Eitan Arom: Choosing organic or genetically modified foods is up to the consumer
By Eitan Arom
Sept. 28, 2012 12:48 a.m.
On what will presumably be a sunny Southern California Tuesday this November, many UCLA students will march dutifully to cast their votes at the ballot box.
What some of those students might not realize is that they vote nearly every day, not at the ballot box but at the cash register.
One ballot measure on which Bruins will be voting is Proposition 37, which mandates that genetically modified foods in California be labeled as such. The measure represents a healthy awareness about our impact on the environment but it also supersedes the consumer by using legislation to tilt the market against genetically modified foods.
As it stands, sans legislation, there are shopping guides online to help consumers buy non-genetically modified foods. Certified organic products cannot contain any genetically engineered ingredients.
If they choose, consumers already have the power to vote at the register against genetic engineering.
So what do I mean by voting at the register?
When you swipe your credit card at the register, you are sending a signal to producers to make more of whatever it is you are buying. If you buy organic milk, you send a market signal to produce more organic products. The same goes for locally grown, fair trade and, of course, genetically modified products.
The UCLA sustainability group Ecology, Economy, Equity, also known as E3, has made it a central mission to educate students about their impact as consumers.
Fourth-year economics and political science student Niran Somasundaram, formerly a Daily Bruin writer, who headed the E3’s fair trade campaign, said the group made significant strides last year in promoting fair trade consumption on campus.
This year, Somasundaram is heading E3’s campaign to educate UCLA students about Prop 37 and encourage them to vote yes.
Of course, the bill has its skeptics.
Take for example, Colin Carter, a professor of agricultural economics and head of the Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics at UC Davis.
On Monday, a Huffington Post blogger Michele Simon attacked Carter’s recent paper against the proposition, even insinuating he might have ties to the opposition campaign. Carter said he has no connection with the No on 37 campaign, and further that he maintains the position that the legislation is unnecessary and cumbersome.
“If you ever shop at Trader Joe’s, they have brands that are non (genetically modified),” Carter said. “The people that are willing to pay for it will pay for it.”
UCLA students should vote with their wallets if they feel passionately either for or against genetically modified products. To legislate the issue seems, indeed, a bit superfluous.
Yet it’s hard to discount E3’s stance that consumers deserve to know, explicitly, what products contain genetically modified ingredients.
“I understand why you want to put genetically modified foods on the market, but at least tell us about it,” Somasundaram said.
The question then boils down to whether legislation or free markets is the appropriate vehicle for change.
In the case of genetically modified foods, it can be argued that the legislation is designed to make an existing free market work better.
However, the legislation also bears costs that are both explicit ““ the cost of regulation ““ and implicit ““ the cost of labels and lost ad space. For that reason, the legislation is a value judgment against genetically modified products and serves to hamper the free market.
Ideally, such value judgments would be made at the cash register rather than at the ballot box.
Proposition 37 represents a tax, albeit one paid in ad space rather than dollars and cents. While it may protect the consumer, it does so by putting a legislative burden on genetically modified products.
Whether or not you should favor the proposition has more to do with your opinion on taxes and government than your opinion on genetic engineering.
The point of consensus is that the products we buy really matter ““ whether they are organic, local, kosher, halal, shade-grown, cage-free or all of the above. As UCLA students gear up to cast their ballots in November, it is worth taking a second to think about the votes we cast with our greenbacks nearly every day.
Email Arom at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected] or tweet us @DBOpinion.
