Labels informing consumers about genetically modified foods are common throughout the world. Will the US adopt them as well?

Okay, think fast: how often do you eat genetically modified foods? *buzzer* I’m sorry, but the answer we were looking for is: “no one knows!”. Current FDA regulations don’t require food companies in the United States to tell consumers when their products contain transgenic crops. Yet the large amount of GM corn and soy grown in the US mean that a high percentage (estimated at upwards of 60%) of processed foods contain GM products, or meat fed with GM grains. The Center for Food Safety, a non-profit organization, has issued a petition to the FDA to change their regulations and require all food containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to be clearly labeled. The petition legally requires a response from the FDA and is the first step towards suing the government. Watch the Center for Food Safety’s comedic commercial aimed at raising public awareness in the video below. The lack of labeling may have helped the US become the global center for GMO development, but it looks like advocacy groups and consumers are fed up with the secrecy surrounding how we are fed. GM food is poised to play a big role in 21st Century agriculture, but will the FDA keep consumers ignorant in order to make that happen?

The Center for Food Safety is one of the driving forces behind the Just Label It campaign which is petitioning the FDA to require GMO labeling. While humorous, the following video for the Just Label It campaign is clearly serious about getting consumers behind the petition:

Of course, the Center for Food Safety and the Just Label It campaign already claim that consumers are on their side. All of them. Well, 93% of them. Both sites are ripe with links to a plethora of polls from the last few years that show US consumers are overwhelmingly in favor of labels for genetically modified foodstuffs. I’m not a big proponent of polling, but I’m certainly willing to believe that a majority of Americans would like labels.

What would that affect? As we’ve discussed before, the US is the largest producer and consumer of genetically engineered foods. Many of these crops are developed so that they are resistant to herbicides, so that farmers can spray copious amounts of weed-killer on their fields and not kill the food. There are other GMOs that produce higher yields, or resist natural pests. There’s even a GM salmon that grows twice as fast as its natural cousin. Corn and soy are heavily dominated by GMOs, and the majority of those crops (in the US) go towards making livestock grain and high fructose corn syrup. Hence, a large portion of the processed food and meat eaten in the US is likely to contain or be affected by GMOs. But corn and soy are just the two largest of many varieties of GM produce the US grows including GM sugar beets, tomatoes, potatoes, papaya, and squash. We have 66.8 million hectares dedicated to growing GMOs, more than twice as much as the next largest source, Brazil. Labeling would impact a huge amount of the food you see in every grocery store (even the organic ones – GM crops are there too).

So as not to pick on Monsanto, here's a picture of Pioneer's GM corn seed.

The reason why the US FDA has eschewed GMO labels is probably as simple as one word: Monsanto. One of the most prolific US developers of GMO intellectual property, Monsanto has over 5000 patents on its products. As we’ve discussed before, they are very aggressive at protecting their IP, going so far as to sue farmers who are accidentally contaminated by strains of their crops which are blown in from neighboring fields. It’s gotten to a point where non-Monsanto affiliated farmers are pre-emptively suing Monsanto just to gain some ground in the ongoing intellectual property lawsuits. In regards to labeling, Monsanto has maintained that their products have passed rigorous FDA safety requirements and that they are otherwise indistinguishable from natural strains of these foods. As true as that may be, decrying the need for labels seems like simply another calculated step by Monsanto and other GM developers to help grow the presence of GMOs in the agricultural industry. That the FDA has agreed with their position either shows that Big Agriculture has an undue influence on the agency, or that the science supports that conclusion. Either way, Monsanto and its cohorts have gotten their way so far and kept GMO labels off their goods.

Meanwhile, even a cursory glance at the team behind the Center for Food Safety and the Just Label It campaign reveals agricultural competitors to GMO developers.  The major proponents of GMO labeling in these groups are companies (and organizations) that oppose the use of GMO foods entirely. Organic farming collectives, environmental groups, allergy advocates – it’s no surprise that the rhetoric on their sites isn’t demanding labels simply for the sake of consumer information, but because it fears GMO foods are actually a danger to humanity. These are the same groups that have been threatened by the rise of GMO agriculture, period.

