Breaking News

by Steven Hoffman, Managing Director, Compass Natural Marketing

Internal Document Reveals USDA To Launch Non-GMO Certification as Part of “USDA Process Verified" Program

New “pay-to-play” program calls for companies to pay USDA’s Agriculture Marketing Service to certify accuracy of non-GMO claims and allow “USDA Process Verified” to be added to a product’s non-GMO label claims.

Boulder, CO (May 15, 2015) - Rather than address the call for mandatory labeling of GMOs, regulators and legislators in Washington, DC, seem to prefer the voluntary approach.

H.R. 1599, “the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act” introduced by Congressman MikePompeo (R-KS) and often lampooned as the “Deny the Americans the Right to Know” or the DARK Act, seeks to do just that: outlaw mandatory labeling of GMOs at both the state and federal level in place of voluntary labeling, and allow producers to call GMOs “natural.”

Now, USDA is getting into the game with a “pay-to-play” certification and labeling program that would allow food manufacturers to make non-GMO claims on their food product packaging.

In an internal letter sent to employees on May 1 and obtained by theAssociated Press, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack outlined plans that USDA would soon introduce a new government certification and labeling program in which companies can pay USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) to verify that their products are non-GMO. If approved, the food maker would be able to add a “USDA Process Verified” label to support non-GMO claims on product packaging.

Vilsack said the certification program was created at the request of a “leading global company,” which he did not identify.

"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."

According to the Associated Press, a USDA spokesman confirmed that Vilsack sent the letter but declined to comment on the non-GMO certification program. Vilsack stated in the letter that the certification program "will be announced soon, and other companies are already lining up to take advantage of this service."

The label is a first for the government, and may or may not help resolve the ongoing debate over the safety of GMO foods or their impact on the environment. What it seems to offer is an alternative to non-GMO certification, which has been conducted primarily by one organization: the nonprofit Non-GMO Project.

"Today’s news is that for the first time a company has sought the USDA’s Process Verified label in connection with its non-GMO claim. The USDA has NOT created its own non-GMO standard or label. Rather, as part of the existing AMS PVP, it has signed off on one company’s own non-GMO practices. {C}There is no transparency as to what these practices are, and they are not based on a third party standard," the Non-GMO Project said in a May 14 blog post.

The USDA Organic label also certifies that foods are produced without the use of genetically engineered materials. However, organic advocates express concern that many foods that bear the non-GMO verified label are not “organic,” meaning that toxic, synthetic pesticides are still used to grow these crops.

Katherine Paul, Associate Director of the Organic Consumers Association also expressed concern to Marketplace Radio that under the USDA program, consumers would have to pay higher prices for non-GMO foods to cover the cost of certification, while GMO foods still don’t have to be labeled in the US.

Making it easier for consumers to find GMO-free food is a good thing, Paul said, but "not if it's going to cause the manufacturers of those products to have to charge consumers more because they had to pay for that certification."

Pompeo Bill Stalls in Congress
While news was breaking about USDA’s non-GMO certification program, in late April, E&E Daily reported that Pompeo’s H.R. 1599 was stalled, leaving the controversial voluntary GMO labeling bill in limbo. House Agriculture Committee lawmakers want more control over deciding which government agency – USDA or FDA – would control the regulation of labels for genetically modified foods. However, the House Agriculture Committee has some jurisdiction over the bill, but less control than the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has oversight of FDA. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of enthusiasm to move the bill in that committee, not as much enthusiasm as there is in the Ag Committee; that's the problem," Agriculture Committee ranking member Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) told E&E Daily.

Other in Congress are backing the Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act, introduced in the Senate earlier this year by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and in the House by Peter DeFazio (D-OR). Their bill would require mandatory labels for all foods produced using genetically engineering ingredients and prohibit manufacturers from labeling GMO foods as natural.

“That would mean 70 to 80 percent of food (consumers) eat would have a GMO label on it,”Denzel McGuire, EVP of government affairs for the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), told The Hill. “We typically label the exception, not the rule. When you go into the grocery store you don’t see products labeled ‘not organic.’”

