{"id":30446,"date":"2022-01-07T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T04:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/?p=30446"},"modified":"2022-01-07T08:02:25","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T12:02:25","slug":"usda-genetic-engineered-food-label-misleads-consumers-took-effect-january-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondpesticides.org\/dailynewsblog\/2022\/01\/usda-genetic-engineered-food-label-misleads-consumers-took-effect-january-1\/","title":{"rendered":"USDA Genetic Engineered Food Label Misleads Consumers, Took Effect January 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

(Beyond Pesticides<\/em>. January 7, 2022) Unbeknownst to most Americans when they woke up on New Year\u2019s Day 2022, a new labeling system for genetically modified-engineered foods<\/a>\u2014 promulgated in 2019 \u2014 which does not mention genetically engineered or GMO ingredients, went into effect. Consumer, food, and environmental advocates say<\/a> that the new label is misleading, insufficiently transparent, discriminatory, rife with loopholes, and confusing for consumers. The new labeling requirement mandates that genetically engineered foods bear labels that indicate that they have been \u201cbioengineered\u201d or that provide a text-messaging phone number or a QR code as avenues for further information. (\u201cAdditional options such as a phone number or web address are available to small food manufacturers or for small and very small packages.\u201d) The new labeling rule from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) aims, according to the agency, to eliminate the crazy quilt of labels affixed to foods and ingredients that have been scientifically altered<\/a>. According to an agency spokesperson<\/a>, the rule is designed to \u201cbalance the need to provide information to consumers with the interest in minimizing costs to companies.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Genetically altered food items and ingredients have heretofore been called, and labeled as, \u201cgenetically engineered\u201d (GE) or \u201cgenetically modified\u201d (GM), or as containing \u201cgenetically modified organisms\u201d (GMO). The Washington Post<\/em> reports<\/a> that, \u201cThe new rule requires food manufacturers, importers and retailers to disclose information whether foods are bioengineered or use bioengineered ingredients, doing away with well-established terms like \u2018genetically engineered\u2019 and \u2018GMO\u2019 on labels. However, other kinds of official certifications like USDA Organic and NON-GMO Project Verified will be allowed.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The new labeling arises out of several developments in recent years. The first was the so-called \u201cSafe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015<\/a>,\u201d dubbed the DARK Act \u2014 the \u201cDenying Americans the Right to Know\u201d Act \u2014 by its many opponents. This legislation reacted to efforts in Vermont, Connecticut, and Maine to enact state laws that would mandate labeling of foods and ingredients that were genetically engineered, or contained such ingredients. The food industry was not happy with such developments, and spent huge sums to thwart state efforts. Some food companies even stopped selling to Vermont grocers in order to avoid the extra costs of labeling and segregating such products. The passage of the DARK Act preempted Vermont\u2019s successful GE labeling law, which required such items to be labeled as \u201cproduced with genetic engineering.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Other contributing developments<\/a> were: (1) the 2016 Congressional passage of the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Act, which directed USDA to establish a \u201cnational mandatory standard for disclosing foods that are or may be bioengineered,\u201d and (2) the Trump USDA\u2019s subsequent 2018 announcement of the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard<\/a> (NBFDS), which resulted in the 2019 announcement of the new labeling rule that became mandatory on January 1, 2022. That standard defined \u201cbioengineered foods as those that contain detectable genetic material that has been modified through certain lab techniques and cannot be created through conventional breeding or found in nature.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

The Harvard Political Review<\/em> sums up the status of GE\/GMO foods in the U.S. marketplace, and the history of the battles over labeling of such food<\/a>. \u201cGenetically modified crops, which\u00a0primarily<\/a>\u00a0include corn, soybeans, canola, and sugar beets, have been grown in the United States for 20\u00a0years<\/a>, and they have FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration]\u00a0approval<\/a>. Today, as much as\u00a075 percent<\/a>\u00a0of the food Americans buy at their local grocery store, from cereals to soups, include genetically modified ingredients. However, most\u00a0consumers<\/a>\u00a0are not aware that the foods they are eating include these ingredients.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

GE\/GMO proponents argue that such foodstuffs are safe for human consumption. Opponents have a variety of objections (health and safety, pesticide contamination<\/a>, ecosystem impacts, etc.) that are largely shared by Beyond Pesticides<\/a>, but the central issue has been consumers\u2019 basic right to know what they are purchasing and ingesting. Out of concern for all of those issues arose the \u201cJust Label It<\/a>\u201d campaign, on which Beyond Pesticides partnered, and about which it wrote, nearly a decade ago<\/a>, \u201cBeyond Pesticides\u2019 goal is to push for labeling as a means of identifying products containing GE ingredients and allow for consumer choice that will drive the market toward sustainable practices.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

This shift to the term \u201cbioengineered\u201d for labeling has been roundly criticized by advocates. Director of the project on biotechnology for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, Gregory Jaffe, has commented<\/a>, \u201cThe worst part of this law is the use of the term \u2018bioengineered\u2019 because that\u2019s not a term most consumers are familiar with,\u201d adding that the move to the new jargon was made primarily because \u201cGMO\u201d had come to be perceived as pejorative.<\/p>\r\n

In the summer of 2020, the Center for Food Safety (CFS) filed suit<\/a> against the Trump administration\u2019s National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard<\/a> and proposed labeling rule. CFS \u201cseeks to have the court declare the regulations unlawful and nullify them, and then return the issue to USDA with orders to fix the unlawful portions of the rules.\u201d The organization claimed that the new regulation includes provisions that \u201cwill leave the majority of GMO-derived foods unlabeled; discriminate against tens of millions of Americans; prohibit the use of the widely known terms \u201cGMO\u201d and \u201cGE\u201d; and prohibit retailers from providing more information to consumers.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Among the objections CFS cites in its case are<\/a>:
\r\n\u2022 unprecedented allowance of electronic or digital disclosure on packaging, also known as \u201cQR code\u201d or \u201csmartphone\u201d labeling without requiring additional on-package labeling<\/p>\r\n