In the US, an
estimated 70% of items on supermarket shelves contain GM ingredients, commonly
corn, soy and canola oil products
Meanwhile, 92 percent of
Americans want the FDA to label GMO foods, according to various polls conducted
throughout the states.
If the measure, "The
Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act", which will be on the
ballot in November, passes, California
will become the first state in the nation to require that GM foods be labeled
as such on the package.
FIRST READ:
How California's GM food referendum may change what America eats | Richard
Schiffman
California GMO Labeling Law Named Prop. 37
Marcie Plummer
07/17/2012
10:50AM
No one is trying to stop an industry or deny
starving people food choices. Labeling is for the purpose of allowing people to
be fully informed about what they are ingesting and making a choice to purchase
GMOs or not. Plain and simple. Keeping people ignorant is never the right
option.
Jason
07/16/2012
9:44AM
Understand this: Monsanto is spending millions to
marketing companies who pay teenagers to sit in from of their computers and
write pro-GMO comments. I live in California
and practically everyone I talk to wants GMO labeling. Many of these people are
farmers.
Reader beware,
The majority of Pro-GMO commenters are paid by
the industry to distract and divide by using ad hominem. Don't take anything
you read as gospel. Be smarter, do your own research, think for yourself. Kudos
to those that already do!
by Marty Kassowitz
There’s a revolt in progress in America. It’s a quiet, non-violent
revolt, but it is a revolt nonetheless.
People are taking GMO labeling into their own hands—going into supermarkets
and doing shopping cart drive-by labeling of GMO laden food products. No
one knows how many are participating, but why people are getting involved is of
little surprise.
With an estimated 80 percent of conventional processed food in the United States
containing GMOs, often hidden behind labels like “natural,” “all natural,”
“naturally made” and “naturally grown,” there are a lot of targets for this
grassroots rebellion.
The movement even has its own website:
www.labelityourself.org.
The Label It Yourself (#LIY) is a decentralized, autonomous grassroots campaign
born out of our broken food system. We have been asking our government to label
food products so we can make educated decisions about what we eat. The
government has ignored our requests and so we are taking matters into our own
hands.
Using LIY’s resources, we encourage people to: autonomously label GMOs and
empower others to do so, rescue words like “All Natural” and “Natural Flavors”
from being hijacked, expose unfair labor practices. We have a right to know
what is in our food and where it is coming from.
The sources of the frustration fueling this movement are only too obvious.
Despite receiving over 1 million signatures to a petition demanding the
labeling of foods containing GMO ingredients, the FDA has so far declined to
respond in any way. Well, they did try to change the million plus number into a
few hundred—possibly a new type of government-only mathematics. The big biotech
companies pushing GMOs, Monsanto in particular, have shown a remarkable ability
to bend the FDA, USDA and even the White House to their will.
Monsanto even managed to turn the Bush Administration State Department into
an extension of its sales force to try and force GMOs into the European Union,
as disclosed by
Wikileaks.
A few state legislatures have taken the initiative to introduce GMO labeling
laws. All have been defeated by the biotech lobby, the latest being Vermont and Connecticut.
Meanwhile public concern over the safety of GMO foods has only grown. There
are countless articles about the health, environmental and ethical issues
surrounding GMO foods, many of which have been published right here by
Organic
Connections.
With surveys by organizations such as the Mellman Group showing that 90
percent of voters are in favor of labeling, it is little wonder that public
frustration is being converted into guerilla actions.
The Mellman Group results were also consistent with other surveys:
Add to this the continually growing knowledge afforded to consumers by the
Internet and social media. More and more people are simply ignoring the
messages poured at them by mainstream media outlets on behalf of biotech and
food industry advertisers. The same surveys by the Mellman Group showed that
more and more people simply don’t believe messages from these organizations.
The pent up frustration of consumers over the desire to know what is in
their food is fast becoming a defining human rights issue in the United States.
This is no more apparent than in California.
In a watershed event, the issue of GMO labeling has now been taken away from
the hands of politicians for the first time. The California Secretary of State
has certified the
GMO
Right to Know Initiative for the November 2012 ballot. And as
Tom Philpott
of Mother Jones opined, “California could
force the rest of the US
to label GMO foods.”