DeFazio countered that labeling products made with GMO ingredients aligns with the consumer’s right to know.

“The argument on their side is it’s generally recognized as safe and therefore it shouldn't be on the label. Well, red dye number 2 is generally recognized as safe, but it’s on the label,”DeFazio said. “This is information consumers want.”

DeFazio acknowledged that it is unlikely his bill will pass the Republican controlled Congress, but he said Pompeo’s bill wouldn't either — arguing it runs counter to GOP ideals. “They are states’ rights people and they are for a capitalist system under the precepts of Adam Smith, who said you’re supposed to give information to the consumers that they want,” he said.

On May 13, 328 farm, food, health, public interest and environmental organizations and businesses submitted a joint letter to members of Congress urging them to protect the consumer’s right to know and require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered (GMO) foods. The letter asked members of Congress not to support HR 1599, and instead support bills introduced by Rep. DeFazio and Sen. Boxer that would create a federal standard for GMO labeling.

Fast Track Trade Authority Seen As Threat to GMO Labeling
Rep. DeFazio also spoke out against a provision buried in “fast track” trade promotion authority (TPA) legislation that could help a government or multinational corporation attack state or national laws that require the labeling of genetically engineered foods.

TPA, also known as “fast track” would give President Obama the authority to push through major international trade deals with little to no input from Congress. The Obamaadministration is asking Congress for fast track authority in order to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a free trade agreement with the European Union.

“Call it the smoking gun,” said DeFazio in an April 29 press release. “Proof that fast track and massive free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership are written by and for multinational corporations such as agriculture giant Monsanto. Instead of using trade deals as an opportunity to protect and strengthen consumer rights by joining the countries which require genetically engineered food to be labeled, this administration wants to benefit wealthy corporations at the expense of the public.”

The provision, included in Section 2, Trade Negotiating Objectives, requires that US negotiators fight for rules in trade agreements that eliminate so-called “barriers” to markets such as the labeling of GMO foods. Currently, 64 countries require GMO labeling, including some of the U.S.’s largest trading partners, such as Japan, China, Brazil, and the EU.

Additionally, Bloomberg News reported on May 8 that differences between the US and EU on issues such as genetically engineered foods and crops will make negotiations for a transatlantic trade deal difficult, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said. The European Commission’s proposal “to allow states and countries to opt-out of GE crops for cultivation and feed” makes it very, very difficult,” Vilsack said while attending G-20 agriculture ministers’ meeting in Istanbul.

Vermont GMO Labeling Law Can Move Forward, Despite Appeal
The state of Vermont can proceed with new rules to require mandatory labeling of GMO foods by July 1, 2016, despite a request for a preliminary injunction by the Grocery Manufacturers Association, Snack Foods Association and others.

The April 27 decision made by U.S. District Court Chief Judge Christina Reiss allows Vermont to go ahead with its plans to become the first state to require labeling of GMO foods. However, Judge Reiss also allowed litigation led by GMA to stop the new law to proceed.

Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell told the Burlington Free Press that there is much in the judge’s decision that goes the state’s way for the “heart and soul” of the labeling law. But he also acknowledged it may be a reach for the state in other areas, including its desire to ban food companies using GMO ingredients from using the word “natural.”

GMA filed a notice of appeal May 6, claiming the Vermont judge’s ruling opens the door to states imposing food regulations based on “pseudo-science and web-fed hysteria,” reportedThe Hill.

# # #

After all the votes were counted, the Yes on 522 campaign in Washington State to label genetically engineered foods acceded defeat in mid-November by a margin of 48.9% to 51.1%, recalling the narrow defeat in 2012 of Proposition 37 to label GMO foods in California.

The anti-GMO labeling side won by a slim 2% of the vote, but they won dirty. Proponents of GMO labeling knew they would be outspent, but they did not count on the fact that the No on 522 side would resort to illegal tactics to win the election, as alleged in an ongoing lawsuit filed by Washington’s Attorney General against a major food industry lobby group for concealing corporate contributions to the campaign, thus violating the state’s campaign finance disclosure laws (see below).

