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Questions for a Trade Official
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times
Posted: November 21st, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/04/opinion/04wed4.html
When Islam Siddiqui appears for his Senate confirmation, possibly as early as next week, it will be time for some tough questions. The White House has nominated Mr. Siddiqui for the position of chief agricultural negotiator in the office of the United States trade representative. He is presently a vice president at CropLife America, a coalition of the major industrial players in the pesticide industry, including Syngenta, Monsanto, Dow Chemical and DuPont. That job doesn’t seem to square with the Obama administration’s professed interest in more sustainable, less chemically dependent approaches to agriculture. Nor does much of the rest of Mr. Siddiqui’s resumé. The White House has touted his role in the first phase of developing national organic standards. But those standards, as they first emerged in draft form in the Clinton years, were notoriously loose about allowing genetically engineered crops and the use of sewage-sludge fertilizers to be labeled as “organic.” But the business of [Siddiqui's] CropLife — an arm of which openly scoffed at Michelle Obama’s plans for an organic garden — is to increase exports of agricultural chemicals.
Note: For a powerful overview of the risks of genetically modified food, click here.
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