With five major U.S. food companies saying they will label their products for GMO ingredients, Gary Ruskin, the co-director of U.S. Right to Know, says the food-industry coalition against labeling “is fracturing.”
“The customer is always right and it’s time for the food industry to recognize that,” Ruskin told the San Francisco Chronicle. The newspaper says the Bay Area “has long been a base for GMO labeling advocacy … Bolstered by polls showing that over 90 percent of Americans want to know if their food contains GMOs, labeling activists see this as a fight over the very future of our food, with Big Agriculture on one side and small farms on the other.”
Most of the companies say they will label their products to comply with Vermont’s first-in-the-nation labeling law, which takes effect July 1, and they want Congress to bar states from requiring labels. Labeling is voluntary on the federal level. The Grocery Manufacturers Association launched the voluntary SmartLabel initiative in December to provide information about ingredients on Internet, by toll-free telephone lines and QR codes on packages. The Senate rejected a state pre-emption bill earlier this month with Democrats calling for mandatory disclosure of GMOs.
Of the five, only Campbell Soup has said it supports mandatory GMO labeling nationwide.
The market research company Mintel said in a 2015 report that consumers “appear to be equating genetic modification, artificial and unhealthy as one and the same.” Organic foods, which by definition cannot contain GMOs, “stand to look good next to foods with a GMO label,” says the Chronicle.
“Stuck in the middle of the debate, however, are scientists who worry how the growing momentum behind labeling might interfere with their work,” said the Chronicle. U.S. Right to Know has sent five dozen Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to public universities and federal agencies to gain access to thousands of emails, “which they are investigating for ties to the agriculture industry that could show potential bias.” The review “uncovered a $25,000 grant Monsanto gave to University of Florida Professor Kevin Folta to underwrite a speaking tour in which he spoke favorably about GMOs,” said the Chronicle.
Regulators and groups such as the National Academy of Sciences say there is no question that GMOs are safe. Half of U.S. cropland is planted to GMO crops annually, chiefly corn and soybeans but also canola, sugar beets and cotton. The lion’s share of processed foods sold in grocery stores contain GMOs.
A scientist at UC-Davis, Alison Van Eenennaam, said she is concerned that a backlash against GMOs could tarnish newer techniques such as gene editing. Van Eenennaam, who received one of the FOIA requests from U.S. Right to Know, says “it’s like a witch hunt.”