In all, 1.75 million people voted, comprising 45% of Washington’s electorate, the lowest statewide turnout in a decade, with some analysts citing a stronger turnout by more conservative, rural voters along with a poor turnout among younger, progressive voters, with some critics claiming the Yes on 522 campaign didn’t do enough to reach out to rural voters. Or, according to Grist writer Nathanael Johnson, “The Washington vote seems to be telling us that concern about GM food is broad and shallow. That is, lots of people are vaguely worried about transgenics, but it’s not a core issue that drives majorities to the polls.”

Still, said Johnson, the actual amount of money spent on advertising made “all the difference” in turning around polls indicating that Washington voters strongly favored GMO labeling going into the election. Blitzing voters with television advertising and direct mail, and dominating the airwaves in an off-election year with claims that votersdidn’t need a confusing labeling law that would cost them more at the grocery store, the anti-GMO labeling lobby outspent the Yes on 522 side more than three to one, or $22 million vs. $8 million – a record for the state in overall campaign spending.

The No on 522 campaign to defeat the GMO labeling bill was supported with multi-million-dollar contributions from just a handful of multinational pesticide/biotech seed companies that donated directly to the No campaign, including Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, BASF and Bayer – and a number of food corporations that until late October remained hidden under the guise of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a Washington, DC-based industry lobby group.

Money Laundering Scheme Backfires on GMA; Trade Group Faces AG Lawsuit

In addition to the $11 million supplied by biotech to defeat the GMO labeling bill, more than three dozen mainstream food corporations – led by Nestle, Pepsico, Coca Cola, General Mills, McCormick, J.M. Smucker, ConAgraand others that purvey GMO foods without labels – matched biotech’s contributions to kill the labeling bill with nearly $11 million of their own.

Except…fearing the consumer backlash, brand tarnishing and PR disaster that many of these companies experienced when they were identified as contributors to defeat Prop 37 in California, they are alleged to have conspired to conceal their donations to the No on 522 campaign through an illegal slush fund, the “Defense of Brands” fund, secretly established n early 2013 by the GMA specifically to hide the names of the corporate campaign contributors from the public.

According to a lawsuit filed on October 16 by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the GMA pumped $10.6 million into defeating the I-522 GMO labeling bill without first registering a political action committee, in violation of the state’s campaign finance transparency laws. Two days after the lawsuit was filed, the GMAregistered a committee and finally disclosed the donors behind $7.2 million it had received from large food manufacturers.

However, the lawsuit is ongoing: in an amended lawsuit filed on November 20, Ferguson alleges that the GMAcontinues to violate the state’s campaign finance laws by not disclosing an additional $3.4 million in concealed contributions.

But the junk food industry’s game plan goes further, and that is to stop the state level GMO labeling movements “at any cost,” said public health attorney Michele Simon. In reviewing internal documents obtained as a result of the Attorney General’s lawsuit, Simon reported that the mainstream food industry’s “ultimate game plan to stop the bleeding in the state-by-state onslaught of GMO labeling efforts is to lobby for a weak federal law that simultaneously preempts or trumps any state-level policy. Rather than a federal compromise, where industry would agree to a weak form of labeling in exchange for stripping state authority, what industry wants instead is to stop state laws to require labeling, while not giving up anything in return,” Simon wrote.

“In their own words, the game plan is to ‘pursue statutory federal preemption which does not include a labeling requirement.’ Let me repeat that,” Simons said: “The junk food lobby’s ‘federal solution’ is to make it illegal for states to pass laws requiring GMO labeling. Period. End of story.”

Some good news is that not all major food companies are on board with this plan, and at least 30 companies that contributed to defeat Prop. 37 in California stayed out of the I-522 fight in Washington State, reported RonnieCummins of the Organic Consumers Association. “Some major food companies, including Unilever and Mars, bruised by bad publicity and consumer boycotts, have broken ranks with the GMA and the biotech industry, arguing that GMO food labels are inevitable and must be accepted, just as they’ve had to accept them in Europe and dozens of other countries,” Cummins said. GMO foods are required to be labeled in 64 countries, but not in the United States. In fact, in a 180-degree shift, Unilever, via its Ben & Jerry’s brand, was demonstrably active in promoting the Yes on 522 campaign to label GMO foods.

