PITTSBORO, N.C.–The USDA is asking for your public comments about how to label GMOs, and we want to make sure you have the opportunity to chime in. TUESDAY, JULY 3 IS THE DEADLINE for you to tell the USDA that GMOs labels on food should be transparent, easy to understand, and accessible to all consumers!
On May 3, 2018, the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) published its proposed rule for implementing the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard (“GMO labeling law”), a bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in July 2016.
The GMO labeling law, once it’s implemented, will require many (but not all) food products to carry a disclosure if the products meet the statutory definition of “bioengineered food.”
However, there are some serious problems with the GMO labeling rules that USDA has proposed, and unless changes are made, the resulting label disclosures will not be a reliable source of information for consumers. Worse—the seem likely to cause confusion in the marketplace, which harms consumers and industry alike.
WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
The USDA wants to know what you think about its proposed GMO labeling rules. (Read CFSA’s comments here.) Regardless of how you feel about genetically engineered crops, if you think that consumers have a right to know whether biotechnology was used to produce their food, then the USDA needs to hear from you!
There are two ways you can do this:
- Visit our website, where you can find:
- A downloadable template with talking points that you can use to write and submit your own comments;
- A brief overview of the GMO labeling law and USDA’s proposed rule; and
- CFSA’s comments to the USDA about the proposed rule.
- Already caught up to speed? Excellent! Submit your comments directly to the USDA now.
Suggested talking points:
- Use terms consumers understand! The USDA should require disclosure to be made using the more familiar terms “GMO” or “genetic engineering” instead of the proposed term “bioengineering,” which is not familiar to consumers. The USDA should reject the term “bioengineering.”
- Food produced using newer gene-editing techniques like CRISPR should be required to be labeled under the NBFDS. Consumers want to know if their food contains products from all GMO foods, whether developed with old or new technology!
- Highly refined food products made from genetically engineered crops, like sugars and oils, should be labeled as GMO/GE, even if there is no detectable genetic material left in the product after manufacturing. Deciding what to eat can be about what’s in food AND about how it was grown!
- More disclosure is better than less! USDA should use “.9% of the weight of a single ingredient” as the threshold amount of inadvertent GMO/GE content that triggers a disclosure requirement. (This is the lowest threshold the USDA is considering.)
- Everyone deserves to know how their food is grown, not just people with smartphones! USDA should reject both the QR-code and text message disclosure options because consumers who lack tech expertise, smartphones, wi-fi access, or the money to pay for frequent text messaging will not be able to access information about their food using these options.
- Don’t treat GMO labels as a chance to market them as happy, sunny or wholesome! USDA should reject the proposed symbols for disclosing GMO/GE food products because they are not neutral (for example, some proposed symbols are flowers with smiley faces). When Congress passed the GMO labeling law, it included a provision that prohibits disclosures (whether by text or symbol) from indicating that GMO food is safer or less safe than non-GMO food. USDA’s proposed symbols don’t comply with this requirement.
–Carolina Farm Stewardship Association