It is only when we started doing this very same “genetic engineering” that we’ve been doing for many thousands of years, more scientifically and under more controlled and more efficiently; and by the way with more predictable results and actually with more oversight and less likelihood of introducing harmful agents than ever before, that some started using the “scary” term, “Genetically Modified”, and so when some low information people with little understanding of biology and genetics and basic science and economics and egged on by all the usual suspects; the Green Peace, PETA, The Center for Science in the Public Interest (i.e. the Food Police*), the Nanny State Michael Bloomberg types who want to tell you what size soda you can drink and how much salt is too much, the anti-capitalist, population control, Gia Worshipping, Occupy Wall Street types and the marketing at some (and BTW, some very large and very profitable corporations with lots of money to spend on lobbying efforts) who sell overrated and overpriced “organic” foods, started calling GMO foods “Frankenfood” and scaring the well intentioned but gullible into the false belief that Genetically Modified = Poison.
Genetically modified corn before GMO:
If you read this very well written article about California’s failed Prop 37 which is very similar to the Washington State Initiative 522, it points out that these various state GMO labeling initiatives will not bring the consumers who are supporting them what they “think” it will and that it will actually cause more confusion and less information:
Yet even for shoppers wishing to single out GE foods, Proposition 37 doesn’t deliver what it promises. The wording of the initiative is, to be charitable, chaotic and confusing. Many of the foods that meet the initiative’s legal definition of “genetically engineered” are explicitly exempted from the labeling requirement, courtesy of special interests.
Cheeses made with a GE clotting agent? Beer and wine fermented with GE yeasts? Milk from cows injected with an engineered growth hormone? They’re all exempt. But corn or soybean oil from GE crops – which contain no DNA from the plants themselves – would be captured. Proposition 37 would leave consumers worse informed that they are now.
And: The organic industry boasts that certified foods cannot contain GE ingredients, and various food companies and activist groups have created websites, pocket guides, and even smart phone apps that direct purchasers to GE-free products. With all this information freely available, consumers already have what they need to choose.
Why then are Proposition 37 supporters so adamant about singling out genetic engineering? It’s simple: Labeling only GE foods would stigmatize those products, raise the costs of making them, discourage the use of the technology and encourage money-seeking lawsuits for inconsequential violations. In fact, the initiative seems to have been drafted with these very goals in mind.
Ironically, Proposition 37 would also impose huge costs on producers who try to avoid GE. Those committed to using GE ingredients can slap a “Genetically Engineered” label on their products and be done. But producers who want to sell non-GE foods must bear the costs of tracing the source of every ingredient they use and getting sworn guarantees that they “are not knowingly or intentionally” engineered.
That’s right. You want to buy certified non- GMO foods? I hope you are prepared and like paying even more for them than you do now.
And in passing these initiatives, it will also be a huge boon to - guess who? The trial lawyers:
A single slip-up – for example, in the form of a missing link in the paper trail — could result in criminal prosecution or a private lawsuit filed by anyone who has ever bought a “mislabeled” product in a grocery store, food stand, or farmer’s market. The initiative is a trial lawyer’s dream, which is not surprising given that it was written by a trial lawyer who has spent his career suing small food producers in California.
And of course, like all government regulations under the guise of “it’s for your own good”, it raises taxes and grows government, will stifle innovation, competition and will make it more difficult and prohibitively expensive for small and mid-sized farmers and food producers and manufacturers to compete or stay in business. Not to mention that it will cost more for consumers, whether they want to buy certified non-GMO or decide they really don’t care and want to buy GMO products at the checkout and all with no real benefit either way to their health and wellbeing as GMO foods are no more or less dangerous, are no more or less nutritious than non GMO foods.
Trade issues will be one of the ways mandatory labeling will raise prices of both genetically modified foods and non-modified foods, the study noted.