What’s Next: Oregon in 2014? Washington in 2016? Mandatory Federal Labeling?

Yes on 522 campaign organizers, while disappointed in the narrow loss, vowed in a statement, “While it is unfortunate I-522 did not pass, it has set the stage for victory in 2016.” Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs for natural foods retailer PCC in Seattle and co-chair of the Yes on 522 campaign, said the voter turnout “was the lowest ever recorded, skewing older and more conservative, and away from younger, more progressive voters driving the GE labeling movement. We are disappointed with the results, but the polling is clear that Washingtonians support labeling and believe they have a right to know. This fight isn’t over. We will be back in 2016 to challenge and defeat the out-of-state corporations standing in the way of our right to know.”

Currently, GMO labeling language is being prepared and filed in Oregon and Colorado for 2014 ballot initiatives, according to Denver-based political consultant Rick Ridder and David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s, a leading supporter of the Yes on 522 campaign and GMO labeling. Local legislatures in Hawaii have recently passed laws requiring biotech companies to reveal what GMO crops and pesticides they are applying to experimental fields. In Vermont, labeling legislation is still active and pro-GMO labeling supporters are not shying away from scientific research that demonstrates that there are, indeed, clear and present risks to human, animal an environmental health associated with genetically engineered food and agriculture.

On the federal front, the Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) and Congressman Peter DeFazio’s (D-OR) bill to label GMO foods, introduced in April 2013, is still pending. However, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in mid-November announced that she was joining 13 other senators as a co-sponsor of Senator Boxer’s Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act.

Just Label executive director Scott Faber said, “We welcome the opportunity to work with food industry leaders and the FDA to devise a federal mandatory labeling system that alerts consumers to the presence of GE ingredients in their food.” However, Faber added, “The results in Washington State do not change the fundamental fact that consumers deserve the right to know about the presence of GE ingredients in their food. Just Label It will continue to fight to give American consumers the same rights as consumers in 64 other nations via a federal solution requiring mandatory labeling, while at the same time continuing to work with state legislators to give this basic right to consumers.

This article appeared in the November 2013 Presence News, a leading natural and organic products industry newsletter published by Presence Marketing/Dynamic Presence.

- See more at: http://www.compassnaturalmarketing.com/2013/12/12/after-narrow-gmo-labeling-defeat-in-washington-state-whats-next/#sthash.MCBuLOBK.dpuf

After all the votes were counted, the Yes on 522 campaign in Washington State to label genetically engineered foods acceded defeat in mid-November by a margin of 48.9% to 51.1%, recalling the narrow defeat in 2012 of Proposition 37 to label GMO foods in California.

The anti-GMO labeling side won by a slim 2% of the vote, but they won dirty. Proponents of GMO labeling knew they would be outspent, but they did not count on the fact that the No on 522 side would resort to illegal tactics to win the election, as alleged in an ongoing lawsuit filed by Washington’s Attorney General against a major food industry lobby group for concealing corporate contributions to the campaign, thus violating the state’s campaign finance disclosure laws (see below).

In all, 1.75 million people voted, comprising 45% of Washington’s electorate, the lowest statewide turnout in a decade, with some analysts citing a stronger turnout by more conservative, rural voters along with a poor turnout among younger, progressive voters, with some critics claiming the Yes on 522 campaign didn’t do enough to reach out to rural voters. Or, according to Grist writer Nathanael Johnson, “The Washington vote seems to be telling us that concern about GM food is broad and shallow. That is, lots of people are vaguely worried about transgenics, but it’s not a core issue that drives majorities to the polls.”

Still, said Johnson, the actual amount of money spent on advertising made “all the difference” in turning around polls indicating that Washington voters strongly favored GMO labeling going into the election. Blitzing voters with television advertising and direct mail, and dominating the airwaves in an off-election year with claims that votersdidn’t need a confusing labeling law that would cost them more at the grocery store, the anti-GMO labeling lobby outspent the Yes on 522 side more than three to one, or $22 million vs. $8 million – a record for the state in overall campaign spending.

