City of Duncan Genetically Engineered Crops & Foods Policy

A policy stating that the City of Duncan does not support the use or cultivation of genetically engineered (GE) crops and animals by abstaining from purchasing GE plants or trees for City operations.

Supplementary Information

Interview with the City of Duncan Re: Genetically Engineered (GE) Crops and Foods Policy

The City of Duncan’s Genetically Engineered (GE) Crops and Foods  policy opposes the cultivation of GE crops and foods within the City and, where reasonable, the purchase of GE foods for City events.

Policy Development and Adoption

The development of the policy was motivated by the Municipality’s Community Sustainability Plan, which included a suggestion to consider the adoption of a policy addressing GE crops and foods. 

The policy was developed by Council’s Environment Committee after a series of discussions and presentations from professionals and community advocates. These considered both arguments for and against the use and cultivation of GE crops and foods as Council actively sought information from both sides of the debate prior to adopting the policy, which was approved in 2014.

The policy language was developed with the intent of adopting an educational stance, rather than a prescriptive one.

Policy Implementation

Since there is very little opportunity for the purchase of genetically engineered plants, trees or seeds for use in the City of Duncan, the policy’s implementation did not impact the purchasing practices of the City’s public works department.

To implement the policy for City events, the municipality asks caterers to identify the genetically engineered food products that they use. The goal of this practice is to maintain and update records of the provision of GE foods at City events. In this way, the City aims to use the policy as an informative tool. 

Policy Outcomes and Recommendations

To date, the policy has not been as effective as intended.  As a result of staff turnover and other factors, implementation of the policy has been given varying levels of attention.  Since revisiting the policy in order to provide information for this database, the City aims to increase its efforts to request and display information from caterers regarding their use of GE foods. 

One possible way in which the City is considering re-tooling the policy to increase awareness of the use of GE foods in City events is by assembling an accessible booklet of GE information retrieved from caterers. This booklet would be kept near the food at events catered for City Council so that information could be easily accessed.

References

City of Duncan, personal communication, November 2016