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The USDA’s sudden announcement on Jan. 27 to allow unregulated planting of GMO alfalfa sent shockwaves and a sense of betrayal through the food integrity movement. (Alfalfa hay is used primarily to feed dairy cows and goats.) Questions have arisen among farmers, retailers, manufacturers, advocacy groups and other stakeholders as to the legitimacy of the manner in which recent events have unfolded. In a complex situation such as this involving the courts, the USDA, the White House, and major players in the natural foods and biotech industries, the exact truth of backroom dealings may never be known, at least not in the short run. Legal experts question whether the USDA’s recent actions are in accord with the Supreme Court’s June 2010 decision regarding GMO alfalfa, which required impact studies and economic compensation agreements to be in place before commercial planting could commence. We are also left with speculation that pressure from a nervous White House wanting to shore up its image with big business may have prompted premature USDA action (e.g., the USDA itself told the Court that an environmental impact study would take at least a year, not a mere six months, to complete.) To say that the situation is delicate and dicey, and that an array of vested interests may have played a larger than appropriate role, is an understatement.

In the more than 15 years since GMOs were introduced, the U.S. has caved to the biotech and petroleum industries in ways that would be inconceivable in other industrialized and democratic nations. As a result, our health, our environment, our agricultural resources and our civic fabric has been under prolonged and pernicious attack from those very institutions which are supposed to safeguard, not actively endanger, our welfare. There have been tremendous successes in the food arena, such as the emergence of organics into the mainstream and the more recent interest in food localization, and we need to rejoice in those. At the same time, and as painful as it is to acknowledge, while the American food movement has significant battles, it is losing the GMO war.