If you are guided by a core principal of Respecting people around the world and their right to choose healthy food products that are best for them and their families, why do you oppose labeling GM foods? How can people make informed decisions if you wont allow them to know what they are actually eating?

Expert response from Community Manager

Moderator for GMOAnswers.com

Wednesday, 20/01/2016 21:08

We appreciate you sharing your frustration about GMO labeling and transparency, as well as your concerns regarding the ability of individuals and their families to make informed decisions about food. We want to share that we support your ability to make informed choices about your food.  You might be surprised to learn that the GMO Answers’ member companies are not anti-labeling. Former Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI) executive director Cathy Enright describes the labeling that CBI does support in this response and states, “We absolutely do support the right of consumers to choose food that is healthy and nutritious. And although we do not sell food products directly to consumers, we support food companies’ decisions to voluntarily label food products for the presence or absence of GMOs, so consumers who wish to can choose food that is not made with GM ingredients. Some companies have opted to use such voluntarily labels such as “USDA Organic." We also support the FDA guidance on labeling of food products containing ingredients from GM crops if there is a meaningful difference between that food and its conventional counterpart – this means that if the nutrition of the product has changed, it will be reflected in the nutrition label as such.

“When it comes to safeguarding your health and nutrition, we support the mandatory labeling of food, including GMO food, if it raises a safety or health concern, for example, to alert sensitive populations to the potential presence of an allergen.  We also support mandatory labeling of GMO food if there is a change to the food’s composition, nutritional profile, taste or smell, or any other characteristic that would make it different from its conventional counterpart,” says former Council for Biotechnology Information executive director Cathy Enright.

She goes on to explain that “we cannot support the mandatory labeling of GMO food just because the food in the market was produced using genetic engineering, for example, in wine, yogurt or bread made with GM yeast, vegetable oil made from GM soybeans, or cereal sweetened with GM sugar. These foods are as safe and nutritious as their non-GMO counterparts as determined by recognized authorities around the world.”

We think there are a few challenges with mandatory labeling currently proposed. Let's explore a few of those:

• First, labeling an ingredient as GMO or not, doesn't tell the consumer much about the product, other than how the seed was made. "GMO" doesn't describe a product; it describes a process for improving plant genetics. There are many different GM traits and vary from resistance to herbicides, diseases and insects, to non-browning traits. 
• If we agree that labels should explain that traits of the GM crops used to make ingredients, then that poses a logistical challenge for food producers. Jennie Schmidt, a registered dietitian and farmer in Maryland, explores the changes in grain storage alone that would need to happen in order to separate GM traits in corn from each other and non-GM traits in this post, "The Cost of GMO Labeling."
• Finally, mandatory GMO labeling would increase U.S. food costs. Alison Van Eenennaam, Animal Genomics and Biotechnology Cooperative Extension Specialist at the University of California, Davis, goes into the potential economic impact of mandatory GMO labeling in this response. She also explores the economics in this paper: The Potential Impacts of Mandatory Labeling for Genetically Engineered Food in the United States.

Voluntary labeling offers alternatives to GMOs.

We support farmer choice, customer choice, and for companies to make the best choices about products for their businesses. If customers would like to make the choice to purchase foods that do not contain ingredients derived from GMOs, they can buy products with the voluntary USDA organic seal other non-GMO labels. Currently there are only nine GM crops commercially available in the U.S. – corn, soybeans, alfalfa, canola, papaya, yellow squash, cotton, sugar beets, alfalfa and potato. A GM apple has also been approved to be grown and will be coming to market soon.

We understand you are concerned about transparency and interested in more information about the food you eat. GMO Answers was created to do a better job of providing you with information about biotechnology in agriculture and GMOs. In the past, we haven’t done the best job of communicating about GMO seeds. We hope that by answering your question and providing you with more information in this response – you are able to gather the facts and make informed choices about the food you eat.  Thank you for giving us the opportunity to engage in this conversation with you, and we invite you to ask any additional questions you might have.

