High-level executives from some of the U.S.'s largest food corporations are meeting with the FDA behind closed doors this week to lobby for a mandatory federal GMO labeling law.
According to informed sources in Washington, DC, representatives of,
...and others are meeting with the FDA this week.
Wal-Mart came under fire recently for selling unlabeled and likely hazardous GMO sweet corn in its stores.
General Mills, Pepsi, Mars and Coca Cola have been the targets of numerous consumer boycotts, including a social media-powered boycott of "Traitor Brands:
The "Traitor Brands" boycott, initiated by the Organic Consumers Association, has been gaining steam as other groups pick up the flag.
The boycott hasn't gone unnoticed by company executives, either. Honest Tea CEO Seth Goldman sent the OCA a letter defending his brand's position, a position not unlike the one taken recently by Ben & Jerry's.
Both companies absolve their brands of
any responsibility for their parent companies' donations to the NO
on 37 campaign, claiming that they have no say in corporate-level
decisions.
Brands like,
...once sought out by quality-conscious, loyal consumers willing to pay a little extra for organic, sustainably produced products, have been tarnished by their association with the hardline anti-right-to-know policies of,
Add to that the growing controversy surrounding,
...and it makes sense that the Big
Food elite may be preparing for a tactical retreat from
the largest food fight in U.S. history.
After all, it's not as if these companies are incapable of making GMO-free products.
Though many Americans don't know it,
...are GMO-free in Europe, thanks
to strict GMO labeling laws.
As Jennifer Hatcher, senior vice president of government and public affairs for the Food Marketing Institute, explained in November, big food corporations are happy they headed off mandatory GMO labeling by defeating Prop 37 in California but,
Or is this just a case of Big Food and indentured FDA bureaucrats conspiring to confuse consumers and slow the momentum of the nation's fast-growing right-to-know and anti-GMO movement?
Is this a "bait and switch" deal to get
us to shut up, a tactic to derail the grassroots Movement that
appears on track to pass strict GMO labeling laws in Washington,
Vermont and Connecticut this year?
Similarly, a GMO law passed by Brazil
under pressure from consumers and farmers contained no real
requirements for enforcement, until a recent
court decision against Nestle.
When major food corporations, under
pressure from consumers, break ranks with Monsanto and the biotech
industry, GMO public policy and marketplace dynamics change
dramatically.
Currently less than 10% of U.S. dairy
cows are injected with Monsanto's (now Elanco's) rBGH, a hormone
linked to increased risk of cancer in humans, as well as major
animal health damage. Thanks to consumer pressure, many leading
dairy brands in the U.S. are labeled as "rBGH (or rBST) free;" while
rBGH is banned outright in Canada, Europe, Japan, and most
industrialized nations.
For 20 years FDA bureaucrats, led by Michael "Monsanto" Taylor, the Obama-appointed FDA Food 'Safety' Czar, have blocked all attempts to require mandatory federal GMO labeling.
Our best chance to regain our right to know what's in our food and begin to drive GMOs off the market is to stay on the offensive.
We need to pass mandatory GMO labeling
laws in the current frontline states of Washington, Vermont and
Connecticut, and we need to step up the pressure on Food Inc. with
our boycott of their "Traitor" brands.
At least 80% of GMO crops grown in the U.S. are destined for animal feed in factory farms.
If we're going
to stop these environmentally disastrous farming practices, we'll
have to demand labeling of factory-farmed food. And that will
require an unprecedented campaign of public education, direct
action, and grassroots mobilization, similar to the campaign we are
already waging for GMO labeling.
Wal-Mart and the Big Food lobby would not be sitting down behind closed doors this week asking the FDA to take action if it were not for the growing online/marketplace/political activism of our nationwide organic anti-GMO Movement.
But, as more and more of us understand, this monumental food fight is not just about labeling GMOs.
We are fighting, as well, for a healthy and sustainable food and farming system, a green and equitable economy, a stable climate, and a real democracy where citizens, not corporations and their indentured politicians, rule.
|