Web Note: In answer to the two big questions posed by this article's author (why a boycott? and why Kelloggs?) OCA staffer Ryan Zinn says,
"1) OCA and numerous other faith-based, consumer advocacy, and farmer focused organizations actually have carried out letter writing campaigns since Fall of 2007, urging Kellogg's, M&M Mars, Hershey's and other corporations to not source GE sugar beets. OCA network members, for example, have sent over 15 thousand letters to Kellogg's before we considered launching a boycott of Kellogg's products.
2) OCA has targeted Kellogg's specifically for several reasons. First, Kellogg's actually produces food that is widely consumed in the United States. M&M/Mars and Hershey's are candy/junk food companies that have a very small percentage of their overall line dedicated to food items. The real nutritional impact of junk food companies switching from genetically engineered high-fructose corn syrup to genetically engineered sugar (sourced from sugar beets) would be relatively insignificant in the big picture.
Second, Kellogg's, per their letter to the OCA, has the logistical capacity to source non-GE sugar beets for their products, like they do in Europe. Genetically engineering sugar beets is totally unjustifiable. These GE sugar beets do not provide any environmental, nutritional or food quality benefits whatsoever. They are created by Monsanto to withstand massive doses of herbicides and keep farmers on a never ending pesticide treadmill that is bad news for rural communities, the environment and consumers. The bottom line is that there are numerous options to GE sugar beets.
Finally, Kellogg's owns several subsidiary lines, like Morningstar Farms, a leading vegetarian brand. The vegetarian/vegan community has expressed a justified level of outrage directed at Kellogg's/Morningstar Farms for making no effort to source non-GE ingredients. While I believe that all Americans are concerned with nutrition, well-being, and environmentally sustainable food production, many vegetarians have made a lifestyle change to include vegetarian products that reflect these values. Morningstar Farms products do not reflect a commitment to consumer health or environmental sustainability."
For more information on GE sugar and the boycott against Kellogg's, please visit: http://www.organicconsumers.org/kelloggs.cfm
The Organic Consumers Association has called for a boycott of Kellogg's products because the company indicated it won't have a problem using sugar from genetically modified sugar beets.
The issue grew out of a November New York Times article noting that farmers will, for the first time, be planting "Roundup-ready" beets engineered to resist Monsanto's Roundup herbicide. No one is using the sugar yet, including Kellogg's, but the opportunity is on the way.
Seven years ago, beet breeders were on the verge of introducing Roundup-resistant seeds. But they had to pull back after sugar-using food companies like Hershey and Mars, fearing consumer resistance, balked at the idea of biotech beets. Now, though, sensing that those concerns have subsided, many processors have cleared their growers to plant the Roundup-resistant beets next spring.
It would be the first new type of genetically engineered food crop widely grown since the 1990s, when biotech soybeans, corn and a few other crops entered the market.
"Basically, we have not run into resistance," said David Berg, president of American Crystal Sugar, the nation's largest sugar beet processor. "We really think that consumer attitudes have come to accept food from biotechnology."
The interesting point to me is that Kellogg's told the consumers group it would not use GMO sugar for products sold in Europe. All of its European products are "free of any ingredients derived from biotech sources." But they don't think U.S. customers care, and "consumer preference is the critical factor Kellogg uses in determining the products being provided in every market." In short, if we objected to genetically modified food the way Europeans do, they wouldn't put it on our food either.
