The Truth about Trade

By Tim Burrack: Arlington, Iowa

When Americans speculate that the United States is "becoming Europe," we don’t mean that our art museums are getting a lot better.

Instead, we worry about the encroachments of a growing bureaucracy that is smothering freedom and innovation.

Last Friday, in an unexpected announcement, the U.S. Department of Agriculture took an unfortunate step toward Europeanization when it delayed the approval of two crops that will help farmers control weeds and produce more food. The decision didn’t receive much immediate attention outside the agricultural press, but it sent a troubling signal about the future of farm technology that should concern all Americans. 

At the heart of the controversy lie a couple of time-tested herbicides: dicamba and 2,4-D. Scientists have figured out a way for staple crops such as corn, soybeans, and cotton to resist these chemicals, which means that farmers can control weeds without hurting the plants they’re trying to grow. 

This is hardly a radical development. As the USDA acknowledged last week, these herbicides "have been safely and widely used across the country since the 1960s." My father was using 2,4-D even before that, in the 1950s. It was the first herbicide he ever applied to his fields. It’s also one of the top ingredients in the weed-and-feed formulas that Americans apply to their lawns and gardens.

So why the sudden delay? Environmentalists complained that the introduction of these new crops will lead to the overuse of the two herbicides. This claim is at best unproven. Farmers certainly must pay attention to the development of herbicide resistance in weeds, but the answer to this problem is the advent of new technologies that keep us one step ahead of weed adaptations. 

In other words, these new crops are part of the solution—and keeping safe products away from farmers just makes it harder for us to grow the food our country needs. 

Farmers rely on effective methods of crop protection, including weed control. With them, we can grow more food on less land—and thereby reduce the pressure to convert wilderness into farmland. Environmentalists ought to join farmers in search of new conservation technologies, not oppose us in their safe implementation.

Of greater concern to me is the fact that the Center for Food Safety had threatened to sue the USDA if it didn’t perform an environmental impact study on its own initiative.  These traits had already been under review by USDA for 3 years with no evidence of potential harm to humans or the environment.  Using litigation to slow down or ban a safe product should concern all of us!

Farmers lose either way.  The USDA’s bad decision means that these new crops won’t go on the market and be available to me and other farmers next year, as previously planned. Now we’ll have to wait until 2015 at the soonest. This postponement may not sound like much, but it contributes to a disturbing trend. In the United States, it’s becoming harder and harder to introduce new agricultural technologies.   

America has led the world in boosting crop yields. Food is safer, more abundant, and more affordable than ever before. Rather than cheering on our ingenuity, however, bureaucrats increasingly want to hold it back.

We’re watching a major slowdown in new crop approvals. We’ve gone from leading to it now taking the United States three times as long as Argentina and Brazil to approve a new technology. The U.S. is going backwards while Brazil and Argentina are moving forward by effectively using internationally agreed upon science-based regulations.  Innovation in agriculture technology has always has been one of the American farmer’s great advantages over his food-producing competitors. Now we’re handing it away, and for no good reason. 

We need to return to sensible, science-based regulations—not shifting sands and unpredictable decrees from bureaucrats.

Europe already has traveled far down this fateful path. Its embrace of the "precautionary principle" has made it all but impossible to approve agricultural innovations, stifling the continent’s biotech industry. European farmers envy Americans, who can plant genetically modified crops. USDA’s decision on herbicide-resistant plants suggests that they may not be so envious in the future. 

Earlier this year, the British writer Samuel Gregg published "Becoming Europe," a book on economic and cultural trends in the United States. He urged Americans to reject Europeanization and embrace their freedom-loving heritage. He also quotes Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th-century Frenchman who studied our country: "The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults."

So here’s a message for USDA’s bureaucrats: Waste no time in repairing your crop-protection fault. 

Tim Burrack raises corn, soybeans and pork on a NE Iowa family farm.  He serves as Vice-Chairman and volunteers as a Board Member of Truth About Trade and Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.

 By Dean Kleckner:  Des Moines, Iowa

When President Obama nominated Michael Froman as U.S. Trade Representative last week, he cracked a joke about an old friend. 

"We went to law school together," said the president. "He was much smarter than me then. He continues to be smarter than me now."

Is Froman really smarter than President Obama, who graduated with highest honors from Harvard Law School? Who cares? The important point is that the men were students together more than two decades ago, when they labored over issues of the Harvard Law Review and built a personal bond that may hold the key to jump starting America’s trade agenda.

The Senate should move swiftly to confirm Froman, so that he can move on and push for the trade agreements with Asia and Europe that hold enormous potential to fuel economic growth and create jobs in the United States. 

Froman is currently the president’s deputy national security advisor for international affairs. He has represented the president at meetings of the G8 and G20. President Obama has credited Froman with helping secure final approval of the free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea. 