Revolutions, at least those based on popular movements, are generally about
rights. The GMO labeling issue is no exception. We as consumers have the right
to know what is in our food. Opposing this is a group of biotech companies and
industrial food giants who feel their rights to profit can override customer
preference. Possibly the overarching fact in this fight is that we as consumers
are the far greater power. All the advertising, lies, lobbying, agency
corruption and even legal threats by the biotech and food industries amount to
only one thing: getting us to part with money and flow it to them.
What You Can Do
There are the legitimate factors of ownership and private property that come
into play in the Label It Yourself effort. Civil disobedience has become
regarded as a legitimate means of protest. But since grocery stores are private
property and not civil entities, this could be a problem. There are however
powerful tools available to us to make the changes that are needed.
- We can vote with our wallets
right now. Simply stop buying foods that obviously contain GMO contents.
The Non-GMO Project
has tools and a database to help.
- Californians can vote in
November. You can help support the California
campaign here: www.carighttoknow.org.
- Perhaps the most important
tool is education. Let people know about the issues of GMO ingredients in
foods. Too often we hear, “What’s a GMO?” That’s exactly what the biotech
companies hope for—ignorance of the issues. The more people remain
uninformed, the more successful these companies become. (Isn’t it
interesting that while most businesses thrive on informing their potential
customers about their products, the biotech industry fights disclosure
tooth and nail and thrives on our ignorance?) There are LOTs of resources.
This site has numerous articles and links to important consumer advocate
groups like the Center
for Food Safety, Institute for Responsible Technology and of course the
Non-GMO Project.
California Wins a Battle in the GMO War
The fight to label GMO products is the latest in a string of legislative
actions against big GMO producing corporations. In what seems to be a major
victory, the California Office of Secretary of State announced the California
Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act, a GMO labeling initiative.
If the measure passes, it will make California
the first state in the United
States to instate a GMO labeling process
wherein all GMO ingredients have to be labeled as such.
For many years, much of the GMO industry was shrouded in secret. No consumer
scales existed to find out what foods were actually GMO grown. The public was
kept in the dark with GMO brands fighting fierce legal battles to avoid
labeling of their products.
In Europe, all products containing more than
.9 percent GMO are labeled. China
and Japan
also require labeling. Alaska requires
labeling of GE fish and shellfish, making it the only U.S. state with
even a minor labeling law. As for the rest of the U.S., which is the largest grower
of GMO foods, there is no required GMO ingredient transparency.
Proposition 37, which will appear on the November elections ballot, aims to
change that. LabelGMOS.org, the organization responsible for helping bring this
proposed change about, writes:
"We believe our right to know what we are buying and feeding ourselves and
our kids supersedes corporate rights to a nontransparent profit. We are tired
of elected officials buckling to corporate pressure over the clear desires of
us, their constituents. We are outraged that we don't have the same right that
over 40% of the world's population has: A clear, transparent market with
genetically engineered ingredients disclosed in a simple, easy to read
way."
LabelGMOS.org encourages people to contact their local leaders so that when the
time comes, the bill is signed into law.
Most major food corporations oppose labeling, citing the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration's requirement that engineered ingredients only be labeled if
they represent a change to nutritional value or consumer safety levels.
Meanwhile, 92 percent of Americans want the FDA to
label GMO foods, according to various polls conducted throughout the states.
Critics of the bill state that GMO labels are a pointless effort because GMO
foods will continue to feed people all over the world. Supporters say that the
labels are about giving consumers a choice.
Advocates, supporters and law makers are waiting until the November elections
to see what happens next.
GMO labeling is an issue that concerns all of us, from farmer to mothers who
wish to raise healthy children. It is important to become a part of the
community that wants to give consumers a choice: To buy GMO or skip it in favor
of organic options. The GMO battle is not just about healthy, non-artificial
food. It is about the right to have transparency when it comes to corporate
business and the individual choice to reject it.
In order to be heard, supporters are encouraged to visit
http://www.facebook.com/labelgmos
or
http://www.labelgmos.org to learn
about this issue, volunteer, or donate resources. Otherwise, find your local
leader on
this map and
email them about your support for Prop 37!
If Supermarkets Get Their Way, You
Won't Know If GMOs Are in Your Food
August 1, 2012
California's
Proposition 37—which demands labeling on genetically modified foods—has the
food industry in a fit.