Expert response from Community Manager

Moderator for GMOAnswers.com

Wednesday, 20/01/2016 21:08

We appreciate you sharing your frustration about GMO labeling and transparency, as well as your concerns regarding the ability of individuals and their families to make informed decisions about food. We want to share that we support your ability to make informed choices about your food.  You might be surprised to learn that the GMO Answers’ member companies are not anti-labeling. Former Council for Biotechnology Information (CBI) executive director Cathy Enright describes the labeling that CBI does support in this response and states, “We absolutely do support the right of consumers to choose food that is healthy and nutritious. And although we do not sell food products directly to consumers, we support food companies’ decisions to voluntarily label food products for the presence or absence of GMOs, so consumers who wish to can choose food that is not made with GM ingredients. Some companies have opted to use such voluntarily labels such as “USDA Organic." We also support the FDA guidance on labeling of food products containing ingredients from GM crops if there is a meaningful difference between that food and its conventional counterpart – this means that if the nutrition of the product has changed, it will be reflected in the nutrition label as such.

“When it comes to safeguarding your health and nutrition, we support the mandatory labeling of food, including GMO food, if it raises a safety or health concern, for example, to alert sensitive populations to the potential presence of an allergen.  We also support mandatory labeling of GMO food if there is a change to the food’s composition, nutritional profile, taste or smell, or any other characteristic that would make it different from its conventional counterpart,” says former Council for Biotechnology Information executive director Cathy Enright.

She goes on to explain that “we cannot support the mandatory labeling of GMO food just because the food in the market was produced using genetic engineering, for example, in wine, yogurt or bread made with GM yeast, vegetable oil made from GM soybeans, or cereal sweetened with GM sugar. These foods are as safe and nutritious as their non-GMO counterparts as determined by recognized authorities around the world.”

We think there are a few challenges with mandatory labeling currently proposed. Let's explore a few of those:

• First, labeling an ingredient as GMO or not, doesn't tell the consumer much about the product, other than how the seed was made. "GMO" doesn't describe a product; it describes a process for improving plant genetics. There are many different GM traits and vary from resistance to herbicides, diseases and insects, to non-browning traits. 
• If we agree that labels should explain that traits of the GM crops used to make ingredients, then that poses a logistical challenge for food producers. Jennie Schmidt, a registered dietitian and farmer in Maryland, explores the changes in grain storage alone that would need to happen in order to separate GM traits in corn from each other and non-GM traits in this post, "The Cost of GMO Labeling."
• Finally, mandatory GMO labeling would increase U.S. food costs. Alison Van Eenennaam, Animal Genomics and Biotechnology Cooperative Extension Specialist at the University of California, Davis, goes into the potential economic impact of mandatory GMO labeling in this response. She also explores the economics in this paper: The Potential Impacts of Mandatory Labeling for Genetically Engineered Food in the United States.

Voluntary labeling offers alternatives to GMOs.

We support farmer choice, customer choice, and for companies to make the best choices about products for their businesses. If customers would like to make the choice to purchase foods that do not contain ingredients derived from GMOs, they can buy products with the voluntary USDA organic seal other non-GMO labels. Currently there are only nine GM crops commercially available in the U.S. – corn, soybeans, alfalfa, canola, papaya, yellow squash, cotton, sugar beets, alfalfa and potato. A GM apple has also been approved to be grown and will be coming to market soon.

We understand you are concerned about transparency and interested in more information about the food you eat. GMO Answers was created to do a better job of providing you with information about biotechnology in agriculture and GMOs. In the past, we haven’t done the best job of communicating about GMO seeds. We hope that by answering your question and providing you with more information in this response – you are able to gather the facts and make informed choices about the food you eat.  Thank you for giving us the opportunity to engage in this conversation with you, and we invite you to ask any additional questions you might have.