What does the Supreme Court of the United States say about GMOs? [View all]

[Attorney in Texas]

From the Supreme Court of the United States opinion in Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms:

Emphasizing “the undisputed concentration of alfalfa seed farms,” the District Court found that those farmers had “established a ‘reasonable probability’ that their organic and conventional alfalfa crops will be infected with the engineered gene” if RRA is completely deregulated. App. to Pet. for Cert. 50a. A substantial risk of gene flow injures respondents in several ways. For example, respondents represent that, in order to continue marketing their product to consumers who wish to buy non-genetically-engineered alfalfa, respondents would have to conduct testing to find out whether and to what extent their crops have been contaminated. See, e.g., Record, Doc. 62, p. 5 (Declaration of Phillip Geertson in Support of Plaintiffs' Motion for Summary Judgment) (hereinafter Geertson Declaration) (“Due to the high potential for contamination, I will need to test my crops for the presence of genetically engineered alfalfa seed. This testing will be a new cost to my seed business and we will have to raise our seed prices to cover these costs, making our prices less competitive”); id., Doc. 57, p. 4 (Declaration of Patrick Trask in Support of Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment) (“To ensure that my seeds are pure, I will need to test my crops and obtain certification that my seeds are free of genetically engineered alfalfa”); see also Record, Doc. 55, p. 2 (“There is zero tolerance for contaminated seed in the organic market”). Respondents also allege that the risk of gene flow will cause them to take certain measures to minimize the likelihood of potential contamination and to ensure an adequate supply of non-genetically-engineered alfalfa. See, e.g., Geertson Declaration 3 (noting the “increased cost of alfalfa breeding due to potential for genetic contamination”); id., at 6 (“Due to the threat of contamination, I have begun contracting with growers outside of the United States to ensure that I can supply genetically pure, conventional alfalfa seed. Finding new growers has already resulted in increased administrative costs at my seed business”).Such harms, which respondents will suffer even if their crops are not actually infected with the Roundup ready gene, are sufficiently concrete to satisfy the injury-in-fact prong of the constitutional standing analysis.

Monsanto Co. v. Geertson Seed Farms, 561 U.S. 139, 153-56, 130 S. Ct. 2743, 2754-56, 177 L. Ed. 2d 461 (2010).

If someone wants to have a bullshit argument about whether GMOs are safe to eat, that's fine, but why does anyone dispute that GMOs are horrible for independent farmers?

Why does anyone dispute that consumers have the right to know if the product they are buying is putting independent farmers into bankruptcy?

If we don't have the right to know if the crap for sale at the supermarket contains GMOs, do we also lose the right to know if wedding rings have conflict diamonds, if coffee is fair-trade, if pasta is gluten-free, if chickens are free-range, if beef is grass-fed (or confined in a crate and fed milk until it is slaughtered as a calf as sold as veal)?

Under what market system would we want to hide this information from consumers?