After Vermont Bill, GMO Labeling Becomes Center Of Debate On Bioengineering’s Future

The state's governor, Pete Shumlin, is expected to sign a bill that wouldmake the Green Mountain State the nations first to mandate that companies label products containing GMO products, beginning in July 2016. Shumlinhas saidhe will sign the legislation, which many GMO skeptics see as the most significant step yet in the march toward a nationwide re-evaluation of where genetically engineered products stand in the country's food supply.

As genetically modified ingredients have become increasingly common, controversy has grown over their persistent creep into products as varied as bread, cereal, tofu and beer.The companies that produce the bioengineered seeds from which GMO crops grow maintain that they are safe for the health of both consumers and the environment.But an international grassroots movement that is determined to slow the spread of products containing bioengineered ingredients -- or at least compel authorities to require that such food be labeled accordingly due to concerns about their long-term effects -- is pushing governments from the United States to Vietnam to reconsider their approach to the burgeoning sector.

The Vermont bill is the most recent high-profile development in the GMO regulatory space, but governments from Europe to California have taken, or are considering, measures aimed at instituting mandatory labeling of all products containing genetically engineered ingredients.

The ongoing debate between those who describe GMOs as entirely safe (and one of the worlds best hopes for feeding its growing population) and those who describe them as an insufficiently tested potential scourge of mankind has resulted in a hodgepodge of regulations for agriculture companies, farmers and consumers to navigate.

The European Union has taken the lead in requiring GMO labeling, and since 1997, Community legislation has made labeling of GM food mandatory for: products that consist of GMO or contain GMO; products derived from GMO but no longer containing GMO if there is still DNA or protein resulting from the genetic modification present,the European Commission's website said. Meanwhile, a number of individual countries and localities, including New Zealand, Tasmania and California's Mendocino, Trinity and Marin counties,have banned theplanting and cultivation of GMO crops.

Today, neither the U.S. Food and Drug Administration nor federal law regulate GMO labeling directly, but in the past year, Connecticut and Maine passed laws that will require labeling food made with GMOs, but only after a certain number of states pass similar laws. Activists in states like New Hampshire, Colorado and California have tried and failed to get labeling requirements approved by legislative action or ballot initiatives. AndH.R. 1699, dubbed the Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act, which would require genetically engineered foods to be labeled as such, has languished since it was introduced by U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat, and Rep. Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, in April 2013.

Now that Vermont is on track to become the first state in the nation to require GMO labeling, industry observers and experts alike are watching other states closely to see if they'll follow Vermonts lead, and, if they do, if the federal government will be motivated to create its own legislation or regulations to create a consistent national framework for the issue.

Justin Prochnow, a Denver-based regulatory attorney who focuses on food, beverage and supplement issues at the international law firm Greenberg Traurig, called the Vermont bills approval a big deal.

Once a couple of states pass unqualified GMO labeling laws like the Vermont one -- unrestricted -- thats probably going to facilitate more than anything else, some federal legislation," Prochnow said. "Because at the end of the day, regardless of whether companies are opposed to it, they dont want to see different labeling requirements in different states, Prochnow said. He later added, Its probably something thats inevitably going to happen, its just a question of how soon its going to happen, and I think the more of these individual states that pass these GMO labeling laws, its just going to quicken the time that some sort of national legislation happens.

GMO critics applauded the bills approval, saying it's just the first in what they hope will be a wave of similar laws passed in statehouses across the country.

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After Vermont Bill, GMO Labeling Becomes Center Of Debate On Bioengineering's Future