Center for Food Safety

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) is a 501c3, U.S. environmental, non-profit organization, based in Washington, D.C. It maintains an office in San Francisco, California. The executive director is Andrew Kimbrell, an attorney. Its stated mission is to protect human health and the environment, focusing on artificial food production technologies such as genetically modified plants and organisms (GMOs), which are thought to be harmful to the environment and to health.

Program services

The three largest program services conducted by the Center for Food safety include:

Genetically engineered crops

The Center for Food Safety works by challenging USDA and other government agencies for not adequately reviewing the environmental and economic impacts of genetically modified crops and foods. This work includes filing lawsuits to ensure that the USDA complies with environmental and other laws.

Cool foods program

This program is conducted to inform people about the impact of their own food choices across the entire food system and to seek solutions to the problem of global warming. This program also focuses on agricultural practices that can reduce in reverse this trend.

Objectives

The Center for Food Safety promotes organic foods and sustainable agriculture. It is a national non-profit public interest and environmental advocacy organization, aiming at protecting human health and the environment. The CFS also educates consumers concerning the definition of organic food and organic products.

In order to achieve its goals, the Center for Food Safety established a "True Food Network", an online social network through which it provides information about its legal actions, books, and other educational materials, and promotes market pressure and grass roots campaigns.

Fields of activity and legal action

The Center for Food Safety has won legal cases related to food and agricultural issues.

The CFS has participated in legal actions against manufacturers of Genetically Engineered (GE) crops, such as GE alfalfa, wheat, rice, beets, and claims to have successfully stopped the commercialization of at least seven of these in the US, including the introduction of controversial Pharming plants (GE plants which produce biopharmaceuticals).^[1]

The CFS has also been a key advocate for GE food labeling at both the state and federal level, pushing for new legislation and generating public support across the country for the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to take action.^[2]

In addition to its work on GE foods, the Center for Food Safety has filed numerous legal petitions concerning the food industry, to halt the use of dangerous feed additives in industrial livestock,^[3][4] and to protect pollinators from toxic pesticides.^[5]

The organization works on: genetically modified foods animals and organisms (GMO), organic food standards, aquaculture, pesticides and pollinators, animal cloning, food irradiation, CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations - huge animal growing factories) and animal drugs, synthetic hormones (such as bovine somatropin), and mad cow disease.

The Center for Food Safety has organized a grass-roots action network dedicated to "building a socially just, democratic, and sustainable food system". The CFS has more than 375,000 members nationwide.

Executive director Andrew Kimbrell

The center's executive director is Andrew Kimbrell, a public interest attorney, environmental activist, and author.^[6] He is the founder of the International Center for Technology Assessment.^[7]

As Senior Attorney and Policy Director for the Foundation for Economic Trends, Kimbrell initiated several federal court cases. Many of these were against governmental agencies. He was able to successfully appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court as part of a coalition of organisations, resulting in the regulation of motor vehicles carbon dioxide pollution under the Clean Air Act.^[8][9]

Kimbrell appears on Utne Reader’s list of the world's leading 100 visionaries,^[10] and The Guardian recognized him in 2008 as one of the 50 people who could save the planet.^[11] He is also frequent contributor to documentaries, including the 2004 film, The Future of Food.^[12]

Financial Information

Financial information is available on the Center for Food safety's website:

Executive Director Compensation

Year	Salary and Benefits
2012	$247,734
2011	$170,187
2010	$120,152
2009	$120,203
2008	$120,065

Andrew Kimbrell has been the Executive Director since 2008. In 2012 Randy Hayes the secretary of the Center for Food safety was compensated $13,182. This is the first year any other board members were compensated other than the Executive Director.

Legal cases against genetically modified crops

The Center for Food Safety challenged the planting of genetically modified crops in the US.

Alfalfa

On 21 June 2010, the US Supreme Court issued its first ruling in regard to a GM crop in the case Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms. This was a ruling in regard to Roundup Ready alfalfa. This legal challenge was coordinated by Center for Food Safety, which had won at the federal district court and appeals court levels.