So Froman’s resume looks promising. Yet the thing that matters most may be his personal connection to the president: Froman has the president’s ear.

News reports indicate that after Harvard, the two men fell out of touch. In 2004, however, Froman learned that Obama was running for the Senate from Illinois. So he contacted his old pal, offered his services, and has been a close advisor ever since.

Froman knew Obama before it was cool.

This really matters. For a U.S. Trade Representative to succeed, he must enjoy the complete confidence of the White House. But that’s not sufficient. He also needs to have constant access to the president. If trade talks bog down, Froman will be able to phone the Oval Office--and know that President Obama will take his call and help him maintain positive momentum.

Perceptions are important as well. Trade diplomats from Brussels to Tokyo will know that Froman has a direct line to Obama--a fact that will encourage them to take Froman seriously as a negotiating partner.  

This may carry a special payoff right now. The World Trade Organization is on the verge of selecting a new leader, meaning that the United States and the WTO could improve a troubled relationship.

Former U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who left office two months ago, was in many ways a capable man. And he was a political ally of the president, but not an old friend. This may have played a small part in the Obama administration’s sluggish first-term trade agenda. 

President Obama has talked a good game on trade, promising to double exports by 2015 and to pursue ambitious agreements with Asia, Europe, and the rest of the world.

The reality, however, however, has failed to match the rhetoric. Exports have not grown as quickly as the president vowed. The Trans Pacific Partnership remains a tantalizing possibility rather than a done deal. Trade talks with the European Union have yet to achieve liftoff. The Doha round of WTO negotiations is kaput. 

Last year, President Obama even suggested eliminating the office of U.S. Trade Representative, combining its duties with those of the Secretary of Commerce. Although the federal government should strive to reduce its bureaucratic bulk, this was a lousy idea. The United States needs a cabinet-level official whose exclusive portfolio is trade diplomacy. 

The fact that President Obama nominated Froman on the same day he announced the nomination of Penny Pritzker as Commerce Secretary suggests that the president has abandoned the plan to consolidate these two jobs. This is a welcome development.

To a certain extent, however, Froman’s abilities and authority are just details. More than anything else, a robust trade agenda requires a president who is fully committed to breaking down barriers that prevent the flow of goods and service across borders.

The nomination of Froman is a good sign. Now the Senate should do its part to help the Obama-Froman friendship move into its next and most important phase.

Dean Kleckner is Chairman Emeritus of Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.

By Gilbert Arap Bor:  Kapseret, Kenya

A newly elected government provides a country with a rare opportunity for a fresh start—and President Uhuru Kenyatta’s nomination this week of Felix Kiptarus Kosgey to become Kenya’s next Cabinet Secretary for Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries offers my nation a remarkable opening to make a hard push for real food security.

Success, however, will require President Kenyatta, his deputy Ruto, Agriculture Secretary nominee Kosgey, and the rest of our new government to set aside the bad mistakes of the recent past and embrace the bright future of biotechnology.

There’s every reason to hope that they will. At the launch of the Jubilee Coalition manifesto in February, Kenyatta and Ruto promised to "put food and water on every Kenyan’s table." At his inauguration on April 9, Kenyatta reaffirmed his government will implement the manifesto in total.

This is both a tall order and a worthy goal—and one of the surest ways to achieve it is by accepting the latest advances in agricultural biotechnology, recognizing that they have become conventional practices in many countries and should become so here as well.

Everywhere farmers have had the chance, they have adopted genetically modified crops. Last year, more than 17 million farmers around the world planted more than 170 million hectares of GM crops, according to a new report from the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications.

This is an all-time high. Moreover, farmers in poor countries made it possible: For the first time, developing nations accounted for more than half of the world’s GM crop plantings.

Unfortunately, as much as Kenyan farmers have hailed the Green Revolution of the 20th century, they have not yet participated in this Gene Revolution of the 21st century.

Our scientists have made strides toward developing biotech crops that would flourish in our soil and climate, but a toxic mix of scientific illiteracy and political pressure has prevented the commercialization of these promising plants. To make matters even worse, the previous government banned the importation of GM foods into Kenya and ordered the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation to remove all GM foods from the shelves of grocery stores.

This tragic decision came last November, in the wake of a controversial French study that claimed to find a connection between GM food and tumors in rats. The results were immediately widely debunked by renowned scientists from around the world. Yet the political activists whose personal ideology opposes agricultural biotechnology—many of them wealthy Europeans who don’t have to wonder about their next meal—managed to smear a vital tool for fighting hunger.

Kenyatta’s cabinet, guided by Agriculture Secretary nominee Kosgey cannot move swiftly enough to overturn the previous government’s misbegotten ban on GM food. It may be the single most significant step they can take to improve our nation’s food security.

