American agriculture is a huge business and, like most businesses, does what it must to protect itself from critics, especially lawmakers who would institute rules that would cost it money. But change—though slower than many would like—is happening.

Americans are not just knuckling under to the GMO lobbyists. In Vedic City, Iowa, the city council unanimously passed a resolution making it illegal to sell genetically modified or any nonorganic food within the city limits. Mayor Bob Wynne said people can still buy conventional food outside the city and bring it in, but the town’s two grocery stores henceforth must be all organic.

In Europe, the European Union Agriculture Council has agreed that no GM product will be allowed unlabeled into the EU market. All GM food, food ingredients, and animal feeds—including sugars, refined oils, and starches produced from GMOs—have to be clearly labeled. Another regulation sets up a traceability system to track food and food ingredients consisting of, containing, or produced from GMOs across all stages of food delivery from farm to processor to market. “No GMOs can enter the European market unlabeled,” said Lorenzo Consoli, Greenpeace Advisor on GMOs. “This sends a strong message to commodity exporting nations such as the United States of America, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil. The times when you could sneak millions of tons of GM soybeans and corn unlabeled into the food chain are definitely over.” As of this writing, GM foods are still not allowed to be labeled as such in the United States.

United Natural Foods, one of the largest wholesale distributors of organic foods in the United States, sponsors “The Campaign to Label Genetically Engineered Foods” for the purpose of getting Congress and the president to pass and sign legislation that will require the labeling of GM foods here. If you’re interested in aiding this cause, visit the web site at http://www.thecampaign.org

There’s no doubt that the production of organic foods is exploding. In 2001, worldwide sales of organic food reached $26 billion. It’s estimated to reach $80 billion by 2008. Europe is leading the global push. Germany’s goal is to make 20 percent of its farmland organic by 2010. Belgium, Holland, and Wales are shooting for 10 percent by then, and countries such as Italy aren’t far behind. Organic farmland in the United States doubled in just five years between 1997 and 2002. In 2002, the USDA’s National Organic Program issued strict rules for foods that can be given the Department’s Organic seal. From a one-page flyer called “Organic Gardening in a Nutshell,” distributed by the thousands in the 1970s, the rules for organic agriculture have ballooned to sixty-three pages of government regulations, covering every aspect of organic food production.  ....read more