Critics of so-called “frankenfoods” are winning their struggle to stigmatize those products, as state legislatures in Connecticut, Hawaii, Vermont and Maine passed laws in 2013-14 mandating their labeling and the issue has been put on the November ballot in Colorado and Oregon.
“We had a pretty good 2014,” said Scott Faber, vice president for government affairs at the Environmental Working Group, which advocates for labeling foods derived from organisms that have been genetically modified — or GMOs. The modifications produce traits that wouldn’t occur naturally, such as bug-resistant strains of corn. Faber believes critics have enough momentum to get legislation passed in California and several Northeastern states next year as well.
Food manufacturers, worried that the labels will scare consumers despite the lack of any evidence the foods are unsafe — not to mention the logistics of having to put different labels on their foods in each state — are fighting back by lobbying for federal rules that would override the states. A bill by Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., would give the Food and Drug Administration the power to label GMO foods and preempt state laws.
But the legislation has stalled in the House, prompting the industry to give up on it for now.
“We don’t expect any legislative action for the remainder of this Congress,” conceded Brian Kennedy, spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers Association. “We are hoping for some action in 2015.”
It’s an important issue for the industry, which spent $27.5 million in lobbying fees in 2014 on labeling alone, according to a study of federal lobbying reports by the Environmental Working Group. EWG says its side has spent almost $2 million in lobbying on the issue.
A proliferation of local laws on labeling would hurt producers of GMO products, said Baylen Linnekin, president of the nonprofit Keep Food Legal, which advocates for libertarian food policies. The logistics alone would be a nightmare.
“To have 50 different state-based GMO labels would be the death of interstate commerce for a lot of foods,” Linnekin said. “It would certainly put smaller producers at a disadvantage.”
About the best thing that the industry can say about 2014 is that it could have been worse. Labeling legislation was introduced in at least 28 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
In most cases the bills died, although they are technically still pending in seven states. State laws in New England have complicated triggering mechanisms that require neighboring states to also pass labeling laws.
Still, the trend is toward more labeling, not less. It has emerged quickly, too. No laws even existed at the beginning of 2013.
Both sides agree that as more states pass laws, pressure will build on Congress to step in and create a uniform policy.
Environmentalists are ready for that debate, too. Democrats introduced their own labeling bill this session, which effectively would have mandated the labeling of all GMO foods.
Labeling advocates argue that the laws provide consumers with more information. “The industry sees this as a debate about technology, but it is really a debate about transparency,” Faber said.
In the November ballot referendums, Oregon voters will be asked whether food packages should have the words “produced with genetic engineering,” printed on them. In Colorado, it will be “produced by genetic engineering.”
Critics say the labels are just efforts by environmentalists to scare consumers.
The Food and Drug Administration states on its website that it “has no basis for concluding that bioengineered foods differ from other foods in any meaningful or uniform way, or that, as a class, foods developed by the new techniques present any different or greater safety concern than foods developed by traditional plant breeding.”
Said FDA spokeswoman Jennifer Dooren: “Let me put it this way: If we thought it was unsafe, we would take steps.”
Nevertheless, a 2013 New York Times poll did find a lot of worry on the issue, with 93 percent of adults saying that they wanted GMO foods labeled, with health concerns cited as the top reason.
“GMO labeling is more about punishing the foods [activists] don’t like than giving the public information,” Linnekin said.
A better route, he argued, would be to let consumers dictate how private industry acts. If enough consumers truly wanted to know, the producers would voluntarily label their foods. The FDA encourages voluntary labeling; several major companies like Whole Foods and Chipotle are already going along.
Proponents of genetically engineered foods also argue the technology has been a boon, ensuring larger, disease-resistant yields that have reduced hunger worldwide.
Even Faber conceded there was no proof of harm and that the underlying science of agricultural cross-breeding goes back thousands of years. Still, he insisted the debate over modern hybridization practices had not been settled.
“These are novel foods. All of the science [regarding them] has been developed by the patent holders,” he said.
