Huge Victory: USDA Introduces Official Non-GMO Label
For years the public has been asking the U.S. government to institute mandatory labeling for any products containing genetically modified ingredients. Now, in response to the sounds of public outcry and vital activism, the United States Department of Agriculture is being forced to do something. The agency has developed a new government certification which companies can use to show that the product is completely free of GMOs.
Read: Hundreds of Thousands to Protest Monsanto Worldwide
Currently, companies have the option to use either the non-profit Non-GMO Project’s verified seal, developed in 2007, or the USDA’s certified organic label. The difference with the newly-created USDA certification and these seals, however, is that the new seal is government-certified (the Non-GMO Project seal isn’t), and the USDA Organic seal comes with many more strict food rules than just being GMO-free. In other words, not all GMO-free foods are 100% organic.
“Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack outlined the department’s plan in a May 1 letter to employees, saying the certification was being done at the request of a “leading global company,” which he did not identify. A copy of the letter was obtained by The Associated Press.
…Vilsack said the USDA certification is being created through the department’s Agriculture Marketing Service, which works with interested companies to certify the accuracy of the claims they are making on food packages — think “humanely raised” or “no antibiotics ever.” Companies pay the Agricultural Marketing Service to verify a claim, and if approved, they can market the foods with the USDA process verified label.”
The new seal is voluntary, and companies would have to pay for it. The food products adopting the label would have a seal that says “USDA Process Verified” with a claim that it is free of GMOs.
“Recently, a leading global company asked AMS to help verify that the corn and soybeans it uses in its products are not genetically engineered so that the company could label the products as such,” Vilsack wrote in the letter. “AMS worked with the company to develop testing and verification processes to verify the non-GE claim.”
Vilsack said in the letter that the certification “will be announced soon, and other companies are already lining up to take advantage of this service.”
The downside of the USDA label is that it goes hand-in-hand with bills that are designed to block mandatory GMO labeling efforts across the country. A bill that was introduced last year provided the USDA cert, but wouldn’t make it mandatory – AND the bill would override any states laws that the citizens fought so hard for. An example can be seen with Vermont’s recent passing of a mandatory GMO labeling bill that will go into effect next year.
However, with the complications of a national food system, I see this seal as a victory. As long as the seal is attainable and doesn’t cost caring companies an exuberant amount of money to implement, it will be enough to clearly show which companies care enough to go GMO-free and which companies choose to use GMO ingredients.
Thanks to your vital activism and voice, the government is finally seeing that something needs to be done about GMOs in our food, and that is good news.
I just wish this wasn’t another thing I which the governement took control over. I would much rather have a third party for profit organization do the testing and put their stamp on it. That way if start deceiving people they can lose trust and go out of business. If the government starts decieving people with this labeling stuff they will just get promoted. That is way government works. Government gets bought off by industry. That is why our system is more like fascism then people realize. Mussolini said it himself, “fascism is the merger of state and corporate powers”. We need to get the government out of everything I they than providing for DOMESTIC defense. I’m sick of all the pansies that want every solution to every crisis be solved by growing state power. I eat organic and only feed that to my kids but the private industry could do a better job with that too. The growing power of state is more dangerous than the maggots over there at Monsanto. That being said, Monsanto could never be the monster that it is today without its ability to buy off an all to powerful government.
There already is 3rd party testing for those who can afford it. That is criticized too.
Far be it for me to not trust the government, but the Non-GMO project is independent and our Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, was opposed by the Organic Consumers Association, which outlined in a November 2008 report several reasons why it believed Vilsack would be a poor choice for the position, particularly as energy and environmental reforms were a key point of the Obama campaign. Among those reasons the report cites: Vilsack has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for large industrial farms and genetically modified crops; as Iowa state governor, he originated the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, effectively blocking local communities from regulating where genetically engineered crops would be grown; additionally, Vilsack was the founder and former chair of the Governor’s Biotechnology Partnership, and was named Governor of the Year by the Biotechnology Industry Organization, an industry lobbying group.
Anyone here trust a government agency who is quite beholden to Big Ag and Monsanto to label GMO foods correctly?
Count me as VERY skeptical!
It’s all deductible on their tax return. They don’t lose a penny. They are just concerned because they are starting to realize that their control over illegal toxic poisons is coming to an end. That is why they employ desperate losers like Bobo to try to deceive the readers here.
OCA May, 16
What do you get when you let the chemical industry write a “chemical safety” bill?
A bill that protects chemical companies, not consumers.
Almost 40 years after Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), Americans are being exposed to tens of thousands of chemicals that have never been safety tested by the EPA.
These chemicals, more than 80,000 of them, are in the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the homes we live in.
It’s time for reform. But unfortunately, the bill before the U.S. Senate right now—S.697—falls far short of accomplishing real reform.
That could have something to do with the fact that the chemical industry has spent $190 million lobbying for this bill. Democratic Sponsor Tom Udall’s (D-N.M.) campaign received $49,050 from the Chemical industry in the 2014 cycle, plus $23,500 from lobbyists employed by the American Chemistry Council. Republican sponsor David Vitter’s (R-La.) campaign received $20,600 in the 2014 cycle, and $14,300 from American Chemistry Council lobbyists.
This is NOT a huge victory or a victory of any kind, for that matter. We already have voluntary labeling, which was mentioned in the article. Companies already have the “right” to label when their food is non-GMO and/or organic, and they *already* have to pay fees for those certifications. This “new” ruling is just more of the same that we already have in place.