Recent polling indicates almost 70% of citizens support informational labeling. And a flood of new contributions to fight the measure has rolled in from the biotechnology industry and food manufacturers, totaling over $23 million, according to the California Secretary of State. This dwarfs the approximately $3 million contributed by proponents of GE labeling.
“Consumers might be surprised to find out that brands hiding under ‘natural’ façades are in fact owned by multi-billion-dollar corporations that are contributing bushel baskets of cash to defeating Proposition 37,” says Charlotte Vallaeys, Director of Farm and Food Policy at The Cornucopia Institute.
Mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food in California is viewed as a watershed event by many industry observers, as many companies will find it logistically or economically difficult to produce foods with labels identifying GE for California while producing a different product line of foods for the rest of the country.
“Just as we’ve observed in Europe, where labeling of food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is mandatory, we fully expect that when given a choice, consumers will choose organic or non-GMO products,” said Mark A. Kastel, Codirector of Wisconsin-based Cornucopia. “And the industrial food lobby is fully cognizant of this—that’s why they’re fighting like hell against this grassroots effort.”
To make it easier for shoppers to identify and support organic brands whose corporate owners support Proposition 37, and avoid buying brands owned by companies that financially contributed to opposing the “Right to Know” campaign, The Cornucopia Institute has developed a guide for consumers.
“If the food and biotech industries are so proud of their pervasive genetically manipulated crops, why are they so afraid, and so desperately opposed to labeling it?” asked Arran Stephens, founder of Nature’s Path, North America’s largest certified organic cereal and granola brand with manufacturing plants in the US and Canada.
Besides Nature’s Path, those who have contributed in support of Proposition 37 include venerable organic manufacturers such as Dr. Bronner’s, Nutiva and Lundberg rice. These companies are all independently-owned businesses that avoid GMOs and are committed to supporting organic agriculture.
“Food companies are required by law to label ‘contains peanuts’ if included in their product. People deserve the same for GMOs. Our customers want to know if any product contains GMOs,” says John Roulac, founder and CEO of Nutiva, an organic food company.
On the other side, joining Monsanto and the giant food lobby group Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA) in donating money to the effort to defeat the ballot initiative, are multi-billion-dollar, multi-national companies including General Mills, Dean Foods, Kellogg and Pepsico. These companies own brands that are misrepresented to consumers as independent, value-driven businesses.
Biotechnology corporations and corporate agribusinesses have collectively donated millions of dollars to defeat Proposition 37. Monsanto alone has donated $4.2 million, while food giants Pepsico and Coca Cola have each donated more than $1 million.
“Consumers are increasingly interested in ‘voting with their forks,’ and many want to support companies that share their values,” says Vallaeys. “But consumers may not realize that many organic and ‘natural’ brands are owned by the very same corporations that are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each, or even millions, in an effort to scuttle Proposition 37 in California,” she adds.
For example, Kashi is owned by Kellogg, which has contributed $612,000 to defeating Proposition 37. Last year, The Cornucopia Institute published a study, Cereal Crimes, which revealed that the popular, “natural” Kashi GoLean cereal brand, unbeknownst to its customers, contains genetically engineered ingredients.
In what The Cornucopia Institute characterizes as “creating a façade,” nowhere on the Kashi website or packaging is it disclosed that the company is owned by Kellogg, rather than the “small band of passionate people” featured on the Kashi website.
Another example is Silk soymilk, which carries the “Non-GMO Project Verified” seal on its products but is owned by the nation’s largest dairy, Dean Foods, which has contributed $253,000 to the effort to kill Prop. 37. Dean Foods also owns the Horizon Organic brand. Both Silk and Horizon profess to consumers that the brands oppose GMOs.
“Talk is cheap,” adds Vallaeys. “Consumers should not only know whether there are GMOs in their food, but also whether their hard-earned dollars are supporting companies that then turn around and invest those profits in the effort to sell-out their right to know.”
The Cornucopia Institute, which developed the funding guide, stresses that the organization is not against corporate involvement in organics.
“We welcome corporate involvement in the organic food industry, but only when the parent company subscribes to the values that the organic food movement is based on,” says Kastel. “We have a problem with the duplicity of corporations that hide under a ‘holier-than-thou’ marketing brand and then undermine the very values of the organic movement.”