It doesn’t take a cynic to look at the history of these two groups, the GMO developers like Monsanto, and the non-GMO agriculture advocates like the Center for Food Safety, and see this petition over GMO labels as just the latest round in an ongoing battle over who will control the agricultural industry in the United States. Weighing in on this issue is tantamount to wading into a quagmire of scientific and political debate the likes of which I have no interest in treading.

Luckily, the winner in this argument is so clear I don’t have to worry about politics: We should label GMOs. I don’t see why the FDA and GMO developers are fighting this. I believe in GMO technology. I think it’s one of the most likely paths to cheaply and securely feeding the world. While current incarnations of the technology are still far from perfect, a mature GMO industry may be able to design humanity with the organisms it needs to survive in the 21st Century.

But I still think GMOs should be labeled.

Why the hell not? Let consumers see the benefits of GM crops. Sure, some will definitely switch to competitors products because they are adverse to consuming new forms of food. That’s fine. If GM foods really are cheaper then many more consumers will choose them to save money. If GM foods aren’t cheap enough to compete with non-GMO foods, then their developers should go back to the drawing board and make GMOs that can compete. By keeping consumers in the dark we’re artificially stalling GMO science.

US developers may have been given a boost by being able to avoid GMO labels for the past 15 years, but it’s time we join the world on this one. The EU requires GMO labels, as does Russia, Japan, Australia, Brazil, and even China. Some countries, like Canada and Hong Kong just certify that companies who put “Non-GMO” labels on their food are telling the truth. One way or another, the US has to catch up. What are we so afraid of? US GMO products are sold in countries that require labels. Sold quite often. China imports an extraordinary amount of American GM corn seed. The US is at the top of the industry…and it needs to innovate to stay there. If Monsanto and other GMO companies artificially avoid meeting market demands then the aggressive development programs in Brazil and China will eventually overtake them. Compete or die, guys. Labels are ultimately good for your business!

And honestly, as much as I believe in biotechnology, I think consumers/citizens have a right to actively decide how much risk we take in developing new products. Some GMO animals (like the salmon) may be able to be isolated from the ecosystem, but GMO grains simply cannot be. They are in the shared environment and people have a right to vote with their money on how they feel about that. Transgenic contamination is a real concern, as are questions about long term health effects. Even China is taking a serious look at whether GMO crops are ready to be consumed on a large scale, or if the technology needs more work first. Again, avoiding informing consumers is just artificially delaying innovation in this field of science. What better GMOs might we create if we are rigorously pushed towards minimizing their environmental and medical impacts?

I just don’t know why this issue has been delayed for so long. Actually, I do, the GMO companies are almost certainly worried that consumer fears will hurt their sales, but that’s so short sighted! The human population is growing, United Nations projections have us expanding exponentially for decades to come. We going to need to feed billions more people, and that means improving agriculture. Personally I think GMOs are an important avenue to explore in that effort, and anything that hampers innovation is just dooming us to failure.

We can’t stagnate an entire industry just because we’re afraid of facing the market.

So, with the very large caveat that I support GMO technology contrary to the underlying interests of their partnered organizations, I’m coming out as in favor of the Just Label It campaign. If you agree, here’s a link to joining the petition. If you disagree, feel free to flame in the comments below.

Listen up, FDA. Information is always a good thing. Just Label It already.

[image credits: Food Freedom, injected corn by illuminating9_11 via Flickr, Pioneer]
[video credit: Just Label It]
[sources: Center for Food Safety, Just Label It, Reuters]

Farmers file suit to protect themselves from Monsanto's aggressive practices.

Another chapter in the ongoing David-and-Goliath-esque saga between organic farmers and the Monsanto Company kicked off recently with a lawsuit filed in federal court. The suit, titled Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, is an effort by a group of family farms, seed businesses and organic growers associations to both protect themselves from being sued by Monsanto and undermine its patents on genetically modified or transgenic seeds. The Public Patent Foundation filed the suit on behalf of these farmers and organizations, which collectively represent over 270,000 members. While it may appear to be just another hopeless attempt by a small band of rebels against a powerful, unrelenting empire, this lawsuit has the potential to stop the bullying practices of the company and undermine its foundation permanently.

