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Separately Delivered Testimony on
Maryland Senate Bill 778 and Maryland House Bill 1191
“Genetically Engineered Food––Labeling Requirements”
Before the
Senate Education, Health, and Environmental Affairs Committee
And the
House Health and Government Operations Committee
Submitted by
Nick Maravell
March 11, 2014
Personal Background
I am organic farmer for the past 35 years. Organic regulations do not permit the use
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
I have been active in establishing organic legislation and regulations, advancing
scientific organic research, and increasing awareness of organic methods and improving
organic markets. I have worked through such organizations as the Organic Trade
Association, the Organic Farming Research Foundation, the Maryland Organic Food and
Farming Association, and Future Harvest-Chesapeake Alliance for Sustainable
Agriculture. Currently, I serve on the National Organic Standards Board, a federal
advisory committee mandated to advise the Secretary on materials and practices for
organic agricultural and food production. My comments are solely personal and
represent no organization.
I own and operate Nick’s Organic Farm in Frederick County Maryland. We have 165
acres under certified organic cultivation. We are or have conducted on-farm research in
conjunction with USDA’s Beltsville Agricultural Research Center, University of Maryland
and the Maryland Department of Agriculture.
We raise grass fed Angus beef, pastured chickens and turkeys, and free range eggs,
vegetables, forages, corn, soybeans, barley, rye, and hairy vetch. Additionally, for the
last three decades we have also produced organic seed, including open pollinated corn
and food grade soybeans.
Testimony
I pose the question: Who Is Making Our Food and Farming Choices?
Many farmers in Maryland and across the country are using genetically modified
organisms—also know as GMOs. Most of the corn and soybeans, growth hormones and
vaccines sold by Monsanto, Elanco, Syngenta, Dow, Dupont, Bayer and BASF are
produced with gene altering biotechnology.
Bio-technology creates life forms that would never occur in nature because genes from
one species are being transferred into a totally different species. In addition, these new
life forms are patented so farmers cannot legally save and reproduce them.
In the mid-1990’s the promise from the bio-tech companies was that these novel
products would help cows produce more milk, control or eliminate weeds, repel insects
and diseases, and create heat and drought tolerance.
Supposedly, farmers would make more money, our yields would go up, our pesticide
use would go down, and we would be on our way to ending world hunger.
So how do these promises stack up after 20 years?
Most farmers I know are not feeling any richer. On the other hand, the bio-tech
companies are doing so well that they bought up most of the small regional seed
companies.i Genetically engineered seeds are more expensive, and now it is hard to
even find locally adapted non-GMO seeds. Interestingly, some mid-West farmers are
returning to older corn varietiesii because they feel they are losing yield and profits with
the bio-tech seeds.
Dairy farmers found cows treated with rBST hormone got more udder infections. Most
dairies have abandoned rBST, and consumers welcomed that change. We ignored the
predictions from some university weed scientists, and our fields are now plagued with
about two dozen superweeds that can't be killed by RoundUp.iii Nature’s weeds began
to out smart bio-tech in a mere half a dozen years.
Now, the bio-tech companies are trying to license new seed that resists stronger
herbicides such as 2,4D.
Pesticide use has not gone down.iii And insects? They are attacking the Bt crops that
are supposed to repel them. Drought and heat resistance, well they are still working on
that one. And, world hunger? Don’t ask.
If bio-tech were a “silver bullet,” we would know it by now. Instead, my customers and
consumers across the nation are demanding GMO labeling laws. They want to know
what they are eating. They want a choice. Just as farmers want a choice to buy nonGMO seeds and vaccines.
Our rights as farmers and consumers to know and choose is in danger of being lost.
Federal Judge Jeffrey White warned in a recent case involving Round Up Ready sugar
beets, genetic engineering could mean the "potential elimination of farmer's choice to
grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer's choice to eat non-genetically
engineered food.”
Who is making the choice of how we farm or what we eat? I want the right to choose,
and I support bills HB1191/SB0778 that would require GMO labeling for produce and
most packaged food.
Once consumers know what they’re eating, their choices will expand and so will
farmers’ chioices.
i
Howard, Philip H. 2009. Visualizing Consolidation in the Global Seed Industry: 1996–2008. Sustainability, 1(4),
1266-1287. https://www.msu.edu/~howardp/seedindustry.html
Royte, Elizabeth 2013. The Post-GMO Economy: One mainstream farmer is returning to conventional seed — and
he’s not alone. Modern Farmer. http://modernfarmer.com/2013/12/post-gmo-economy/
ii
iii
Benbrook, Charles 2012. Impacts of genetically engineered crops on pesticide use in the U.S.–the first sixteen
years. Environmental Sciences Europe, 24:24. http://www.enveurope.com/content/24/1/24