They should accept what respected organizations ranging from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Britain’s Royal Society have said for a long time: GM food is safe to grow and eat. We have nothing to fear from it—and so much to gain.

Sub-Saharan Africa lags the world in food production. While farmers in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Canada, and the United States have jumped at the chance to take advantage of high-yielding GM crops, farmers in Kenya and its neighbors have been relegated to the sidelines.

Last year, Sudan became only the fourth African country to permit the planting of GM crops, following the leads of Burkina Faso, Egypt, and South Africa.

The boost in farm productivity alone is enough to justify Kenya’s adoption of crop biotechnology, because it would help us feed a growing population. But the benefits would not stop there. Improved access to GM seeds would create jobs by supplying the raw materials for our textile industries. Everyone would benefit.

It would be great to see Kenya join the global biotech movement. Even better, though, would be to watch a truly forward-looking Kenya not merely join, but lead.  

Kenyatta and Kosgey should refuse to let our continent continue to fall behind the rest of the world. With the proper leadership, they can show Africa the way to a better tomorrow—and a future in which we enjoy true food security.

Gilbert Arap Bor grows corn (maize), vegetables and dairy cows on a small-scale farm of 25 acres in Kapseret, near Eldoret, Kenya.  He also teaches at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Eldoret campus.  Mr. Bor is the 2011 Kleckner Trade & Technology Advancement Award recipient and a member of the Truth About Trade & Technology Global Farmer Network (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.

 By John Reifsteck:  Champaign, Illinois

When the biotechnology antagonists try to stoke fear by warning about "superweeds," they make these plants sound like an alarming cross between the unruly dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" and the carnivorous botany in "Little Shop of Horrors."

"I was talking to a farmer from Arkansas and he’s got weeds that are now eight feet tall, they’re the diameter of my wrists, and they can stop a combine in its tracks," Gary Hirshberg, a leading anti-biotech activist, told U.S. News & World Report last year. "The only way [farmers] can stop them is to go in there with machetes and hack them out."

Gary is actually right -but this is nothing new, and has nothing to do with biotechnology.  Hand weeding has been practiced since farming started.  One of the least favorite jobs of my youth was walking through fields cutting out weeds.  It is hard work. You are not just battling weeds, but also the weather and insects.  Often when you started in the morning the crops you were walking through were soaking wet from dew, and the air was cold.  By the end of the day the heat and humidity was stifling, and no matter you were in the field there were flying, crawling and biting bugs.  There was nothing noble about hand weeding; it is simply hard, uncomfortable work. 

Weeds are among farmers’ oldest foes because they compete with the crops that we grow for food. They suck moisture from the ground, steal nutrients from the soil, and block sunlight from the sky. Our job is to minimize the harm they do in our fields.

We can control weeds from season to season, but the weeds will always be with us. They’ll never suffer a final defeat. We fight them and they fight back. They’re always responding to everything farmers do, in a generational struggle for survival. My dad, who was also a farmer, faced weeds that I’ve never seen and he probably wouldn’t recognize some of the weeds I encounter in my fields. 

Farmers are playing chess with nature, in an endless game with new pieces added to the board each year. We will never checkmate nature; instead our goal is to maximize what we produce given the challenges that are part of farming. 

Just in my generation farmers have acquired new tools to combat weeds.  Herbicides that help control weeds have transformed agriculture.  They are safe, effective and reduce the amount of tillage farmers need to do to their fields.  Less tillage also means less soil erosion and less energy used to produce our crops.

Scientists in the last few years have developed a new form of crop through genetic modification. It possesses the ability to resist a safe herbicide called glyphosate. This development has allowed farmers to spray glyphosate, killing weeds but not the crops they’re trying to grow.

Suddenly we were able to raise more crops on less land. Glyphosate was so good that we even decreased our herbicide use.

Within a few years, these GM crops became a conventional part of agriculture. Today, the vast majority of the corn, soybeans, and cotton in the United States are immune to glyphosate. Farmers embraced these crops because they made so much sense, for both economic and environmental reasons.

Yet nature isn’t static. It changes all the time, and so some weed species have begun to build a resistance to glyphosate and other herbicides. These are the "superweeds" the anti-technology activists are warning us about.

Except that there’s nothing "super" about them. They are ordinary weeds and their emergence was expected. Nobody predicted that glyphosate-resistant crops represented a lasting victory over weeds--at least not anybody who understands how nature works.

The people who complain the loudest about these weeds tend not to be the farmers who have to confront them in the fields. I would appreciate their concern if I didn’t also know that they aren’t really worried about my ability to produce nutritious and affordable food. Instead, they’re using propagandistic words and phrases to frighten the public and push a personal ideological agenda in opposition to crop biotechnology.