“For example, when Kellogg donates money to the Organic Trade Association, the Kashi brand appears on the OTA website. But when the same company donates to the effort to defeat Proposition 37, Kellogg will do everything in its power to make sure that its Kashi customers, who seek wholesome and natural foods, do not associate the Kashi brand with a corporate contributor to the effort to kill Proposition 37,” adds Kastel.
The same is true for the R.W. Knudsen and Santa Cruz Organic brands, owned by Smucker, and the Cascadian Farm, Larabar and Muir Glen brands, owned by General Mills. These corporate brand owners have donated $387,000 and $520,000, respectively, to defeating Proposition 37.
By using Cornucopia’s Proposition 37 funding guide, consumers can invest their food dollars in organic and non-GMO companies that are truly committed to supporting sustainable agriculture.
“Hiding the truth about our food is pervasive, unethical, and only done for money,” says Michael Potter, CEO of Eden Foods, an organic food manufacturer that financially contributed to support Proposition 37. “Let this [Prop. 37] be the beginning of an end to it.”
In terms of businesses supporting Proposition 37, Dr. Joseph Mercola, of drmercola.com, has contributed $800,000. The committee supporting Proposition 37 has also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from individual citizens. The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has been a key funding and organizing driver of the GMO labeling effort.
Many of the seemingly duplicitous companies that are contributing to defeat Proposition 37 are also some of the largest member-donors to the Organic Trade Association (OTA), the trade-lobby group for the organic industry. The OTA has long been criticized by public interest groups for its efforts to weaken the organic law and standards.
On the Board of Directors of the Organic Trade Association sit Julia Sabin (Smucker) and Kelly Shea (Dean Foods), both working for corporations that have contributed to the committee opposing Proposition 37.
“The Organic Trade Association lists brands as major donors, like Kashi, R.W. Knudsen, Cascadian Farm (General Mills) and others that are owned by corporations that financially contribute to defeating Proposition 37,” says Cornucopia’s Kastel. “The OTA is in large part run by and funded by some of the same companies that are in bed with the biotechnology industry and its destructive agricultural practices.”
Hershey Invests $300 Million In Future Of American Manufacturing… And Consumption
in Uncategorized/by MAM Team9/25/2012
I talked with JP Bilbrey, President and CEO and Terry O’Day, SVP of Global Operations about the investment. Both say that the plant is an homage the company’s roots and founder, which is a warm, nice thought. More tangibly, what it does is reaffirm Pennsylvania’s role in the company’s chocolate manufacturing for North America. The plant employs technology never before seen in candy manufacturing, O’Day says, including highly automated IT systems designed to keep Hershey’s Kisses rolling off the lines 24 hours a day.
And while automation means fewer workers in the plant,(Hershey is training 700 of its 4,800 Pennsylvanian employees to run it) the company estimates that it will still produce $1 billion in economic gains for Pennsylvania over the course of five years — coming in the form of supplier contracts, payroll and related spending.
It may be cheaper to manufacture in other countries — and Hershey does, its playing a big game in emerging markets like India, China and Brazil — but when it comes to making chocolate there are other things to consider. For Hershey, that means access to fresh milk. Their West Hershey plant consumes between 300,000 and 350,000 gallons of milk a day — mostly from a 90-mile radius surrounding the plants. And they want short commutes for products to retailers.
The new plant isn’t the only way Hershey is employing technology. Come candy seasons (Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Christmas) they now use a proprietary system to place orders for retailers — so they know how much of each Hershey’s product they should purchase. This alone would be unremarkable, but retailers have come to trust the system so thoroughly that Hershey now uses the system to order competitors’ products for retailers too. The combination of trust and efficiency has reaped the company serious rewards — their market cap that has doubled in the past five years, growing 20% in the past 12 months.
Bilbrey affirms that 80-90% of Hershey products consumed in the US are made in the US, and the company boasts more than a 40% share of the American chocolate market. In that sense, the new plant is part of Hershey’s broader strategy — to maintain, if not grow, share in the US, where it already has a prominent presence, while more or less ignoring another behemoth established market — Western Europe, where they see low growth, established competitors, loyal customers and high price of entry.