The No on 522 campaign to defeat the GMO labeling bill was supported with multi-million-dollar contributions from just a handful of multinational pesticide/biotech seed companies that donated directly to the No campaign, including Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, BASF and Bayer – and a number of food corporations that until late October remained hidden under the guise of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a Washington, DC-based industry lobby group.

Money Laundering Scheme Backfires on GMA; Trade Group Faces AG Lawsuit

In addition to the $11 million supplied by biotech to defeat the GMO labeling bill, more than three dozen mainstream food corporations – led by Nestle, Pepsico, Coca Cola, General Mills, McCormick, J.M. Smucker, ConAgraand others that purvey GMO foods without labels – matched biotech’s contributions to kill the labeling bill with nearly $11 million of their own.

Except…fearing the consumer backlash, brand tarnishing and PR disaster that many of these companies experienced when they were identified as contributors to defeat Prop 37 in California, they are alleged to have conspired to conceal their donations to the No on 522 campaign through an illegal slush fund, the “Defense of Brands” fund, secretly established n early 2013 by the GMA specifically to hide the names of the corporate campaign contributors from the public.

According to a lawsuit filed on October 16 by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the GMA pumped $10.6 million into defeating the I-522 GMO labeling bill without first registering a political action committee, in violation of the state’s campaign finance transparency laws. Two days after the lawsuit was filed, the GMAregistered a committee and finally disclosed the donors behind $7.2 million it had received from large food manufacturers.

However, the lawsuit is ongoing: in an amended lawsuit filed on November 20, Ferguson alleges that the GMAcontinues to violate the state’s campaign finance laws by not disclosing an additional $3.4 million in concealed contributions.

But the junk food industry’s game plan goes further, and that is to stop the state level GMO labeling movements “at any cost,” said public health attorney Michele Simon. In reviewing internal documents obtained as a result of the Attorney General’s lawsuit, Simon reported that the mainstream food industry’s “ultimate game plan to stop the bleeding in the state-by-state onslaught of GMO labeling efforts is to lobby for a weak federal law that simultaneously preempts or trumps any state-level policy. Rather than a federal compromise, where industry would agree to a weak form of labeling in exchange for stripping state authority, what industry wants instead is to stop state laws to require labeling, while not giving up anything in return,” Simon wrote.

“In their own words, the game plan is to ‘pursue statutory federal preemption which does not include a labeling requirement.’ Let me repeat that,” Simons said: “The junk food lobby’s ‘federal solution’ is to make it illegal for states to pass laws requiring GMO labeling. Period. End of story.”

Some good news is that not all major food companies are on board with this plan, and at least 30 companies that contributed to defeat Prop. 37 in California stayed out of the I-522 fight in Washington State, reported RonnieCummins of the Organic Consumers Association. “Some major food companies, including Unilever and Mars, bruised by bad publicity and consumer boycotts, have broken ranks with the GMA and the biotech industry, arguing that GMO food labels are inevitable and must be accepted, just as they’ve had to accept them in Europe and dozens of other countries,” Cummins said. GMO foods are required to be labeled in 64 countries, but not in the United States. In fact, in a 180-degree shift, Unilever, via its Ben & Jerry’s brand, was demonstrably active in promoting the Yes on 522 campaign to label GMO foods.

What’s Next: Oregon in 2014? Washington in 2016? Mandatory Federal Labeling?

Yes on 522 campaign organizers, while disappointed in the narrow loss, vowed in a statement, “While it is unfortunate I-522 did not pass, it has set the stage for victory in 2016.” Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs for natural foods retailer PCC in Seattle and co-chair of the Yes on 522 campaign, said the voter turnout “was the lowest ever recorded, skewing older and more conservative, and away from younger, more progressive voters driving the GE labeling movement. We are disappointed with the results, but the polling is clear that Washingtonians support labeling and believe they have a right to know. This fight isn’t over. We will be back in 2016 to challenge and defeat the out-of-state corporations standing in the way of our right to know.”