As many readers are probably aware, genetically modified food is highly prevalent in the States and an increasing amount of transgenic seed is being used in other countries, though regulatory issues remain. Since the genetics revolution of the 1970s, interest in using gene technology to produce better food has abounded, and an obvious way to accomplish this is to make plants more robust to environmental changes and pathogens, which would ultimately lead to better yields. Monsanto’s approach has been to develop technology that makes plants genetically resistant to herbicides, so that fields could be sprayed with the company’s herbicide, called RoundUp, without crop loss. The way Monsanto immunized plants was to incorporate genes from other organisms into the natural plant genomes, patent their technology and then sell the transgenic seeds to farmers.

So how could a seemingly great technological advance from a company that claims to stand behind farmers end up being voted as the Most Evil Corporation, according to a NaturalNews poll, and become the subjects of some eye opening documentaries like Food, Inc. and The Future of Food? Fundamentally, it boils down to three things:

1.       Monsanto aggressively defends their patents.

How aggressively? Put it this way…Monsanto puts the “agro” in agricultural patent law. What’s worse is that the genes themselves are patented. So let’s say farmer A is using Monsanto seed next to farmer B who is using seeds passed down through the family. If the wind blows the wrong way, a seed gets caught in the fur of field mice, shared equipment gets contaminated or any other possible way that a transgenic seed or a patented gene should happen to get from farmer A’s field into farmer B’s crops and then Monsanto finds out about it, odds are the company will sue farmer B for patent infringement.

2.       Monsanto has pushed its transgenic seed business hard.

The lawsuit claims that currently 85-90% of all soybeans, corn, cotton, sugar beets, and canola grown in the United States contain Monsanto’s patented genes, primarily marketed under the RoundUp Ready brand, and its global reach is extending. That’s right — we are all already consuming these genetically modified foods.

3.       Transgenic seeds and natural seeds cannot coexist…and Monsanto knows it.

Unlike a traditional manufacturer that must continually make product, plants derived from Monsanto’s transgenic seeds make more transgenic seeds as part of their reproduction. Successfully introducing transgenic seeds into crops permanently places the gene in the genome of the species. The lawsuit puts forth that organic canola became extinct after contamination from transgenic seed and warns that the future of many crops, including organic corn, soybean, cotton, sugar beet, and alfalfa, face the same fate. It is an impossibility for a company to have the scientific prowess to develop this kind of genetic technology and yet be ignorant of population genetics within an ecosystem. In other words, Monsanto merely has to bide its time before its patented genes have found their way into the agricultural systems of the world and then everyone will have to buy its products.

In light of these points, what on earth could this little lawsuit actually accomplish, especially when a group known as the Organic Elite, consisting of Whole Foods Market, Organic Valley, and Stonyfield Farm, effectively surrendered to Monsanto this past January?

It turns out a lot.

Thanks to a previous controversial lawsuit that went in Monsanto’s favor last year, an opportunity was given to the organic community and anyone else worried about preserving a transgenic-free food supply. The Supreme Court overturned a ruling from a San Francisco district court, which had said that the USDA had approved Monsanto’s RoundUp Ready alfalfa seed illegally and forbade sales until the USDA completed an investigation. However, in that same hearing, the Court also recognized that economic loss due to genetic contamination or gene flow now constitutes “environmental harm,” which is antithetical to patent protection. This means that a technology can only be protected by a patent if it can be shown to be beneficial to the well-being of society.

So if someone could come along and show that Monsanto’s seed technology were causing environmental harm, either economically or genetically, to individuals and/or society as a whole, then the patents might be nullified and therefore not enforceable.

Enter the Organic Seed Growers & Trade Association.

As the plaintiff in this case, this association is seeking to protect the farmers from being sued, for sure, but what it really wants to accomplish is no less than hobbling Monsanto for good. If the patents can be rendered invalid, then not only will the Monsanto v. anyone-who-accidentally-uses-a-transgenic-seed lawsuits stop, but the anyone-who-cares-about-food v. Monsanto lawsuits are going to keep coming.

While the lawsuit brings up many issues and emotions about food and the future of society, its worthwhile taking a moment to reflect on the reality of what all of this means.

Without a shadow of a doubt, genetically modified foods were certain to become part of our future.  There are some people who like the idea of food that is completely naturally grown that is never tainted by anything, but frankly, that approach only worked when there was one percent of the human population of today. The bottom line is the world needs more food and businesses need the food industry to be profitable. The genetics revolution opened the door to bolstering the DNA of plants and animals that provide foodstuffs against harmful conditions and organisms to create nutrient-rich superfoods. It only makes sense that in due time foods would be genetically modified to meet the demands of everyone. But clearly that research needed to be done carefully while respecting nature, and the development of products should have been done with a significant amount of oversight.