“We have outperformed our peer group in North America,” Bilbrey says. “And we see North America as a growth story. We worry about a lot of things, but we are optimistic about what is possible.”
That includes upping advertising, Bilbrey says that Hershey spends as much on advertising now as their entire category did in 2008 — Hershey now reinvests about 7% of net sales into advertising. More proof, he says, that the company believes that brighter days lie ahead for America and that Americans will be spending more of their disposable income on candy.
Manufacturing Renaissance? Exports, Reshoring Could Bring 5M Jobs to U.S.
in Uncategorized/by MAM TeamSeptember 21, 2012
The uptick is production combined with the jobs needed for reshoring could add up to 2.5 million to 5 million jobs by the end of the decade as manufacturers shift production back to the U.S., according to the study.
That’s up from BCG’s forecast last year, when it predicted the U.S. would add just 2 to 3 million jobs, as major companies have started revealing intentions to shift some jobs to the U.S. over the next few quarters.
“Over the coming years, as European and Japanese companies decide where to locate new capacity, we can expect many more announcements like these,” said Michael Zinser, coauthor of the BCG report who leads the firm’s manufacturing work in the Americas.
While the return of jobs to U.S. shores, also referred to as insourcing and onshoring, is still a relatively new phenomenon, several large manufacturers have recently announced plans to expand or move production to the country.
Toyota, for example, announced that it will export Camry sedans made in Kentucky and Sienna minivans made in Indiana to South Korea, while its Japanese auto rivals Honda and Nissan plan to increase production in the U.S. While U.S. automakers continue to expand to the high-growth markets in Asia, General Motors has vowed to invest $2 billion in U.S. factories by 2014.
Siemens is building gas turbines in North Carolina to ship to Saudi Arabia for construction of a 4-gigawatt power plant, while Rolls-Royce recently opened a new aircraft engine parts manufacturing facility in Virginia, citing among other things lower labor costs.
The reshoring moves come as average manufacturing costs continue to fall in the U.S. BCG estimates that they will be 8% lower than in the U.K. in 2015, 15% lower than in both Germany and France, 21% lower than in Japan and 22% lower than in Italy.
China will still be about 7% cheaper than the U.S. but that doesn’t include the high cost to ship bulk items around the world.
A decline in labor costs are expected to help give the U.S. a competitive advantage in manufacturing compared with some of its developed peers, where they will be paying workers anywhere from 20% to 45% more, BCG estimates.
Lower energy and gas costs, led by the recovery of deposits in the oil-rich Bakken and Marcellus Shales, are also expected to help.
“The signs pointing to continued export growth offer further evidence that the U.S. is poised for a manufacturing renaissance between 2015 and 2020,” said Harold Sirkin, a senior partner at BCG who coauthored the research.
In Manufacturing Shift, Made in U.S. but Sold in China
in Uncategorized/by MAM TeamSeptember 20, 2012
Yes, he did say China.
Mr. Abel’s company, Watermark Designs in Brooklyn, is standing history on its head: it is making plumbing parts and shipping them to China.
After generations of manufacturers in New York and across the United States folded because they were unable to compete with imports, Watermark, with its only factory in the East New York section of Brooklyn, has managed to crack the code. Instead of trying to make Watermark’s products cheaper, Mr. Abel has prospered by first making them more expensive — offering custom-made fixtures unique to each building — and then figuring out how to do that at lower cost. The company has supplied thousands of fixtures to six new luxury hotels and condominiums being built in Shanghai, Macau and Hong Kong.
“The days of mass producing in New York City are gone,” Mr. Abel said. “If you were producing nuts and bolts by the tens of thousands 50 years ago, you’re not going to do it today. But creativity, or uniqueness or design is definitely something that can flourish in New York.”
Just as they have in many parts of the country, exports have taken up the slack for the business that Watermark lost during the economic downturn that began in 2008. The New York metropolitan area led the nation last year in exports, rising to $105 billion, its highest ever, from $85 billion in 2010, according to a report released last week by the International Trade Administration, a branch of the United States Department of Commerce that supports companies doing business overseas.