Their real goal is to enact public policies that will make farming harder, drive up grocery-store prices for consumers, and deny everyone an important tool of land conservation.

If they succeed, "superweeds" will be only one of our problems.

Meanwhile, those of us who work the land rather than play politics must now return to the familiar challenge of coming up with new ways to fight an old battle. And we’ll succeed, as long as we can rely on the twin powers of scientific technology and human ingenuity.  That is what farmers do.

John Reifsteck is a corn and soybean producer in Champaign County Illinois.  He volunteers as a Board Member for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.

 By Bill Horan: Rockwell City, Iowa

There has been some serious misinformation about the Farmers Assurance Provision running through the anti-biotech community that I would like to address personally.  Maybe you’ve heard some voices rail against the so-called "Monsanto Protection Act" – a nickname invented to infuriate other anti-technology activists and hopefully raise support for their campaign to ban or at least slow down the planting of GM crops. 

With groups like the Center for Food Safety, Mother Jones Magazine, Food Democracy Now and Food & Water Watch – each with an anti-technology in agriculture agenda – noted as their source of information, it’s time for farmers who use the technology to speak up and talk about what the provision actually does.

Included in a spending bill recently signed by President Obama, The Farmer Assurance Provision has a simple purpose: It assures farmers like me that frivolous junk-science lawsuits won’t stop them from planting safe and healthy crops that have been USDA approved for planting after passing years of rigorous testing. This modest measure merely codifies case law already developed by the Supreme Court as well as the current practices of the Department of Agriculture.

Shortly after approval of the Farmer Assurance Provision, an anti-biotech website actually described it as an act of "fascism."

How do you have a reasonable discussion with an activist who equates a legal measure that received bipartisan support in Congress and backing from the White House with the horrors of Nazi Germany?  

I’ve grown biotech crops on my farm for twenty years. I choose these crops because they let me grow more food on less land—the very definition of sustainable agriculture. Along the way, these crops help me make more efficient use of resources such as water, fertilizer, and fuel while protecting the soil.

In other words, these crops make sense for both economic and environmental reasons. They’re an important tool for me as a farmer and they’re good for all of us as consumers who want sustainable food at a reasonable price. 

Litigation is the root of the problem this provision addresses.  It is not a food safety or environment protection issue.

Around the globe, scientists and regulators have studied biotech crops and deemed them safe, from the American Medical Association to the World Health Organization.

Yet biotechnology faces ongoing opposition from an ideological movement that will stop at nothing to smear farming practices that work effectively and safely to feed my family and yours. Some have a misguided, anti-scientific agenda. Others are just special-interest groups: Certain elements of the organic-food industry worry that biotechnology puts their expensive food products at a competitive disadvantage.

Whatever their motives, biotechnology’s foes have failed to block these needed and proven effective farming tools. So they’ve resorted to legal harassment, filing nuisance lawsuits against crops that farmers already have received authorization to plant. That’s what happened to genetically modified sugar beets a few years ago.  

The beets employed a weed-defeating technology already at work in corn and soybeans. Farmers were eager to take advantage of this tool, so they welcomed this new crop.

The lawsuit came five years later. It didn’t charge that biotech beets were unsafe for human consumption or that they harmed the environment. Instead, it raised a technical legal concern in the Department of Agriculture’s environmental assessment and demanded an even more comprehensive impact statement.

It was the sort of allegation that only a paper-pushing bureaucrat could love.

A federal judge responded by ordering a do-over. And then, despite no evidence of any potential harm, he took an extra, radical step, demanding the destruction of 95 percent of America’s sugar beet plants.

Imagine the plight of sugar-beet farmers. The government had approved a certain crop for widespread commercial planting. After several years of success, a single judge told them to wipe out a whole season of planting due to a technical violation that had no bearing on the health of people or the environment.

Fortunately, the judge’s order was overturned on appeal, ending a chaotic period of confusion and struggle. In time, the Department of Agriculture completed its comprehensive impact statement and determined that sugar beets were safe to plant - again. Separately, the Supreme Court ruled that courts can’t yank crop approvals on technicalities—they should let farmers proceed, at least temporarily, during moments of additional regulatory review.

The new provision takes the Supreme Court’s decision and gives it the force of federal law. This reasonable step provides farmers with a little more confidence that ridiculous lawsuits won’t uproot settled practices in an instant. 

That’s why it’s called the Farmer Assurance Provision—it protects us from the caprices of anti-biotech activists, and provides us with the assurance we need to go about our business of growing safe, nutritious, and affordable food.

Bill Horan grows corn, soybeans and other grains with his brother on a family farm based in North Central Iowa.  Bill volunteers as a board member and serves as Chairman for Truth About Trade & Technology (www.truthabouttrade.org). Follow us: @TruthAboutTrade on Twitter | Truth About Trade & Technology on Facebook.