It may be too late for even organic food markets to protect consumers from Monsanto's gene technology

The real problem that this lawsuit underscores is Monsanto has been cavalier in its business practices. The company has taken an irresponsible stand on the negative impact its technology could have on crops worldwide, instead choosing to focus on market penetration and profits. Science has only scratched the surface on the complex role between genetics, diet, and environment, so how in the world can a company claim that introducing a foreign gene into a seed’s DNA is going to be safe for everything and everyone, both now and in the distant future? They can’t, but the law doesn’t require them to and that’s a detrimental problem. The legal system needs to catch up with the realities of the Genetic Age and fast.

Companies are often given credit for making the world a better place, but certainly no company wants to go down as the one that tainted the food chain. Hopefully, this lawsuit can at least protect organic farmers, but just maybe it will finally put the agricultural giant in its place. Unfortunately, it may be too late for certain crops. We have to sober up to an unfortunate truth: thanks to the aggressive and ecologically-disastrous policies of Monsanto, we may be eating a Monsanto gene with every spoonful whether we want to or not.

[IMAGE: sxc, sxc]

[SOURCE: FastCompany, Grist, Monsantoblog, NaturalNews, Organic Seed Alliance, OSGATA, PubPat,

Genetically modified salmon (top) grows twice as fast as wild salmon (bottom) .

This past Sunday (September 19th) the US FDA held one of the final meetings needed to approve genetically modified salmon for human consumption. If approved, the salmon would be the first transgenic animal available to eat. Aqua Bounty, a biotech firm in Massachusetts, has been seeking FDA sanction for its AquAdvantage Salmon (AAS) since 1995. The AAS is an Atlantic Salmon which has been genetically modified by adding  genes from the Ocean Pout and the Chinook Salmon. This allows it to produce growth hormone faster and in all temperatures. AAS develop to adult size in half the time of traditional Atlantic Salmon (18 months rather than 3 years). Though it is quicker growing, the AAS does not become larger than traditional salmon and Aqua Bounty claims that it looks the same, tastes the same, and has the same nutritional value. If they are successful in acquiring FDA approval, the company plans on using the AAS to dramatically scale up salmon fish farming. Take a good look at the AquAdvantage Salmon, the next time you see it could be on your plate.

Aqua Bounty has faced many critiques from environmentalists, food advocates, and even chefs. In 2007, a group of them agreed not to serve the genetically modified fish if it was approved for consumption. According to ABC News, protesters are ready to oppose the recent FDA consideration at well (see video below).

Yet the biggest concerns seem to center on the impact errant genetically modified fish could have on wild salmon populations. To that end, Aqua Bounty has been working extensively to demonstrate that it can contain and prevent any genetic spillage. They’ve introduced a sterilization process and propose to only sell female sterilized fish to farming organizations. Aqua Bounty has also suggested that one of the main benefits of raising AAS will be that it can be farmed away from the ocean, as is often done with trout. Part of their proposal to the FDA, which will be reviewed in the upcoming meeting, details farming methods which will drastically reduce the chances of AAS fish or eggs ever reaching nature.

Aqua Bounty has also been criticized for not making more of its research available for outside scientists to review. Part of the concern probably arises as AquAdvantage Salmon are being reviewed by the FDA under veterinary medicine guidelines, and as such do not require open meetings or the revelation of proprietary research data. Aqua Bounty has, however, recently released many of the documents it presented at the FDA meeting. They can be found here.

If the AAS becomes successful it is likely Aqua Bounty will follow up with transgenic trout and tilapia that it has under development. The AAS could also be followed by other genetically modified animals we’ve seen in the works such as the ‘enviropig‘ created to produce less environmental waste.

It's hard to argue with a fish that's ready to reach market in half the time. Exponential growth curves never lie.

