The essence of the deal: Companies will have to disclose their GMO ingredients, but they won’t have to put that information right on the label.
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The Senate bill, for instance, says that any organic product can automatically be labeled “non-GMO”. “The Senate has voted to move us one step closer to a uniform, national plan that will provide consumers easy access to information about genetically modified food”, said Duvall. “While we regret that Vermont’s landmark labeling bill will now be postponed, it is now certain that within a few years, every GMO food will carry an on-package disclosure”.
The bill invalidates Vermont’s first-in-the-nation GMO labeling law, which went into effect July 1, and also blocks other states from enacting their own labeling requirements.
On a vote of 63 to 30, the Senate approved the bill that will mandate labeling of genetically modified foods and preempt state labeling laws.
Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, both members of the Senate Agriculture Committee, voted in favor of the labeling bill. For consumers, the far better labeling options provided for in this bill are either straightforward text, or a distinctive symbol, that designates genetically engineered food ingredients at a glance. But with a bill on its way to setting at least a GMO labeling standard at the federal level, Just Label It is looking to win ground with the USDA, which would implement the law, and in the marketplace.
Even if Vermont’s labeling law ends up being short lived, the tiny state will have a long-lasting influence on the food industry and its attitudes toward GMO labeling, which, until this year, the industry had staunchly opposed.
Stabenow said the bill would cover 25,000 more food products that would have to be labeled than the Vermont law because it eliminates that state’s exemption of meat, eggs, cheese and dairy products.
Opponents have listed other supposed loopholes, arguing, for instance, that the ambiguous language could let GM corn off scot-free.
I think GMO labelling is a awful idea – not because we should hide or somehow keep ingredients secret, but because we can’t inform a public that is ignorant about genetics and genomics.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), who called the bill a “well-funded travesty”, said consumers “deserve clear labels, not scavenger hunts”. Some ingredients, such as beet sugar and soybean oil, can be derived from GMO crops, but after refining, there is little or no genetic material left.
The fact that a plant’s genes have been altered through recombinant DNA techniques – rather than conventional crossbreeding or. or whatever – is simply not very meaningful. Food-sellers on Friday applauded lawmakers for passing the bill.
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The association was part of the Coalition for Safe and Affordable Food, which lobbied for what labeling supporters termed the Deny Americans the Right to Know, or DARK Act, that would have made labeling voluntary.