It's not often that it feels possible to take Big Food to its knees in the
fight for a
transparent, ethical, and sustainable food
system. But a recent meeting of food industry bigwigs has demonstrated
there may be a chink in Big Food's armor. That chink is Prop 37, a genetically
modified foods labeling proposal which recently earned a spot on the November
ballot in California.
Addressing the American Soybean Association, Grocery Manufacturers
Association (GMA) President Pamela Bailey said that defeating the initiative
"is the single-highest priority for GMA this year."
Vaguely named, the GMA seems like it would have a loose stake, if any, in
the Prop 37 debate. But the Association is comprised of heavy-hitting food
makers like PepsiCo, Kellogg, General Mills, and Monsanto, who are prepared to
fight tooth and nail against a measure that could legitimately threaten their
bottom line. Bailey's comments highlight just how much industry executives
don't want information in the hands of consumers.
So far, GMA has already spent $375,000 to oppose the measure.
TreeHugger reports that GMA members have also added
additional out-of-state lobbying power "in the tens of thousands of
dollars."
All that money is going toward shutting down voices from the
Right to Know
Campaign, which garnered nearly a million signatures to get the initiative
on the ballot. Backed by the Sierra Club, the American Public Health
Association, United Farm Workers, the Center for Food Safety, and Food
Democracy Now!, among others, the campaign has been a force to reckon with the
last few months.
So what does the GMA have to lose?
Critics of Prop 37 say that adding a label would create unfounded fear among
consumers about genetically modified foods. But recent polls suggest that
Californians are craving that info:
Ninety-one percent of Californians are in favor of GMO labeling.
That same 91 percent could take their dollars elsewhere, and GMA—who has also
fought for the right to market junk food to children—doesn't want that to
happen.
"If California
wins, you need to be worried the campaign will come to your state," Bailey
warned the Soybean Association.
Her opponents agree wholeheartedly.
"If California
succeeds, democracy will succeed—the vast majority of Californians and
Americans want genetically engineered food to be labeled," Stacy Malkan, a
spokesperson for the Right to Know Campaign, told TakePart. "If Prop 37
passes, I believe it will be just a matter of time before other states and the
federal government follow, and give the people the right to know what's in
their food."
How California's GM food referendum may change what America eats | Richard
Schiffman
In the US, an estimated 70% of items on supermarket shelves contain GM
ingredients, commonly corn, soy and canola oil products
The vast majority of Americans want genetically
modified food labelled. If California
passes November's ballot, they could get it
Last month, nearly 1m signatures were delivered to county registrars
throughout California
calling for a referendum on the labeling of genetically engineered foods. If
the measure,
"The
Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act", which will be on the
ballot in November, passes, California
will become the first state in the nation to require that GM foods be labeled
as such on the package.
This is
not the first time that the
issue has come up in California.
Several labeling laws have been drafted there, but none has made it out of
legislative committee. Lawmakers in states like Vermont
and Connecticut
have also proposed labeling legislation, which has gone nowhere in the face of
stiff industry opposition. And the US Congress has likewise seen sporadic,
unsuccessful attempts to mandate GM food labeling since 1999.
What makes the referendum in California
different is that, for the first time, voters and not politicians will be the
ones to decide. And this has the food industry worried. Understandably so,
since only one in four Americans is convinced that
GMOs are
"basically safe", according to
a
survey conducted by the Mellman Group, and a big majority wants food
containing GMOs to be labeled.
This is one of the few issues in America
today that enjoys broad bipartisan support: 89% of Republicans and 90% of
Democrats want genetically altered foods to be labeled, as they already are in
40 nations in Europe, in Brazil,
and even in China.
In 2007, then candidate Obama latched onto this popular issue saying that he
would push for labeling – a promise the president has yet to keep.
In Europe, only 5% of food sold contains
GMOs, a figure
that
continues to shrink. In the US,
by contrast, an estimated 70% of the products on supermarket shelves include at
least traces of genetically engineered crops – mostly, corn and soy byproducts
and canola oil, which are ingredients in many of America's processed foods.
Given their unpopularity with consumers, labeling "Frankenfoods"
would undoubtedly hurt sales, possibly even forcing supermarkets to take them
off their shelves.
In one
survey, just over half of those polled said they would not buy food that
they knew to be genetically modified.