Why all this interest in genetically modified meat? We need something to replace all the wild animals we’ve eaten. The current state of our ocean fauna is horrific, and largely a result of human misconduct. It’s sad how poorly we’ve managed these resources. Wild fish populations (salmon among them) have been devastated by fishing practices and there have been major concerns that we’re running out of commercial quantities of eatable breeds. Farming fish is a growing market which now perhaps accounts for as much as 47% of the fish we eat. Atlantic salmon, with its high concentrations of fatty acids, rich taste, and thick fillets, is one of the more desirable fish to be farmed. If AAS can eliminate the need to farm in sea pens, it could eliminate a host of concerns including pollution and ecological impact. Again, it’s tragic that we’ve put ourselves into this position, but it looks like GM fish might be a way to dig ourselves out of the hole.

Of course, genetically modified food has its disadvantages as well. As we’ve discussed before, GM animals and plants are considered intellectual property, which allows large corporations (*cough* Monsanto *cough*) to establish de facto monopolies on entire categories of crops. Genetic modifications also lead to large populations of a species (animal or plant) to be limited to a single line of genes. These monocultures may have more desirable traits (faster growth times, resistances to parasites, etc) but their lack of diversity could make them more susceptible to being wiped out by a single disease or catastrophe. In the US, consumers are also faced by the problem that few, if any, food stuffs are required to declare they are genetically modified on their labels. There are also many who fear that GM foods will have a negative impact on the people who eat them. This could happen through the loss of vital trace nutrients that traditional and organically raised food possesses, or through the introduction of new substances generated by splicing in new genes into an organism.

For most, the rise of genetically modified food is too new, too untested, and it is the unknown quantity that it represents that is threatening. To be fair to Aqua Bounty, they have been studying their AquAdvantage Salmon for more than a decade, so it’s far less untested than some would fear. Also, the genetic modifications they introduced to the AAS cause it to produce more of its own natural growth hormone (the same chemical found in regular Atlantic Salmon). The genes from the Ocean Pout do not give the AAS the ‘anti-freeze’ of that animal, just some of the genetic signals associated with it, which promote growth hormone production. The rest of critics concerns, from monopolies to monocultures, still stand.

There are alternatives to genetically modified foods, especially for aquaculture. As we’ve reviewed previously, aquaponics could allow fish farmers to raise large quantities of perch and other lake/river breeds in a manner that is organic and highly productive. Such farms could be reproduced in many cities around the world.

No matter how you look at it though, we are likely to need more fish proteins in the near future. Genetically modified fish that cut growth times in half are simply too appealing to be ignored. Whether or not the FDA finally approves AquAdvantage Salmon for consumption later this month, you can bet that Aqua Bounty and other companies will continue to look to find ways to bring these economically prudent genetically modifications to market. If or when they do, it’s likely that many of us will eat them. Hey, at least it’s not as creepy as completely synthetic meat.

[image credits: Aqua Bounty]
[sources: Aqua Bounty, FDA, NY Times, Washington Post]

Scientists have been tinkering with the DNA of commercial food for nearly two decades, and they’ve covered most of the food pyramid. Modern soybeans, cotton, tomatoes, potatoes, corn, rice, and sugarcane have all had their genomes tweaked to serve the human species. Most of the genetically modified (GM) food in the world sprouts on American soil, but the practice is growing in Argentina, Canada, Brazil, and China, to name just a few.

Maybe the strangest part of GM food is that most people have no idea they eat it. The majority of Americans don’t know how it’s done, why it’s done, how it’s regulated, or why they should care. The Grocery Manufacturers of America estimates that 70-75% of all processed foods in your local grocery store contain ingredients from GM plants. Genetically modified food: it’s what’s for dinner.

Harder, Faster, Better, Stronger

So why remix food genomes? It depends. Some GM food is designed to resist diseases, insect attacks, or herbicides regularly used in modern industrial agriculture. Plants can be made hardier and more tolerant to environmental stress such as drought or irregular weather. Crops can be made to mature faster (decreasing their growing time) and rot slower (increasing shelf-life). GM food can also produce higher crop yields, and be engineered to lack unwanted toxins (such as allergens).

But that’s not all. Genetic modification is giving a new meaning to the phrase “super food”. Crops are being engineered to produce more nutrients, vitamins, and all that healthy stuff. Work is also underway to turn plants into little pharmaceutical factories, pumping out desired drugs… is “Pfizer Farm” trademarked yet? And (of course) GM foods are specially tweaked to please your taste buds, engineered to make every edible on your plate that much more appetizing.

