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Groups plead for GMO labeling solution

Food and agriculture groups are pleading with Congress to pass a national GMO labeling standard before Vermont’s labeling law goes into effect on July 1st.

In a conference call with reporters this morning, American Soybean Association CEO Steve Censky said some food companies may reformulate their products to remove GMO ingredients, rather than create a separate label for just one state.

“Some companies have already announced, in advance of the July 1 date, reformulation plans,” Censky says. “And we’re aware that there are a lot of other companies out there that have been waiting and holding back, hoping against hope that the Senate will act.”

If Congress doesn’t act by July 1st, “we do think that reformulation plans will be announced—and that’s going to have very negative impacts,” Censky says.

Chuck Connor, president and CEO of the National Council for Farmer Cooperatives, predicts dire consequences if Congress fails to act.

“(A situation) where perfectly safe, American grown products are being taken out of the food supply by companies in order to avoid the Vermont label,” Connor says. “Those products are perfectly safe. They’re grown with the full approval of every agency of government that has looked at them. They’re drought-tolerant, they reduce pesticides and they reduce our climate footprint in terms of climate change. All these things should be wonderful and lauded, but yet you will see food companies moving away from those very products.

“That’s just intolerable to think that we would be doing that to the American farmer.”

Senate Ag Committee negotiators are reportedly close to a compromise on GMO labeling, but no details of those negotiations have been released.

AUDIO: The following audio clip is from this morning’s GMO Labeling conference call. Participants included Pamela Bailey, Grocery Manufacturers Association president and CEO; Chuck Conner, National Council of Farmer Cooperatives president and CEO; Steve Censky, American Soybean Association CEO; and Leslie Sarasin, Food Marketing Institute president and CEO.