program was expected to continue indefinitely.
Norway has been the main donor (94 percent) to the Amazon Fund, followed by Germany (5 percent), and Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobrás (1 percent). Over the past 11 years, the Norwegians have made, by far, the biggest contribution: R$3.2 billion ($855 million) out of the total of R$3.4 billion ($903 million).
Up till now the Fund has approved 103 projects, with the dispersal of R$1.8 billion ($478 million). These projects will not be affected by Norway's funding freeze because the donors have already provided the funding and the Brazilian Development Bank is contractually obliged to disburse the money until the end of the projects. But there are another 54 projects, currently being analyzed, whose future is far less secure.
One of the projects left stranded by the dissolution of the Fund's committees is Projeto Frutificar, which should be a three-year project, with a budget of R$29 million ($7.3 million), for the production of açai and cacao by 1,000 small-scale farmers in the states of Amapá and Pará. The project was drawn up by the Brazilian NGO IPAM (Institute of Environmental research in Amazonia).
Paulo Moutinho, an IPAM researcher, told Globo newspaper: "Our program was ready to go when the [Brazilian] government asked for changes in the Fund. It's now stuck in the BNDES. Without funding from Norway, we don't know what will happen to it."
Norway is not the only European nation to be reconsidering the way it funds environmental projects in Brazil. Germany has many environmental projects in the Latin American country, apart from its small contribution to the Amazon Fund, and is deeply concerned about the way the rate of deforestation has been soaring this year.
The German environment ministry told Mongabay that its minister, Svenja Schulze, had decided to put financial support for forest and biodiversity projects in Brazil on hold, with €35 million ($39 million) for various projects now frozen.
The ministry explained why: "The Brazilian government's policy in the Amazon raises doubts whether a consistent reduction in deforestation rates is still being pursued. Only when clarity is restored, can project collaboration be continued."
Bauxite mines in Paragominas, Brazil. The Bolsonaro administration is urging new laws that would allow large-scale mining within Brazil's indigenous reserves.
Hydro / Halvor Molland / Flickr
Alternative Amazon Funding
Although there will certainly be disruption in the short-term as a result of the paralysis in the Amazon Fund, the governors of Brazil's Amazon states, which rely on international funding for their environmental projects, are already scrambling to create alternative channels.
In a press release issued yesterday Helder Barbalho, the governor of Pará, the state with the highest number of projects financed by the Fund, said that he will do all he can to maintain and increase his state partnership with Norway.
Barbalho had announced earlier that his state would be receiving €12.5 million ($11.1 million) to run deforestation monitoring centers in five regions of Pará. Barbalho said: "The state governments' monitoring systems are recording a high level of deforestation in Pará, as in the other Amazon states. The money will be made available to those who want to help [the Pará government reduce deforestation] without this being seen as international intervention."
Amazonas state has funding partnerships with Germany and is negotiating deals with France. "I am talking with countries, mainly European, that are interested in investing in projects in the Amazon," said Amazonas governor Wilson Miranda Lima. "It is important to look at Amazônia, not only from the point of view of conservation, but also — and this is even more important — from the point of view of its citizens. It's impossible to preserve Amazônia if its inhabitants are poor."
Signing of the EU-Mercusor Latin American trading agreement earlier this year. The pact still needs to be ratified.
Council of Hemispheric Affairs
Looming International Difficulties
The Bolsonaro government's perceived reluctance to take effective measures to curb deforestation may in the longer-term lead to a far more serious problem than the paralysis of the Amazon Fund.
In June, the European Union and Mercosur, the South American trade bloc, reached an agreement to create the largest trading bloc in the world. If all goes ahead as planned, the pact would account for a quarter of the world's economy, involving 780 million people, and remove import tariffs on 90 percent of the goods traded between the two blocs. The Brazilian government has predicted that the deal will lead to an increase of almost $100 billion in Brazilian exports, particularly agricultural products, by 2035.
But the huge surge this year in Amazon deforestation is leading some European countries to think twice about ratifying the deal. In an interview with Mongabay, the German environment ministry made it very clear that Germany is very worried about events in the Amazon: "We are deeply concerned given the pace of destruction in Brazil … The Amazon Forest is vital for the atmospheric circulation and considered as one of the tipping points of the climate system."
The ministry stated that, for the trade deal to go ahead, Brazil must carry out its commitment under the Paris Climate agreement to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 43 percent below the 2005 level by 2030. The German environment ministry said: If the trade deal is to go ahead, "It is necessary that Brazil is effectively implementing its climate change objectives adopted under the [Paris] Agreement. It is precisely this commitment that is expressly confirmed in the text of the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement."
Blairo Maggi, Brazil agriculture minister under the Temer administration, and a major shareholder in Amaggi, the largest Brazilian-owned commodities trading company, has said very little in public since Bolsonaro came to power; he's been "in a voluntary retreat," as he puts it. But Maggi is so concerned about the damage Bolsonaro's off the cuff remarks and policies are doing to international relationships he decided to speak out earlier this week.
Former Brazil Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi, who has broken a self-imposed silence to criticize the Bolsonaro government, saying that its rhetoric and policies could threaten Brazil's international commodities trade.
Senado Federal / Visualhunt / CC BY
Maggi, a ruralista who strongly supports agribusiness, told the newspaper, Valor Econômico, that, even if the European Union doesn't get to the point of tearing up a deal that has taken 20 years to negotiate, there could be long delays. "These environmental confusions could create a situation in which the EU says that Brazil isn't sticking to the rules." Maggi speculated. "France doesn't want the deal and perhaps it is taking advantage of the situation to tear it up. Or the deal could take much longer to ratify — three, five years."
Such a delay could have severe repercussions for Brazil's struggling economy which relies heavily on its commodities trade with the EU. Analysists say that Bolsonaro's fears over such an outcome could be one reason for his recently announced October meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, another key trading partner.
Maggi is worried about another, even more alarming, potential consequence of Bolsonaro's failure to stem illegal deforestation — Brazil could be hit by a boycott by its foreign customers. "I don't buy this idea that the world needs Brazil … We are only a player and, worse still, replaceable." Maggi warns, "As an exporter, I'm telling you: things are getting very difficult. Brazil has been saying for years that it is possible to produce and preserve, but with this [Bolsonaro administration] rhetoric, we are going back to square one … We could find markets closed to us."
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