Oregon GMO label defeat spells uphill battle ahead

Reuters, 11.06.02, 1:00 PM ET
By Deborah Cohen and Carey Gillam

CHICAGO/KANSAS CITY (Reuters) - The overwhelming defeat of an Oregon measure Tuesday that would have required labeling of genetically modified foods dealt a sharp blow to consumer groups battling the biotech movement.

A coalition of corporate giants including Monsanto Co. , DuPont Co. and food makers like General Mills Inc. and H.J. Heinz spent some $5.5 million to defeat the measure in the state, which is often at the forefront of progressive issues.

Supporters of the initiative said Wednesday they had formed a national group to fight corporations opposed to labeling, but industry watchers said the issue faces an uphill battle in the United States, where it has been slow to gain momentum.

"Consumers have never been energized on this issue," said Art Jaeger, a spokesman for Consumer Federation of America, which supports labeling efforts. "These battles are all vigorously opposed by a fairly deep-pocket food industry."

More than 70 percent of Oregon's voters rejected the broadly worded initiative, Ballot Measure 27, which would have required all processed foods sold in the state containing gene-spliced ingredients such as corn, wheat and soy, and even milk produced by cows eating those feeds, to be identified on product packaging.

Corporate opponents of mandatory labeling attacked the law on the basis that more than 70 percent of the food found on grocery store shelves already contains some genetically modified material. Labeling every candy bar, bag of chips or jar of mayonnaise produced with GM crops would cost millions of dollars in compliance and regulation, they said.

"This measure goes above and beyond anything we've seen before on labeling requirements," said Stephanie Childs, a spokeswoman for the Grocery Manufacturers of America, whose members include U.S. food companies and groceries. "When put to the test, consumers reject mandatory labeling."

A more reasonable approach, opponents said, is choosing foods that don't contain GMOs, a choice they believe is now available to U.S. consumers through new federal labeling requirements on organic foods that took effect in October.

"If you couldn't get something like this to have at least some life in a state like Oregon, there's really little chance that it will have the chance to go far any place else," said Pat McCormick, whose group, Coalition Against the Costly Labeling Law, ran the opposition to the Oregon measure on behalf of major companies.

CLOSING THE BARN DOOR

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, one of the regulatory agencies that oversees GMO foods, criticized the proposed law last month, saying biotech crops on the market have been found to be safe. In a letter to Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, FDA Deputy Commissioner Lester Crawford said the law if passed could "impermissibly interfere" with marketing by the food industry and violate rules governing interstate commerce.

Genetic modification of plants, a rapidly increasing practice in the last decade, involves extracting a gene from the DNA of a plant or animal and transferring it to another to create a desirable trait such as resistance to disease.

Currently the bulk of the GMO plants grown in the United States have been modified to resist herbicide. Soybeans are the largest GMO crop, with more than 75 percent of this year's U.S. crop genetically modified.

Despite governmental and scientific assurances that GMO foods on the market pose no risk, critics say the potential for health and environmental problems exists.

Americans have been slow to take up the GMO debate, which has raged across Europe and elsewhere for several years. Some 19 countries now require labeling for GMOs.

Major food makers like PepsiCo and Sara Lee Corp. have faced shareholder votes seeking bans on the use of GMO foods in their products. But so far, these initiatives have been overwhelming defeated.

Activists in a handful of states, including California, Washington and Colorado, have tried to pass labeling laws similar to the Oregon proposal, but with no luck.

Yet far from being discouraged, the Oregon grassroots group that pushed the labeling initiative said the battle would go on. It has founded a national organization, "Labeling for US," to work with other states for mandatory labeling.

"A lot of people do want labeling but they want it to be consistent across the U.S.," said Donna Harris, who headed the Oregon campaign. (Additional reporting by Jessica Wohl)