Fencing and flooring for dance clubs, stadiums, and big tents are being made in the Bronx by Signature Fencing and Flooring and shipped to South Africa, Japan, Britain and India. From Medford, on Long Island, Enecon, which makes corrosion-resistant coatings for industrial equipment, ships to 65 countries.
Manufacturing jobs in New York have declined by about 80 percent from a high of 1.1 million jobs in 1947, all but shutting down what had been a heavily trod avenue into the middle class for immigrants and people without advanced educations.
Mr. Abel, who was born in Israel, grew up in the Bronx and studied engineering at the City College of New York and Columbia University, started his business in 1976 in a small metal plating company that his father ran from a 2,000-square-foot storefront in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. For a number of years, it did well and grew by refinishing inexpensive parts and selling them through neighborhood bath stores and the early home improvement centers. Mr. Abel moved into supplying high-end fixtures just as the city was entering a period of luxury construction.
It was a strong strategy, made possible, Mr. Abel said, by his son Avi, who joined the business after graduating from the State University of New York at Binghamton (now Binghamton University) and among other things, overhauled its design capabilities. Around 2006, Watermark bought a three-dimensional printer for $60,000. It works like an ink jet printer, except that it squirts molten plastic to build a form, instead of ink onto paper.
Robert Brenner, 26, a design engineer for the company, showed a plastic prototype of a handle made to an architect’s specifications. “This took three to four hours,” he said.
After the prototype is approved, Watermark tunes its lathes and milling machines to make the actual parts. In such a world, cheap labor is a dwindling advantage. “I can get the best equipment,” Mr. Abel said. “I can’t get someone to operate it — machinists, machine programmers, people with knowledge how to operate sophisticated equipment, they’re not there.”
Nearly 40 years after starting in the storefront, the company employs 45 people in 55,000 square feet. Most of the workers have been with the company for 10 years or more. Besides high-tech equipment, the company now has something else that wasn’t available years ago — Brooklyn chic.
“My son says we should stand on a box and shout it loud: ‘This is made not only in the U.S.A., but in Brooklyn,’ ” Mr. Abel said, “It’s what Paris had been. We have become a design mecca.”
Contact JIM DWYER
E-mail: dwyer@nytimes.com
Twitter: @jimdwyernyt
Living Paycheck To Paycheck: Two-Thirds Of Americans Are Struggling To Get By
in Uncategorized/by MAM TeamPosted: 09/20/2012
In 2006, 65 percent of respondents reported living paycheck to paycheck, a figure that shot up to 72 percent in 2010 in the wake of the recession.
The survey was released during a week when a video of Republican Mitt Romney sparked a national conversation about the 47 percent of Americans who, Romney told donors, don’t pay income taxes and are dependent on government.
Tracy Martinez knows the feeling of living paycheck to paycheck.
The San Antonio woman has a college degree. She and her husband both work, but Martinez still holds her breath that she won’t have any emergencies come up, especially in the days right before payday.
“It seems like all the money goes away so quickly,” she said. “It’s kind of scary.”
Wendy Kowalik, president of the San Antonio financial planning firm Predico Partners, called the study “disturbing, but not surprising.”
Saving money is becoming more difficult, if not impossible, for more U.S. workers, Kowalik said.
“All of us in the industry are seeing it more often, that more and more clients are unable to save for the future,” she said.
The main reason Kowalik’s clients live paycheck to paycheck is that they have come to see luxuries as essential expenses, she said.
“Cable used to be a luxury. Now it’s expected,” she said. “People have an expectation that they should have a mobile phone, you should be able to have the Internet. People are going to have to change their outlook and put things into perspective.”
The American Payroll Association, a trade group for more than 20,000 people who prepare checks, said it conducted the online survey between May and Sept. 7. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percent.
The Made In America Movement Teams Up With All American Clothing Co.
in Uncategorized/by MAM TeamSeptember 20, 2012
The Made In America Movement also supports American manufacturers by enlisting hundreds of them on their website. All companies who are listed are invitation only and must pass a series of reviews and inspections to prove they are USA Made. Companies who are part of the Made in America Movement stretch from Our USA Magazine to Dave Matthews and his Dreaming Tree Wines. All share a USA Made passion as each take pride in providing items that make a difference in the creation of U.S. jobs.
