Why Biotech Food Labeling Is Met with Resistance

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In recent weeks, there’s been a lot of new discussion around the biotech labeling debate.  On May 10, the International Food Information Council (IFIC) released its latest “Consumer Perceptions of Food Technology” survey, which showed that very few Americans cite biotechnology as an information need on food labels.

Earlier this month, the California Right to Know initiative announced at various rallies held around the state that it had collected the prerequisite number of signatures to get its proposal on the November ballot. The initiative would require biotech foods (also known as Genetically Modified Organisms, or GMOs) and foods containing GMO ingredients to be labeled.

A number of mainstream media outlets reported on the California activity. Andrea Billups’ piece in the Washington Times and Jack Kaskey’s article for Bloomberg nicely sum up why the broader agriculture and food manufacturing community is opposed to the measure:

The California campaign is the best chance for biotech labeling in the United States after the failure of similar bills in 19 states and the rejection of a petition to the Food and Drug Administration last month.

But the California voter initiative is likely to meet fierce resistance from agricultural and business interests, who predict it will prove costly both for growers and consumers. Opponents warn the measure constitutes a “right to sue” initiative that will undercut sales of numerous food items that have been consumed safely for years.

Monsanto opposes labeling modified ingredients because the move risks “misleading consumers into thinking products are not safe when in fact they are,” said Sara Miller, a Monsanto spokeswoman.

The initiative is a “back door” way to hurt the $13.3 billion biotech crop industry, according to Richard Lobb, managing director for the Council for Biotechnology Information. The Washington-based council represents Monsanto and five other biotech-seed developers. “They basically are trying to scare consumers through labeling,” Lobb said in a telephone interview. “The obvious objective is to push biotechnology out of the market altogether.”

Biotech labeling has never been endorsed by the FDA. The agency says crops engineered to tolerate herbicides or produce insecticide pose no greater health risks than conventional foods.

The California Farm Bureau opposes the ballot initiative, along with the California Chamber of Commerce, the California Seed Association, the California Grain and Feed Association, and California Women for Agriculture.

Jamie Johansson, vice president of the California Farm Bureau and an olive farmer from Oroville, Calif., said the initiative puts an enormous burden on growers and packagers, and it prevents any processed food from being labeled as “natural.”

An apple, for example, wouldn’t require a label, but it would if it were ground into apple sauce. The same for almonds: They are fine picked raw, but ground into almond butter, even without any other ingredients, they would not pass the test under provisions of the proposed label law.

Food labels should be reserved for “critically important food safety and nutritional information,” said Brian Kennedy, a spokesman for the Grocery Manufacturers Association, which opposes the California initiative.

The California proposal would mandate a label for foods in which more than 0.5 percent of the product is a genetically modified ingredient. The proposal exempts meat, dairy foods and beer.

The label “would be the equivalent of a skull and crossbones” that would drive away customers and force food producers to stop using engineered ingredients, Joseph Mercola, the labeling initiative’s leading funder with $800,000 in donations, said. Mercola is an osteopath who promotes natural remedies at his clinic in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

Martina Newell-McGloughlin, director of the University of California Systemwide Biotechnology Research and Education Program, called the labeling proposal “completely blown out of context.”

“To me, the issue with this as a scientist is you are focusing on the labeling of process rather than the labeling of product,” she said. “The issue for safety should be on the product itself if you are going to look at risk-assessment and whether something should be of concern to the consumer.”

“You don’t have a label on sausage telling you how they are made and you probably wouldn’t want one. For biotech products, the issues are an individual’s right to know. If you were going to ask to supply all information made on a processed crop, you’d have a whole encyclopedia attached to everything on your grocery shelf.”

Chris Shaw, a New York-based analyst, said labels identifying genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, won’t change most consumers’ buying decisions. “People who are buying Oreos aren’t going to care if there is GMO soybean oil in there,” Shaw said. “It’s going to be a marginal group of people that will care.”

That’s the consensus of consumers who participated in the IFIC survey.  Seventy-six percent of respondents could not think of any additional information (other than what is already required) that they wish to see on food labels.  Of the 24 percent who wanted more information, only 3 percent (or about five people and less than 1 percent of all surveyed) wanted more information about biotechnology. In addition, 87 percent of Americans say they have not taken any action out of concern about biotechnology.