“The lack of uniform standards, known as harmonization, and the potential for discrimination of policies among states and across countries and their agreements makes mandatory labeling of GM products a trade issue. Mandatory labeling, especially at a state versus federal level, is likely to affect trade and impose higher costs on firms producing and selling products in Washington. These costs are likely to be passed on to the consumer resulting in higher food prices. Importantly, these costs will be borne by firms and consumers for both GM and non-GM foods as labeling foods as non-GM will require oversight costs,” the study concluded.
And the entire concept of mandatory GMO food labeling is flawed:
Although advocates of GE labeling lean on the claim consumers have a right to know what’s in the food they eat, merely stating on a label that a product contains genetically modified ingredients doesn’t tell consumers what they’re eating, Conko said.
“GE is a process, it’s not a thing that’s in the food,” Conko stressed. “Nor is it the only breeding process that could give rise to a potentially material change in the safety or nutrition of a food. In fact, there are several breeding methods that scientists know to be far more risky than genetic engineering, but labeling advocates apparently aren’t interested in letting consumers know when those methods have been used.”
Now imagine going to your local grocery store to buy a box of Barilla pasta and a jar of Barilla pasta sauce and a package of Johnsonville Italian sausage. Let’s say the wheat in the pasta was grown in Kansas but the semolina was grown in Italy and if it contained any egg products, let’s say they were produced in Maryland. Now the garlic in your pasta sauce was grown in Michigan except when they sometimes purchased the garlic from India and then there are the tomatoes, the basil, the olive oil all sourced from many different states or countries in the pasta sauce and then there is beef and pork and all the spices and binders and corn syrup that went into making the sausage….etc.
Now think about what is involved with complying with all the various “GMO” labeling requirements that each and every ingredient would have to be certified as to being GMO or non-GMO. Sounds good doesn’t it?
But now think about each and every state having different labeling requirements and different standards as to what has to be reported as GMO and Non-GMO. Then think about the beef and pork and the eggs and the requirement for all those farmers, small and medium and large, having to certify that every food that each and every animal consumed from birth to slaughter, every single grain of corn; every soy and alphalfa product was either GMO or completely Non-GMO.
Now imagine that companies like Barilla and Johnsonville who sell their products nationally having to comply with all those various state labeling requirements and ensuring that each and every provider of every single ingredient, each and every grower of each and every ingredient in the US and or abroad, was compliant with all these various state requirements and making sure that all these provider were compliant with each and every state regulation and either segregating and separately labeling all their products sold in various states where they sell and or ensuring that all their national or multi-state distributors are also segregating or insured or having a separate labeling that includes each and every standard for national distribution lest they face fines or lawsuits. Imaging buying a box of pasta that was ¼ devoted to containing the actual pasta and that ¾ of that box would be devoted to all the labeling requirements and that a jar of pasta would come with a 32 page pamphlet (and as if you really had the time and inclination to read all that fine print and decipher it all?) Do any of you for one minute seriously think that this will not drive up food prices?
Of course we could skip all these various state GMO food labeling requirements in favor of one single Federal standard….that would be ++ good and so much better for consumers just like Obamacare…/sarcasm
*
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/issues/food-police/
Know your enemy. (Hint - they are the ones pushing for more government control, the end of free choice and individual liberty and interference with the free market of ideas and innovation) :)
Right now and without any legislation, if you want to purchase and consume GMO free products, you can do this right now and without further legislation and a further burden and cost to any producers and other consumers. You can go to your local Whole Foods or Wegmans or to your local grocery store with a fine selection of certified organic products or find a small local organic grocer or an organic farmer or you can skip the middle man and just grow your own. This choice is already in your hands. Why should I have to pay more just to make your choice, the choice you already have “supposedly” easier and more expensive, just for you?
This is not IMO a conservative position in any sense of the word “conservative” if you think that I should have to be subject to higher prices and less options and to more government regulations just because you don’t like the choices I make and think somehow that I should be subject to funding through taxation and onerous regulations just to support and enforce your personal choices on everyone else with no real benefit, you really fail big time on what the term “conservative” means.