The case goes back to 2006, when organic farmers, concerned about the impact of GM alfalfa on their crops, sued Monsanto. In response, the California Northern District Court ruled that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was in error when it approved the planting of Roundup Ready alfalfa. According to the presiding judge, the law required the USDA to first conduct a full environmental study, which it had not done. It was the concern of the organic growers that the GM alfalfa could cross-pollinate with their organic alfalfa, making their crops unsalable in countries that forbid the growing of GM crops.

The impact of the current US Supreme Court ruling is somewhat unclear, with both sides appearing to claim victory.^[13][14] While Monsanto can claim technical victory in the case, various other issues still remain open, and will likely be litigated in the future. Meanwhile, the planting of GM alfalfa remains halted in the US, and it is unclear when it may resume.

Sugar beets

In 2009-2010, the United States District Court for the Northern District of California has been considering the case involving the planting of genetically modified sugar beets. This case involves Monsanto's breed of pesticide-resistant sugar beets.^[15] This lawsuit was also organised by Center for Food Safety.

Earlier in 2010, Judge Jeffrey S. White allowed the planting of GM sugar beets to continue, but he also warned that this may be blocked in the future while an environmental review was taking place. Finally, on 13 August 2010, Judge White ordered the halt to the planting of the genetically modified sugar beets in the US. He indicated that "the Agriculture Department had not adequately assessed the environmental consequences before approving them for commercial cultivation."^[16]

Monsanto Roundup resistant soy beans

In 2013, the supreme court unanimously decided against a farmer who had used grain from a grain elevator that included a high percentage of GE grain from Monsanto, without renewing his annual purchase from them, and thus infringing on Monsanto's patents.

Andrew Kimbrell from the CFS said about this decision: "The court chose to protect Monsanto over farmers."^[17]

The herbicide and pesticide chemical arms race

In a 2012 article on the Huffington Post blog website, Kimbrell claimed that the Monsanto developed soy, corn and cotton seeds, resistant to Agent Orange (despite the fact that the APHIS application doesn't include 2,4,5-T ) and other chemicals the like of it, as well as Dow Chemical's developments, are promoting a major boost in the usage of these herbicides and pesticides some of which have been proven to be highly toxic.^[18]

These developments have been made to combat newly resistant weeds and insects, immune to developed pesticides and herbicides, which became "a problem needing national attention" according to a National Academy of Sciences committee.^[18]

Kimbrell's most alarming claim is that according to some, the reliance on this non-diverse type of grain, may be "a threat to global food production".^[18][19]

One month later, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decided to reaffirm its denial of the petition, and to allow continued usage of these chemicals,^[20] and in 2014 the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) gave a green light to allow the seeds to be used, calling the "Agent Orange scare" a 'fad', and 'demonizing', since the herbicide uses only one part of the 'agent', a part which is claimed to be non-toxic to humans.^[21]

Criticism of the CFS

Anti activist website 'Activist Facts' has criticized Kimbrell and the CFS and accused them of receiving extremely large sums of money from the Foundation for Deep Ecology, and being the "high priest" of that movement. The site claims that the CFS promoted a Mad Cow disease scare.^[22]

The Center for Global Food Issues (CGFI), a pro Genetically-Engineered food organisation, claims that in one case, Kimbrell was said to have released a baseless food poisoning scare in the Wall Street Journal, following a request to exempt Monsanto from recalling of CANOLA oil from seed with a not yet US approved gene, (although approved in Canada) found in small quantities in their oil, after deciding to concentrate on a different gene that had similar results.^[23]

Pro GE crop development scientists and organisations disagree with anti GE organisations such as the CFS, and argue that the FDA and the courts are careful, scientific and truthful, and that most of the anti GE claims from organisations like CFS are based on emotion, on misrepresented facts and not on science and the scientific method.^[24]

References

External links

• Center for Food Safety
• Center for Food Safety's True Food Network