IFIC President and CEO David Schmidt said the strength of the methodology used in the IFIC survey sets it apart from other surveys looking at food technology issues.

“In the public landscape, we often see polling that tries to provoke or frighten people into giving a certain desired response,” Schmidt said.  “We don’t believe in leading consumers to any conclusion.  We believe our open-ended methodology used at the beginning of our survey provides a more accurate view of concerns on Americans’ minds, and the survey is the most objective and long-term publicly available data set on U.S. consumer attitudes toward food and agricultural biotechnology.”

The survey, formerly the “IFIC Survey of Consumer Attitudinal Trends toward Food Biotechnology,” is part of a series that has been conducted since 1997.

Shoppers Already Have a Choice Regarding Biotech Foods

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Food Chemical News (an Agra Informa publication) ran a thorough editorial in its February 17 edition on the biotech food labeling debate. In this piece, Gregory Conko, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, explains why it would be unnecessary to require special labeling for foods containing biotech ingredients:

“Today, there are many thousands of affirmatively labeled, non-biotech foods available in stores as varied as Whole Foods Markets and Wal-Mart.

“From just 2000 to 2009, some 6,899 new food and beverage products were introduced in the United States with explicit non-biotech labeling. And groups ranging from Greenpeace to the Organic Consumers Association have created websites, print pocket guides and even smartphone apps that direct purchasers to ‘biotech-’ and ‘GM-free’ products.

“That market-driven approach is not enough for many biotechnology critics, who argue that a government mandate is needed to truly give consumers the choice they desire. Last year, a who’s who of organic food corporations and advocacy groups launched the ‘Just Label It’ campaign to agitate for mandatory biotech food labeling. Another group has proposed a labeling initiative set to appear on California ballots in November.

“Consumers certainly have a right to ask for information about the products they buy and to choose those that most closely meet their needs or desires. That’s how our vibrant consumer products market works. But decades of sound public policy – not to mention the U.S. Constitution – have reserved government labeling mandates for information that has a material impact on consumer health and safety.

“Why then are critics so adamant about labeling? And why does the organic food industry, which makes billions of dollars peddling affirmatively labeled non-biotech products, keep funneling money into these campaigns? The answer seems to be that forced labeling acts to stigmatize products made with biotechnology and producers who use it.

“Neither consumers nor governments have a right to force producers to disclose information about their products that is irrelevant to health, safety or some other important interest. Singling out one of the safest, and certainly the most heavily regulated, breeding method in order to stigmatize it simply does not qualify. It is also unnecessary, because competitive market pressures have already created a vibrant and expanding market for voluntary labeling options that gives consumers the choice many seem to want.”

Visit the Food Chemical News website to read the entire editorial.

Future Requires Both Innovation and Collaboration

Posted under agriculture, Benefits of biotech crops, Blog, climate change, Companies, Diagnostics, Farmer Gene, Food And Agriculture, Funding, global food crisis, Medical Devices, Medical Supply, Pharmaceuticals, Plant biotechnology, Startups, Sustainability, Universities, Videos by biotechnow@bio.org (Biotechnology Industry Organization)

The Wilmington News Journal’s recent article, “GMOs: 10 Simple Questions (and Some Surprising Answers)” garnered a lot of attention on both sides of the debate around biotech foods.  Among the responses, a thoughtful piece authored by Pioneer Hi-Bred president Paul Schickler was published in the paper’s Sunday edition:

Biotech crops are perhaps the most stringently regulated aspect of agriculture – held to the highest level of analysis and scrutiny. They are regulated by three federal agencies – the USDA, the FDA and the EPA. The National Academies of Science, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the American Dietetic Association and the American Medical Association all agree that biotech foods are as safe as foods grown with conventionally bred seeds.

“As I have met with farmers and others around the world working to improve access to food, it is readily apparent that the tools farmers need to feed the 7 billion people on our planet today goes well beyond seed. They need information on best practices. They need credit and crop insurance. They need adequate roads and access to viable markets. They need holistic, sustainable local solutions.

“Enabling farmers to meet the challenge of feeding the 9 billion people expected by 2050 will require all of us – scientists, farmers, philanthropists, businesses, governments and NGOs – to work together to find local solutions to the global issues we face.

Click here to read the full article.