The ubiquity of GM foods – that 70-75% statistic – comes from its presence in staple ingredients for processed food. Soybean oil, cottonseed oil and corn syrup are three cornerstones of the Western diet, and each one is mostly likely GM-derived. Everything from bread and cereal to frozen pizza gets a dose, not to mention almost every soda on the market.

So now that it’s already in your body, wanna hear how it’s done?

Gene Cuisine

In olden days, farmers had to modify crop genomes the old fashioned way: selective breeding. At the very least, they had to work with the genes already at their disposal (in their crops). No longer. Genetic engineering lets scientists plop totally new genes – ones that would never naturally occur in corn, for example – into the target species to produce a new effect.

Sort of like skinning a cat, there’s a number of ways to genetically modify a genome. Still, they all share the same principles: first, isolate a gene that does something interesting. Next, insert that gene into a vector: a virus, plasmid, or other stretch of DNA capable of invading a cell’s nucleus. Introduce the vector to the target organism’s cells, and allow the new genes to be incorporated into the original genome.

So who does the remixing? Most of the GM strains available to farmers have been developed, patented and marketed by the agricultural biotech giant Monsanto. If you didn’t just wince at your computer screen, you probably haven’t heard of them. Cue transition to controversy section.

Give Me Spots On My Apples

The heated debates around GM food are tricky to untangle. Monsanto, a biotech company leading the way in creating new food strains, is sort of your prototypical evil corporation. Okay, maybe “evil” is a strong word… Let’s go with “ethically questionable”. In the fine tradition of Chevron and Dow, Monsanto has been accused of every manner of unethical behavior. From dumping hazardous waste to bullying small farms, the company has a pretty nasty laundry list of unsettling policy and action. Worse, lots of higher-ups within the company have occupied positions in the EPA, the Department of Agriculture, etc. One begins to wonder where interests conflict.

As Monsanto is the largest supplier of GM food seeds in the world, criticisms of GM food can be difficult to distinguish from attacks on the corporation itself. Bananas aren’t evil, but United Fruit was. Sure, Monsanto made Agent Orange… but is GM food a boon to mankind, innocuous but for the company that weilds it? Is it actually safe?

You might be wondering why you’ve never seen GM food labeled with a little “tinkered genome” sticker (I’m thinking a little double-helix would suffice). The FDA has approved all GM foods, and doesn’t consider the genetic engineering to pose any major risks to your health. Critics claim there haven’t been any long-term studies done (GM food has only been around for 20 years), that supportive research was biased or inadequate, and that the FDA rushed the approval. Others feel that GM foods might impact whole ecosystems in unpredictable ways, disrupting natural food chains in a sort of domino effect. A few countries – from Hungary to Venezuela – have banned GM foods altogether.

Middle Ground

Unless you’re technophobic by nature (in which case, reading this blog amounts to masochism), it’s hard to deny the benefits of GM foods. In the 90′s, reworking the papaya genome saved Hawaii from having a staple crop wiped out by a virus. GM foods resistant to insect attack actually require fewer pesticides than their natural counterparts, a seeming win for the environment. Stress-resistant GM crops can survive droughts and disease, warding off famine in developing countries across the globe. Frankly, it’s amazing that we can remix our food to be more nutritious, disease- and pest-resistant, faster-growing, longer-lasting, and tastier to boot.

Like all of genetic engineering (say, artificial life), GM foods show the power of the modern biotech revolution. They have the potential to make us healthier, improve ag production, make pharmaceuticals, and survive hell and high water. Maybe future crops could recycle more nutrients back into dirt and help avert the looming topsoil crisis. What kinds of GM foods would you want to see?

But the benefits don’t erase the legitimate concerns over health and the environment. I wouldn’t want Chevron running the EPA; is having Monsanto officials working at the FDA all that different? Ecosystems are so intricately complex and interconnected that it’s difficult to determine the consequences of even small changes (the most important aspect of endangered species conservation). GM foods are so new and exciting, it’s possible that our best science isn’t yet capable of understanding its long-term consequences (making regulation a dicey process). And with Monsanto patenting every crop they remix, it won’t be long until they own the genome of every fruit and vegetable you eat.

So that’s what all the fuss is about.  Given their widespread (and spreading) use, it’s important to keep you, dear consumer, up to date on the food that hits your plate. So now you know, and knowing is half the battle.