Currently, GMO labeling language is being prepared and filed in Oregon and Colorado for 2014 ballot initiatives, according to Denver-based political consultant Rick Ridder and David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s, a leading supporter of the Yes on 522 campaign and GMO labeling. Local legislatures in Hawaii have recently passed laws requiring biotech companies to reveal what GMO crops and pesticides they are applying to experimental fields. In Vermont, labeling legislation is still active and pro-GMO labeling supporters are not shying away from scientific research that demonstrates that there are, indeed, clear and present risks to human, animal an environmental health associated with genetically engineered food and agriculture.

On the federal front, the Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) and Congressman Peter DeFazio’s (D-OR) bill to label GMO foods, introduced in April 2013, is still pending. However, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in mid-November announced that she was joining 13 other senators as a co-sponsor of Senator Boxer’s Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act.

Just Label executive director Scott Faber said, “We welcome the opportunity to work with food industry leaders and the FDA to devise a federal mandatory labeling system that alerts consumers to the presence of GE ingredients in their food.” However, Faber added, “The results in Washington State do not change the fundamental fact that consumers deserve the right to know about the presence of GE ingredients in their food. Just Label It will continue to fight to give American consumers the same rights as consumers in 64 other nations via a federal solution requiring mandatory labeling, while at the same time continuing to work with state legislators to give this basic right to consumers.

This article appeared in the November 2013 Presence News, a leading natural and organic products industry newsletter published by Presence Marketing/Dynamic Presence.

- See more at: http://www.compassnaturalmarketing.com/2013/12/12/after-narrow-gmo-labeling-defeat-in-washington-state-whats-next/#sthash.MCBuLOBK.dpuf

After all the votes were counted, the Yes on 522 campaign in Washington State to label genetically engineered foods acceded defeat in mid-November by a margin of 48.9% to 51.1%, recalling the narrow defeat in 2012 of Proposition 37 to label GMO foods in California.

The anti-GMO labeling side won by a slim 2% of the vote, but they won dirty. Proponents of GMO labeling knew they would be outspent, but they did not count on the fact that the No on 522 side would resort to illegal tactics to win the election, as alleged in an ongoing lawsuit filed by Washington’s Attorney General against a major food industry lobby group for concealing corporate contributions to the campaign, thus violating the state’s campaign finance disclosure laws (see below).

In all, 1.75 million people voted, comprising 45% of Washington’s electorate, the lowest statewide turnout in a decade, with some analysts citing a stronger turnout by more conservative, rural voters along with a poor turnout among younger, progressive voters, with some critics claiming the Yes on 522 campaign didn’t do enough to reach out to rural voters. Or, according to Grist writer Nathanael Johnson, “The Washington vote seems to be telling us that concern about GM food is broad and shallow. That is, lots of people are vaguely worried about transgenics, but it’s not a core issue that drives majorities to the polls.”

Still, said Johnson, the actual amount of money spent on advertising made “all the difference” in turning around polls indicating that Washington voters strongly favored GMO labeling going into the election. Blitzing voters with television advertising and direct mail, and dominating the airwaves in an off-election year with claims that votersdidn’t need a confusing labeling law that would cost them more at the grocery store, the anti-GMO labeling lobby outspent the Yes on 522 side more than three to one, or $22 million vs. $8 million – a record for the state in overall campaign spending.

The No on 522 campaign to defeat the GMO labeling bill was supported with multi-million-dollar contributions from just a handful of multinational pesticide/biotech seed companies that donated directly to the No campaign, including Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, BASF and Bayer – and a number of food corporations that until late October remained hidden under the guise of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a Washington, DC-based industry lobby group.

Money Laundering Scheme Backfires on GMA; Trade Group Faces AG Lawsuit

In addition to the $11 million supplied by biotech to defeat the GMO labeling bill, more than three dozen mainstream food corporations – led by Nestle, Pepsico, Coca Cola, General Mills, McCormick, J.M. Smucker, ConAgraand others that purvey GMO foods without labels – matched biotech’s contributions to kill the labeling bill with nearly $11 million of their own.