The Made In America Movement and its members care for the people in the United States. All members of the organization carry a passion for doing their part to create jobs in today`s economy. For more information on The Made In America Movement and its members, please visit http://www.themadeinamericamovement.com.
About All American Clothing Co:
All American Clothing Co. offers you high quality USA Made jeans and clothing at an affordable price. The company offers a unique ‘Traceability’ program in which each jean comes with a ‘traceability’ number. Enter the number at http://www.allamericanclothing.com and they will tell you exactly which American farmers and mill were involved in producing your jean.
Logan Beam
All American Clothing Co.
888-937-8009
Email
Margarita Mendoza
The Made in America Movement
914-776-8660
Email
A Label That Has Regained Its Luster
in Uncategorized/by MAM TeamSeptember 14, 2012
Times have changed. Even as the “Made in the U.S.A.” label has grown scarce, thanks to the offshore manufacturing in apparel and other industries, it has acquired cachet as a signifier of old-school craftsmanship, even luxury.
The movement has come far enough that Mr. Schiff, a former advertising executive from Miami, believed the time was right to start a Gilt-like shopping site for the Americana set, selling items like shuttle-loom jeans, lace baby dolls and a 19th-century-style baseball made of leather sourced from a Chicago tannery.
“The old ‘Buy American’ is get something lousy and pay more,” said Mr. Schiff, 45. Now “it’s a premium product.”
Style bloggers were among the early adopters. “ ‘Made in U.S.A.’ has gone through a rebranding of sorts,” said Michael Williams, whose popular men’s style blog, A Continuous Lean, has become an online clubhouse for devotees of American-made heritage labels like Red Wing Shoes and Filson.
But the embrace of domestic goods has also moved beyond scruffy D.J. types in Brooklyn who plunk down $275 for a pair of hand-sewn dungarees sewn from Cone denim from the company’s White Oak plant in North Carolina. The adherents now include “urban creatives, high-net-worth individuals, locavores, liberals, conservatives,” said Mr. Williams, who also represents some of these heritage brands as a marketing consultant.
In other words, Americana chic has gone mainstream. Just visit the nearest mall. Club Monaco unveiled a Made in the USA collection last year, in collaboration with Mr. Williams. J. Crew cashes in on Americana chic by selling domestically manufactured Alden shoes, Levi’s Vintage Clothing jeans and Billykirk leather goods. Joseph Abboud’s home page trumpets its collections as “Made in the New America.”
The newfound pride also extends to American cities and smaller communities. Made in Brooklyn is a phenomenon so self-aware, there are stores like By Brooklyn that specialize in products made in the borough. Similarly, an old shoe-polish brand called Shinola has recently been revived to make upscale watches, bicycles and other crafted goods in Detroit and is being promoted as “Made in Detroit.”
And in a survey last year of 1,300 affluent shoppers by Unity Marketing, a Pennsylvania-based consulting and marketing group, respondents ranked the United States first (higher than Italy or France) in perceived manufacturing quality of luxury goods.
Indeed, the “Made in the U.S.A.” label has become chic in the eyes of well-heeled consumers not just in the United States, but also in Asia, said Paulette Garafalo, the president for international, wholesale and manufacturing at Brooks Brothers, which has increased production of shirts, suits and neckwear at its three American factories to meet growing demand. “People want the credibility of an American brand,” she said.
The flight of American factory jobs has even become a heated issue in the presidential race, with President Obama and Mitt Romney trading jabs over being the “Outsourcer in Chief,” to use Mr. Romney’s phrase.
But while American-made goods are now fashionable, few have been willing to stake their professional future on it quite like Mr. Schiff. A former advertising executive at Crispin Porter + Bogusky in Miami, who oversaw the introduction of Coke Zero, he left the firm in April to start Made with two other veterans from the agency, Scott Prindle and John Kieselhorst.
In a sense, they started two companies, which are based in Boulder, Colo.: Made Collection, the flash-sale site, and Made Movement, an advertising agency that represents companies that manufacture only in America. (“If Apple came to us, we’d have to turn them down,” Mr. Schiff said.)
