To Label or Not to Label GMOs
Food Chain Radio Show #1,003 
Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist
To Label or Not Label GMOs
Should the Federal Government support or prohibit the labeling of foods containing GMOs?
Guests: Diana Reeves, Founder, GMO Free USA
Not Available, Grocery Manufacturers Association
This just in from GMO Free USA:
Michael Olson Food Chain Radio – GMOs: “Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act” or the “American DARK Act”?
If the Kelloggs Company – one of America’s original purveyors of health foods – were to label its Froot Loop cereal as containing “high levels of insecticide-producing genetically engineered corn and glyphosate weedkiller,” fewer mothers would likely want to feed their children Froot Loops.
And so the fight is on to label, or not to label, foods containing genetically-modified organisms.
On one side is the 93% of consumers who support the labeling of foods containing GMOs.
On the other side is the industry that, to date, has spent over $100 million to avoid the labeling of foods containing GMOs.
This conflict places the federal government squarely between a rock and a hard place, with the rock being voters and the hard place being the money it takes to buy voters.
The fight to legislate a federal government stand began in 2014. Industry called its proposed federal legislation “The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act.” Consumer groups called the proposed legislation the “Deny Americans the Right to Know”, or “The DARK Act.”
This federal legislation, if passed and signed into law, would deny individual states the right to pass their own labeling legislation. This prospect leads us to ask…
As a consumer, there are many reasons to support labeling including transparency, informed food choices for consumers, public health, and a level playing field for food. As a farmer growing ecologically grown foods labeling substantiates foods grown without pesticides are a healthier and more balanced choice for people, the planet, and the economy. Labeling is about responsibility for public health, environmental protection that perseveres eco-services for the future and the truth. Labeling also may stem out of control market share efforts by big corporations and help save the environment including soil and water for future generations.
… Or neither? I’m a little wary of giving too much control to the Federal Government. There are too many variables including lobbyists and party politics to trust something as important to be controlled by them.