3 Reasons to be Concerned about the USDA’s Proposed GMO Labeling Rules

22 Aug

by Terpco Social Media Admin in News No Comments

Advocates say the rules raise a number of red flags, and could end up causing more confusion than clarity.

Food labels help consumers quickly discern whether their food contains gluten, aspartame, high fructose corn syrup, trans-fats, or MSG. This same right to know should be clearly offered for foods that are genetically engineered (“GE” or “GMO”), especially since polls consistently show that Americans overwhelmingly believe they have the right to know if their food is GE, with roughly 90 percent regularly voicing support for mandatory GMO labeling as a result of concerns about health, food safety, and environmental impacts from GE foods.

That’s why the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) long-awaited proposed regulations for GMO labeling on food are so surprising.

Released in May, the regulations come out of a 2016 law signed by President Obama prohibiting existing state GE labeling laws, such as Vermont’s, which required on-package mandatory labeling, and instead created a nationwide standard. Instead of proposing straightforward rules, the 100-page USDA document presents a range of alternatives on a number of key issues, and leaves a handful of questions open for comment, to be decided in the final rule.

For many consumers and influencers in the food movement, the federal GE labeling law has offered a ray of hope for transparency about what’s in our food and how it’s produced. After the 2016 law was passed, food journalist Mark Bittman wrote that the law “could stir a revolution” of folks wanting to know more about their food, including whether antibiotics or pesticides were used in the production of those foods.

However, for those of us advocating for true transparency of foods produced using genetic engineering, the new USDA rules raise a number of big red flags. Here are the three ways the rules could end up causing more confusion than clarity.

1. They Propose Using “Bioengineered,” and the Acronym BE Instead of “Genetically Engineered” or GMO.

The term GMO has been used by farmers, food manufacturers, retailers, and the government for over a decade and is widely familiar to many. The National Organic Program, proposed by the USDA in 2000, excluded the use of GMOs in organic production and handling. The Non-GMO Project, founded in 2007, tests food products for the presence of GMOs and has certified thousands of food products in the marketplace.