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ASA keeping tabs on GMO labeling bill

The American Soybean Association is tracking implementation of the national GMO food labeling bill.

Speaking from the Farm Progress Show near Boone, Iowa, President Richard Wilkins says ASA will be participating in the rule making process of the compromise legislation.

“We’re happy that Secretary Vilsack has already put together a task force to start writing this rule that Congress has asked them to write.  We’re going to be engaged, we’re going to make sure that our opponents don’t push this rule further away from what Congress intended.”

He tells Brownfield key successes in the labeling bill included the preemption of state by state rules, specific detection of GMO ingredients within the package and the exclusion of new plant breeding techniques like CRISPR and gene editing.

“The legislation specifically says that those types of techniques will not be considered GMO, so that’s also something (we’re) going to push and make sure the rule is written in the way Congressed wished it.”

Wilkins says ideally the GMO labeling bill would’ve been voluntary, but is satisfied with the concessions made.