Yahoo – AFP,
Thomas Watkins, 7 July 2014
 |
Two decades
after genetically modified foods first hit the shelves of American
supermarkets, a fight is sprouting over whether consumers should be told more
about what’s in their grocery bags (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)
|
Two decades
after genetically modified foods first hit the shelves of American
supermarkets, a fight is sprouting over whether consumers should be told more
about what’s in their grocery bags
Portland
(AFP) - Two decades after genetically modified foods first hit the shelves of
American supermarkets, a fight is sprouting over whether consumers should be
told more about what’s in their grocery bags.
Even though
most processed foods now contain at least one genetically modified ingredient,
there’s no national requirement in the United States for manufacturers to
disclose GM content, unlike in the European Union and many countries elsewhere.
Despite
years of widespread use across the US and repeated safety approvals,
campaigners still think that genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are risky
or unhealthy. They're working in many states across the country for tougher
regional labeling laws.
"I
don’t think there is anything wrong with how nature designed our food and I
don't think we know enough about the long-term effects," said Kathryn
Lowe, a Portland-based massage therapist and health coach.
Lowe told
AFP she was helping to gather signatures to make sure a law is presented to
Oregon voters on the November ballot. It would require food makers to clearly
put "produced with genetic engineering" on GMO-containing products.
Many states
allow residents to vote for new laws, and campaigners in Colorado are aiming
for a similar measure. They say GMOs were released onto the mass market without
enough independent testing of their long-term safety.
The debate
goes to the heart of America's multi-billion-dollar agriculture and
food-technology industries. Not surprisingly, these groups are fighting to
eradicate the spread of such requirements and say campaigners' arguments are
unfounded -- or just plain wrong.
"Mandatory
labeling could imply that food products containing these ingredients are
somehow inferior to their conventional or organic counterparts," said
Charla Lord, a spokeswoman for Monsanto, one of the biggest players in the
biotech field.
"To
say that GMO crops are 'untested' or 'unsafe' is simply not true. GMO crops
undergo more testing and oversight than any other agricultural products and the
safety of biotech crops is well-established," she added in an email.
 |
Even though
most processed foods now contain at least one genetically
modified ingredient,
there’s no national requirement in the United States for
manufacturers to
disclose GM content (AFP Photo)
|
Monsanto
produces many genetically engineered crops, including a line of corn and other
plants that have been altered to tolerate higher doses of the company's own
popular herbicide, called Roundup.
Almost all
corn, soy, sugar beet and canola crops in the US are genetically engineered.
Organic foods are by definition GMO-free.
The EU has
mandatory labeling for GMOs or products with genetically modified ingredients.
Increase
in pesticide use
Supporters
of labeling laws say consumers should be told in greater detail about what
they're actually eating. They point to recent polls, including by the New York
Times and Consumer Reports, that suggest nine out of 10 Americans support this.
"This
is a no-brainer. There should be a national law requiring GMO labeling and
there should be independent testing," said David Rosenfeld, the executive
director of an Oregon consumer group called OSPIRG.
He said
genetically engineered crops had been linked to a more than 400-million-pound
(181-million-kilo) increase in pesticide use in the US between 1996 and 2011,
and that this carried risks to health and the environment.
Campaigners
in Oregon and Colorado are hoping to learn from similar recent initiatives that
failed, notably in California in 2012 and in Washington state last year.
Agro-chemical
and agro-food giants such as Monsanto, Bayer, DuPont, Coca-Cola, and PepsiCo,
poured millions into defeating the ballot initiatives, vastly outspending
backers.
Labeling
proponents say they've tweaked the wording of their proposed laws to protect
them from food-industry attacks.
And this
year, the northeastern state of Vermont took the historic step of passing a
mandatory labeling law. Maine and Connecticut have also approved labeling
measures, though these won’t take effect unless several contiguous states first
adopt similar requirements.
The Grocery
Manufacturers Association, along with other food groups representing mainstream
US food producers, has sued Vermont over its labeling law.
"Mandatory
GMO labeling at the state and local level would only be confusing and costly
for consumers and those who grow their food," said GMA spokesman Brian
Kennedy in an email.
 |
File photo
of a label on a bag of popcorn
indicating it is a non-GMO (genetically
modified organism) food product in Los
Angeles, California (AFP Photo/Robyn Beck)
|
Campaigners
say such claims mislead consumers and amount to scaremongering.
"Those
are all nonsense figures," said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at the
Consumers Union. He said the actual difference would really be just a few cents.
In many
towns, signs abound that people want to know what's in their food and companies
are capitalizing on this.
Supermarket
chain Trader Joe's says its products are GMO-free. Here in Portland, a hip and
alternative city in the Pacific Northwest, restaurants and food trucks cater to
just about every possible diet, and menus often state that foods are GMO-free
where possible.
In rural
southern Oregon, two counties in May voted to ban the growing of genetically
engineered crops over fears that genetically modified seeds could contaminate
organic and non-GMO crops.
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