After more than two years of contentious debate in Congress, the House of Representatives passed the GMO labeling bill (S. 764) recently approved by the Senate. S. 764 is compromise legislation, endorsed by the National Potato Council (NPC) and crafted by Senate Agriculture Committee chairman Pat Roberts and ranking member Debbie Stabenow. The NPC had supported a previous labeling bill approved by the House more than a year ago that included voluntary labeling of biotech foods. On July 29, 2016, the President’s signature made mandatory disclosure of bioengineered food the law of the land.
Here are the pros and cons from the NPC’s view. On the plus side, the spread of a patchwork of state food labeling laws has been avoided, which had been a top concern since Vermont’s law went into effect July 1. The legislation establishes federal preemption, and includes a variety of options for meeting mandatory disclosure including text, symbol or electronic digital link. Food served in restaurants is exempt, as are animals who consume bioengineered feed. The definition of bioengineering as referring to a food “for which the modification could not otherwise be obtained through conventional breeding or found in nature” is one that supports modern agriculture and is less limiting. The most significant negative is that the new food labeling law mandates labeling of a food product when there is no connection to a food safety or human health concern. Only time will tell if this opens the door to federal labeling or other regulation not justified by any scientific concern.
Congress left much to be decided via a rulemaking process that will be intense and face close scrutiny. The legislation directs the secretary of agriculture to establish disclosure standards and a process for determining “factors and conditions” for identifying biotech food within two years of enactment. Most notably, the USDA will have to wrestle with determining the threshold level of GMO ingredients present to trigger labeling and whether to label food products produced from GMO commodities where detection is impossible in the processed product. The USDA will also need to define small businesses and very small businesses, the latter being exempt from the standard.
The pro-labeling activists have been active and quickly revamped their strategy after the bill passed. As expected, they are moving the fight to the marketplace. Opponents say the legislation is weak because it requires a smartphone for QR code labeling and does not require text to indicate GMOs. Their focus will be to discourage the purchase of GMO foods in order to pressure food companies to reformulate products and eliminate the use of GMO ingredients. Activists have also made it clear that a coordinated campaign will use celebrities, boycotting and socio-economic arguments to bolster their opposition to GMO foods and the current labeling options.
Although the preference was for voluntary labeling, this compromise was ultimately embraced by the NPC and many other ag groups as the only option for preventing 50 different state labeling laws. As for potato growers, they want to provide consumers the products they seek, whether they are genetically modified or not. That consumer decision is all about the workings of the marketplace. Any federal regulation of the marketplace should be based on science. When the process diverts from that principle, it threatens modern agriculture and, ultimately, food security.
Sometimes perfect legislation is not politically possible. This was such a case.