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Tuesday, June 10th, 2014

Vermont’s New GMO Law Could Upend Food Industry Nationwide

Author:     EVAN HALPER
Source:     Portland Press Herald (Maine)
Publication Date:     9 June 2014 | 2:32 PM
 Link: Vermont’s New GMO Law Could Upend Food Industry Nationwide
Stephan:   Here is the most interesting news I have read recently about GMOs. The citizens of Vermont have done what money and propaganda have blocked up until now in other states -- labeling GMOs. Where Americans in other states were too ignorant or befuddled to see where their own self-interest lay, Vermonters compelled their legislators to act on their behalf. And the result, as this story outlines, may be that the few hundred thousand people of Vermont may finally change the game for the 315 million in this country by creating a situation where federal labeling regulation becomes inevitable. Bravo, Vermont. Now if we could just get labeling telling us about the pesticides and other toxins in our food.

The biggest worry weighing on the nation’s food industry may not be drought in the West, farmworker shortages or turbulent international trade negotiations, but a change in the regulatory code in Vermont.

Under a law signed this month, the tiny New England state, population 626,000, will soon require that food companies tell consumers which products on grocers’ shelves have genetically modified ingredients. In doing so, Vermont could force food growers, processors and retailers to upend how they serve hundreds of millions of customers nationwide.

The law puts Vermont at the forefront of a national movement that major food processors and agricultural companies are doing their utmost to kill.

Agribusiness firms and trade associations have poured tens of millions of dollars into political advertising and consultants to campaign against GMO labeling requirements and have enlisted members of Congress in a bid to outlaw state labeling rules. Industry officials have also vowed to sue Vermont, hoping to block its rule in court.

But although the industry has won several major battles on the issue – including ballot initiative campaigns in California in 2012 and in Washington state last year – the national push for GMO labeling has proved a resilient grass-roots effort, given added push by […]

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