Unlike the typical Buy American sites, which feature crude graphics and a low-budget hodgepodge of pliers and rain boots, Made Collection has the slick yet earthy look of a Madewell campaign. Edie Ure, a former designer for Ralph Lauren and Anthropologie, serves as the site’s curator, and she gives special consideration to design-forward wares that would not be out of place in a Monocle magazine gift guide.
Recent flash-sale items included a knot-back black swimsuit from Cala Ossidiana, a swimwear company based in New York. It sells for $295 and, according to a graphic accompanying each item, supports six American workers. For those with humbler tastes, there was an O.C.E. Hickory work shirt, produced by inmates in the Oregon correctional system as part of its job-training program, for $26.99.
The company grew out of Mr. Schiff’s conviction that a manufacturing revival was crucial to a lasting economic recovery.
Made now counts 26 employees, and with a minimum of publicity, its site has 10,000 members. The ad agency has signed seven clients, including Emeco chairs, a Pennsylvania-based design company whose product sells at Design Within Reach, and New Belgium Brewing, based in Fort Collins, Colo., which brews Fat Tire ale.
Mr. Schiff practices what he preaches. For a recent lunch at the Ace Hotel in Manhattan, he wore Levi’s premium shuttle-loom 501s made in Los Angeles. His tattooed arms poked out of a blue checked shirt by the boutique design house 8.15 August Fifteenth, made in New York City, which he spruced up with a seersucker bow tie by Gitman Bros., made in North Carolina. The only smudge on the stars-and-stripes tableau was his pair of Vans sneakers made in China.
“I would say most days, I’m at about 75 percent,” he said, referring to how much of his outfit is American made. He never wants to become a fanatic, however. “If you become obsessive about it,” he added, “it’s an imposition versus a choice.”
A version of this article appeared in print on September 16, 2012, on page ST16 of t
he Ne
w York edition with the headline: A Label That Has Regained Its Luster.
Outsourcing May Cause High Unemployment and Manufacturing Decline
in American Made, Domestic Sourcing, Made in USA, Manufacturing, Outsourcing/by MAM TeamAll American Clothing Co., proud corporate members of The Made in America Movement, announces a new warning label that raises awareness of the consequences of outsourcing and buying foreign-made items in the United States. Read more
Advanced Solar CPV Manufacturing Plant to Open in NC this Month
in Uncategorized/by MAM TeamBY ANDREW BURGER
Swimming Against the TideSemprius is opening its CPV plant amidst a general backdrop of solar energy market and industry turmoil, manufacturing plant slowdowns, shutdowns, and layoffs — both in the US and other other major solar-producing countries, including Germany and China. Management and its investors believe that the combination of high-efficiency and low-cost production will prove the company viable in a fiercely competitive global solar PV market that governments around the world have targeted as a low-carbon, green economy growth engine.
A SunShot CPV Manufacturer Ready to Go Commercial
In its search for a location to build a manufacturing plant to commercialize its CPV cells and modules, Semprius landed in Henderson, NC. Construction of its 50,000-square-foot plant began earlier this year, with the state government and local agencies contributing $7.9 million towards construction.
Semprius’ patented micro-transfer printing process allows thousands of its concentrated solar PV cells (CPV) to be transferred from a growth substrate to a semiconductor wafer or other form factor. It’s a continuous, massive parallel process that runs continuously and allows the growth substrate to be used repeatedly, which cuts costs dramatically, according to NREL and Semprius.
U.S. to File W.T.O. Case Against China Over Cars
in Uncategorized/by MAM TeamSeptember 16, 2012
President Obama plans to announce the move on Monday during a visit to Ohio, one of the most important of the battleground states and a place where the president is trying to capitalize on his bailout of the auto industry. A poll by NBC News, The Wall Street Journal and Marist College last week showed Mr. Obama building a significant lead in Ohio.
The upper Midwestern states have emerged as a key battleground in the presidential election, particularly Ohio, which has rivaled Florida in recent presidential elections as the most hard-fought state of all. Ohio is also the hub of the American auto parts industry, which has suffered heavily from job losses that have coincided with surging imports of auto parts from China.
Auto parts employment in the United States has dropped by about one-half from 2001 to 2010, as imports from China grew nearly sevenfold over the same period, according to data provided by the senior official, who insisted on anonymity citing an administration policy banning on-the-record comments on a new policy before an official announcement is made. Auto parts manufacturers directly employ 54,200 people in Ohio, and when suppliers like steel makers are included, the auto industry accounts for 850,000 jobs in the state, or 12.4 percent of total employment there.