Except…fearing the consumer backlash, brand tarnishing and PR disaster that many of these companies experienced when they were identified as contributors to defeat Prop 37 in California, they are alleged to have conspired to conceal their donations to the No on 522 campaign through an illegal slush fund, the “Defense of Brands” fund, secretly established n early 2013 by the GMA specifically to hide the names of the corporate campaign contributors from the public.

According to a lawsuit filed on October 16 by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the GMA pumped $10.6 million into defeating the I-522 GMO labeling bill without first registering a political action committee, in violation of the state’s campaign finance transparency laws. Two days after the lawsuit was filed, the GMAregistered a committee and finally disclosed the donors behind $7.2 million it had received from large food manufacturers.

However, the lawsuit is ongoing: in an amended lawsuit filed on November 20, Ferguson alleges that the GMAcontinues to violate the state’s campaign finance laws by not disclosing an additional $3.4 million in concealed contributions.

But the junk food industry’s game plan goes further, and that is to stop the state level GMO labeling movements “at any cost,” said public health attorney Michele Simon. In reviewing internal documents obtained as a result of the Attorney General’s lawsuit, Simon reported that the mainstream food industry’s “ultimate game plan to stop the bleeding in the state-by-state onslaught of GMO labeling efforts is to lobby for a weak federal law that simultaneously preempts or trumps any state-level policy. Rather than a federal compromise, where industry would agree to a weak form of labeling in exchange for stripping state authority, what industry wants instead is to stop state laws to require labeling, while not giving up anything in return,” Simon wrote.

“In their own words, the game plan is to ‘pursue statutory federal preemption which does not include a labeling requirement.’ Let me repeat that,” Simons said: “The junk food lobby’s ‘federal solution’ is to make it illegal for states to pass laws requiring GMO labeling. Period. End of story.”

Some good news is that not all major food companies are on board with this plan, and at least 30 companies that contributed to defeat Prop. 37 in California stayed out of the I-522 fight in Washington State, reported RonnieCummins of the Organic Consumers Association. “Some major food companies, including Unilever and Mars, bruised by bad publicity and consumer boycotts, have broken ranks with the GMA and the biotech industry, arguing that GMO food labels are inevitable and must be accepted, just as they’ve had to accept them in Europe and dozens of other countries,” Cummins said. GMO foods are required to be labeled in 64 countries, but not in the United States. In fact, in a 180-degree shift, Unilever, via its Ben & Jerry’s brand, was demonstrably active in promoting the Yes on 522 campaign to label GMO foods.

What’s Next: Oregon in 2014? Washington in 2016? Mandatory Federal Labeling?

Yes on 522 campaign organizers, while disappointed in the narrow loss, vowed in a statement, “While it is unfortunate I-522 did not pass, it has set the stage for victory in 2016.” Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs for natural foods retailer PCC in Seattle and co-chair of the Yes on 522 campaign, said the voter turnout “was the lowest ever recorded, skewing older and more conservative, and away from younger, more progressive voters driving the GE labeling movement. We are disappointed with the results, but the polling is clear that Washingtonians support labeling and believe they have a right to know. This fight isn’t over. We will be back in 2016 to challenge and defeat the out-of-state corporations standing in the way of our right to know.”

Currently, GMO labeling language is being prepared and filed in Oregon and Colorado for 2014 ballot initiatives, according to Denver-based political consultant Rick Ridder and David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s, a leading supporter of the Yes on 522 campaign and GMO labeling. Local legislatures in Hawaii have recently passed laws requiring biotech companies to reveal what GMO crops and pesticides they are applying to experimental fields. In Vermont, labeling legislation is still active and pro-GMO labeling supporters are not shying away from scientific research that demonstrates that there are, indeed, clear and present risks to human, animal an environmental health associated with genetically engineered food and agriculture.

On the federal front, the Senator Barbara Boxer’s (D-CA) and Congressman Peter DeFazio’s (D-OR) bill to label GMO foods, introduced in April 2013, is still pending. However, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) in mid-November announced that she was joining 13 other senators as a co-sponsor of Senator Boxer’s Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act.