This makes the financial stakes for November's referendum vote huge. California is not just America's leading agricultural
state, but the most populous state in the nation. If companies are made to
change their labels in California,
they may well do so all over the country, rather than maintain a costly
two-tier packaging and distribution system.
Several hurdles will have to be overcome, however, before this happens. The
ballot initiative will face fierce opposition from the food and biotech
industries, which are expected to
spend
an estimated $60-100m on an advertising blitz to convince Californians that
labeling is unnecessary, will hurt farmers, increase their food prices, and
even contribute to world hunger.
One lobbyist the corporations have hired to make this case is Tom Hiltachk,
the head of the
Coalition Against
the Costly Food Labeling Proposition (CACFLP), whose members include the
Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, Dow and
Syngenta, as well as several big food processors and supermarket chains.
Hiltachk is no stranger to the shadowy world of industry front groups,
according to Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of
the Organic Consumers Association. The
food activist
reported
on Alternet that:
"With a little help from his friends at Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds,
he helped organize the Californians for Smokers' Rights group to fight
anti-smoking initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s."
Also working to defeat the labeling initiative, according to Baden-Mayer, is
the
California
Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA), which likewise receives big bucks
from the tobacco industry and assorted other corporations. The consumer
watchdog group Public Citizen says that CALA aims "to incite public scorn
for the civil justice system, juries and judges, and to pave the way for
enactment of laws immunizing corporations from liability for actions that harm
consumers."
Whether lobbying groups like these will be able to convince famously
independent Californians to reject the labeling initiative in November remains
to be seen. But even if the referendum passes, the food industry can be
expected to challenge in court the state's right to mandate its own labeling
requirements – a function usually reserved for the Food and Drug Administration
(FDA), at the federal level.
The FDA's position on GMOs is that they are safe and essentially equivalent
nutritionally to conventionally grown food varieties. But critics counter that
the FDA has no way of knowing if this is true, since crucial testing of GM
foods has never been required by the agency, and indeed, has not yet been
conducted.
Writes
Dr Suzanne Wuerthele, a toxicologist with the US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA):
"We are confronted with the most powerful technology the world has ever
known, and it is being rapidly deployed with almost no thought whatsoever to
its consequences."
The concern is that genetic modification alters the proteins in foods in
ways that researchers do not yet fully understand. Substances that have never
existed before in nature are entering our food supply untested. While
researchers have not yet found a "smoking gun", which would prove
that GM foods as a class are dangerous, there are troubling signs that they may
be a factor in the recent epidemic of food allergies. Soon after GM soy was
introduced to the UK,
for example,
soy
allergies escalated by 50%.
Rosa Rashall, a nutritionist in Garberville,
California, who took part in the
petition campaign to get the labeling initiative on the ballot,
told the Redwood
Times:
"We are all worried for a variety of reasons, from health effects to
skyrocketing food sensitivities that have started to come about in the last 20
years. There has been an incredible 400% increase in food sensitivities that
coincides pretty well with the unlabeled introduction of GMO food into the
marketplace."
Critics also argue that agriculture's increasing dependence on GMOs has
coincided with a steep rise in toxic agrochemical use over the last decade. A
variety of GM corn sold by Monsanto was developed specifically to withstand
punishing doses of the company's bestselling herbicide, Roundup.
Food scientists remain divided on the larger food safety issue. Some say
that there is no cause for alarm, while others cite the allergy problem and
also animal studies, like one published by
the
International Journal of Biological Sciences, which showed high levels of
kidney and liver failures (the two organs of detoxification) in rats that were
fed Monsanto GM corn. Monsanto's biotech corn is designed to produce
a
pesticide in its cellular structure that wards off insect pests. Nobody
knows what effect this toxin will have on the people who eat the flesh of
livestock that are fed it.
The bottom line is that we can't be sure what the physiological effects of
consuming GM foods are until rigorous human trials are conducted – which
is not likely to happen anytime soon.
Californians aren't waiting until all of the scientific results are in. And
what they decide at the polling station in November may change what the rest of
us eat.
• Editor's note: this article originally stated that California
was the "third most populous state" in the US;
in fact, it is the most populous (and third largest geographically); the
article was amended at 12pm ET (5pm UK) on 13 June.
