The anti-GMO group Center for Food Safety filed suit against the USDA to force release of a study on the impact of using digital disclosures such as QR codes to identify foods made with GMO ingredients. “In the United States, there has never been a food labeling requirement met by QR codes,” says the center, which prefers a written label on food packages.
In the lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, the center asks for the court to order the USDA to complete the study and allow public comment on it before it decides on labeling requirements. GMO labeling is scheduled to begin next July 29. The law mandates labeling nationwide, with disclosure possible through a digital code, a symbol or wording on the package, and forbids state labeling laws. A USDA spokesman was not immediately available for comment about the lawsuit.
“Allowing companies to hide genetically engineered ingredients behind a website or QR code is discriminatory and unworkable,” said George Kimbrell, the center’s legal director. One-third of Americans do not own a smartphone, which would be needed to scan a QR code and few Americans use their smartphones to scan the codes, said the center. The QR study was supposed to be completed last month, it said.
Enactment of the GMO labeling law in July 2016 ended two decades of debate over agricultural biotechnology. The lion’s share of corn, soybeans and sugarbeets grown in the United States come from GMO seeds, so most of the processed foods sold in supermarkets contain GMO ingredients.