But auto industry experts debate the extent to which those imports have been directly responsible for the closing of factories and for cutbacks at other plants, as ever-increasing automation has also played some role. The slowing of the American auto market since 2008 has had an effect as well, although auto sales have begun to recover in recent months.
Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, has repeatedly accused the Obama administration of not doing enough to challenge China on trade and currency policies. But the timing of the administration case, coming so soon before the elections, makes it likely that the Chinese government will accuse President Obama of playing politics — an accusation already made by Chinese officials, particularly those with close ties to affected industries, in connection with recent trade cases involving solar panels.
Asked whether the trade cases against China were timed for political impact, the senior administration official replied by e-mail that “President Obama has prioritized enforcement of Americans’ rights in the global trading system from day one, and this administration has a consistent record of action to support American jobs.”
The press office at China’s commerce ministry had no comment when told by telephone on Monday morning of the planned trade case, asking for a fax of questions, which did not yield an immediate reply. Chinese officials have denied in general that they subsidize exports.
Chinese exports have surged particularly in the past year, as the Chinese economy has slowed sharply, leaving particularly the domestic Chinese automakers with huge inventories of unsold cars that they are seeking to sell overseas.
Speakers repeatedly mentioned during the Democratic convention the federal government bailout for the Detroit auto industry three years ago, following a perception that the bailout will prove politically advantageous in key states. By contrast, speakers during the Republican convention generally avoided the subject.
The administration also plans to take further legal steps on Monday in a W.T.O. case already pending against China over its imposition of steep anti-dumping duties last winter against more than 80 percent of American car exports to China. That case, described by people in China as largely the result of factional rivalries in Beijing that produced a need to take a strong stand against the United States, has begun to shift the focus of trade tensions between the United States and China toward the automotive sector.
The administration has been mulling a possible W.T.O case against China in the auto sector since at least last winter, and has been encouraged by unions to do so, particularly the United Steel Workers.
Agribusinesses Owning Natural/Organic Brands Betray Customers: Fund Attack on GMO Labeling Proposal in California
in Uncategorized/by MAM Team“Consumers might be surprised to find out that brands hiding under ‘natural’ façades are in fact owned by multi-billion-dollar corporations that are contributing bushel baskets of cash to defeating Proposition 37,” says Charlotte Vallaeys, Director of Farm and Food Policy at The Cornucopia Institute.
Mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food in California is viewed as a watershed event by many industry observers, as many companies will find it logistically or economically difficult to produce foods with labels identifying GE for California while producing a different product line of foods for the rest of the country.
“Just as we’ve observed in Europe, where labeling of food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is mandatory, we fully expect that when given a choice, consumers will choose organic or non-GMO products,” said Mark A. Kastel, Codirector of Wisconsin-based Cornucopia. “And the industrial food lobby is fully cognizant of this—that’s why they’re fighting like hell against this grassroots effort.”
To make it easier for shoppers to identify and support organic brands whose corporate owners support Proposition 37, and avoid buying brands owned by companies that financially contributed to opposing the “Right to Know” campaign, The Cornucopia Institute has developed a guide for consumers.
“If the food and biotech industries are so proud of their pervasive genetically manipulated crops, why are they so afraid, and so desperately opposed to labeling it?” asked Arran Stephens, founder of Nature’s Path, North America’s largest certified organic cereal and granola brand with manufacturing plants in the US and Canada.
Besides Nature’s Path, those who have contributed in support of Proposition 37 include venerable organic manufacturers such as Dr. Bronner’s, Nutiva and Lundberg rice. These companies are all independently-owned businesses that avoid GMOs and are committed to supporting organic agriculture.
“Food companies are required by law to label ‘contains peanuts’ if included in their product. People deserve the same for GMOs. Our customers want to know if any product contains GMOs,” says John Roulac, founder and CEO of Nutiva, an organic food company.
On the other side, joining Monsanto and the giant food lobby group Grocery Manufacturers of America (GMA) in donating money to the effort to defeat the ballot initiative, are multi-billion-dollar, multi-national companies including General Mills, Dean Foods, Kellogg and Pepsico. These companies own brands that are misrepresented to consumers as independent, value-driven businesses.
Biotechnology corporations and corporate agribusinesses have collectively donated millions of dollars to defeat Proposition 37. Monsanto alone has donated $4.2 million, while food giants Pepsico and Coca Cola have each donated more than $1 million.
“Consumers are increasingly interested in ‘voting with their forks,’ and many want to support companies that share their values,” says Vallaeys. “But consumers may not realize that many organic and ‘natural’ brands are owned by the very same corporations that are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars each, or even millions, in an effort to scuttle Proposition 37 in California,” she adds.
For example, Kashi is owned by Kellogg, which has contributed $612,000 to defeating Proposition 37. Last year, The Cornucopia Institute published a study, Cereal Crimes, which revealed that the popular, “natural” Kashi GoLean cereal brand, unbeknownst to its customers, contains genetically engineered ingredients.
In what The Cornucopia Institute characterizes as “creating a façade,” nowhere on the Kashi website or packaging is it disclosed that the company is owned by Kellogg, rather than the “small band of passionate people” featured on the Kashi website.
Another example is Silk soymilk, which carries the “Non-GMO Project Verified” seal on its products but is owned by the nation’s largest dairy, Dean Foods, which has contributed $253,000 to the effort to kill Prop. 37. Dean Foods also owns the Horizon Organic brand. Both Silk and Horizon profess to consumers that the brands oppose GMOs.
“Talk is cheap,” adds Vallaeys. “Consumers should not only know whether there are GMOs in their food, but also whether their hard-earned dollars are supporting companies that then turn around and invest those profits in the effort to sell-out their right to know.”
The Cornucopia Institute, which developed the funding guide, stresses that the organization is not against corporate involvement in organics.
“We welcome corporate involvement in the organic food industry, but only when the parent company subscribes to the values that the organic food movement is based on,” says Kastel. “We have a problem with the duplicity of corporations that hide under a ‘holier-than-thou’ marketing brand and then undermine the very values of the organic movement.”
“For example, when Kellogg donates money to the Organic Trade Association, the Kashi brand appears on the OTA website. But when the same company donates to the effort to defeat Proposition 37, Kellogg will do everything in its power to make sure that its Kashi customers, who seek wholesome and natural foods, do not associate the Kashi brand with a corporate contributor to the effort to kill Proposition 37,” adds Kastel.
The same is true for the R.W. Knudsen and Santa Cruz Organic brands, owned by Smucker, and the Cascadian Farm, Larabar and Muir Glen brands, owned by General Mills. These corporate brand owners have donated $387,000 and $520,000, respectively, to defeating Proposition 37.
By using Cornucopia’s Proposition 37 funding guide, consumers can invest their food dollars in organic and non-GMO companies that are truly committed to supporting sustainable agriculture.
“Hiding the truth about our food is pervasive, unethical, and only done for money,” says Michael Potter, CEO of Eden Foods, an organic food manufacturer that financially contributed to support Proposition 37. “Let this [Prop. 37] be the beginning of an end to it.”
In terms of businesses supporting Proposition 37, Dr. Joseph Mercola, of drmercola.com, has contributed $800,000. The committee supporting Proposition 37 has also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from individual citizens. The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has been a key funding and organizing driver of the GMO labeling effort.
Many of the seemingly duplicitous companies that are contributing to defeat Proposition 37 are also some of the largest member-donors to the Organic Trade Association (OTA), the trade-lobby group for the organic industry. The OTA has long been criticized by public interest groups for its efforts to weaken the organic law and standards.
On the Board of Directors of the Organic Trade Association sit Julia Sabin (Smucker) and Kelly Shea (Dean Foods), both working for corporations that have contributed to the committee opposing Proposition 37.
“The Organic Trade Association lists brands as major donors, like Kashi, R.W. Knudsen, Cascadian Farm (General Mills) and others that are owned by corporations that financially contribute to defeating Proposition 37,” says Cornucopia’s Kastel. “The OTA is in large part run by and funded by some of the same companies that are in bed with the biotechnology industry and its destructive agricultural practices.”