Just Label executive director Scott Faber said, “We welcome the opportunity to work with food industry leaders and the FDA to devise a federal mandatory labeling system that alerts consumers to the presence of GE ingredients in their food.” However, Faber added, “The results in Washington State do not change the fundamental fact that consumers deserve the right to know about the presence of GE ingredients in their food. Just Label It will continue to fight to give American consumers the same rights as consumers in 64 other nations via a federal solution requiring mandatory labeling, while at the same time continuing to work with state legislators to give this basic right to consumers.

This article appeared in the November 2013 Presence News, a leading natural and organic products industry newsletter published by Presence Marketing/Dynamic Presence.

- See more at: http://www.compassnaturalmarketing.com/2013/12/12/after-narrow-gmo-labeling-defeat-in-washington-state-whats-next/#sthash.MCBuLOBK.dpuf

After all the votes were counted, the Yes on 522 campaign in Washington State to label genetically engineered foods acceded defeat in mid-November by a margin of 48.9% to 51.1%, recalling the narrow defeat in 2012 of Proposition 37 to label GMO foods in California.

The anti-GMO labeling side won by a slim 2% of the vote, but they won dirty. Proponents of GMO labeling knew they would be outspent, but they did not count on the fact that the No on 522 side would resort to illegal tactics to win the election, as alleged in an ongoing lawsuit filed by Washington’s Attorney General against a major food industry lobby group for concealing corporate contributions to the campaign, thus violating the state’s campaign finance disclosure laws (see below).

In all, 1.75 million people voted, comprising 45% of Washington’s electorate, the lowest statewide turnout in a decade, with some analysts citing a stronger turnout by more conservative, rural voters along with a poor turnout among younger, progressive voters, with some critics claiming the Yes on 522 campaign didn’t do enough to reach out to rural voters. Or, according to Grist writer Nathanael Johnson, “The Washington vote seems to be telling us that concern about GM food is broad and shallow. That is, lots of people are vaguely worried about transgenics, but it’s not a core issue that drives majorities to the polls.”

Still, said Johnson, the actual amount of money spent on advertising made “all the difference” in turning around polls indicating that Washington voters strongly favored GMO labeling going into the election. Blitzing voters with television advertising and direct mail, and dominating the airwaves in an off-election year with claims that votersdidn’t need a confusing labeling law that would cost them more at the grocery store, the anti-GMO labeling lobby outspent the Yes on 522 side more than three to one, or $22 million vs. $8 million – a record for the state in overall campaign spending.

The No on 522 campaign to defeat the GMO labeling bill was supported with multi-million-dollar contributions from just a handful of multinational pesticide/biotech seed companies that donated directly to the No campaign, including Monsanto, Dow, Dupont, BASF and Bayer – and a number of food corporations that until late October remained hidden under the guise of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, a Washington, DC-based industry lobby group.

Money Laundering Scheme Backfires on GMA; Trade Group Faces AG Lawsuit

In addition to the $11 million supplied by biotech to defeat the GMO labeling bill, more than three dozen mainstream food corporations – led by Nestle, Pepsico, Coca Cola, General Mills, McCormick, J.M. Smucker, ConAgraand others that purvey GMO foods without labels – matched biotech’s contributions to kill the labeling bill with nearly $11 million of their own.

Except…fearing the consumer backlash, brand tarnishing and PR disaster that many of these companies experienced when they were identified as contributors to defeat Prop 37 in California, they are alleged to have conspired to conceal their donations to the No on 522 campaign through an illegal slush fund, the “Defense of Brands” fund, secretly established n early 2013 by the GMA specifically to hide the names of the corporate campaign contributors from the public.

According to a lawsuit filed on October 16 by Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson, the GMA pumped $10.6 million into defeating the I-522 GMO labeling bill without first registering a political action committee, in violation of the state’s campaign finance transparency laws. Two days after the lawsuit was filed, the GMAregistered a committee and finally disclosed the donors behind $7.2 million it had received from large food manufacturers.

However, the lawsuit is ongoing: in an amended lawsuit filed on November 20, Ferguson alleges that the GMAcontinues to violate the state’s campaign finance laws by not disclosing an additional $3.4 million in concealed contributions.

But the junk food industry’s game plan goes further, and that is to stop the state level GMO labeling movements “at any cost,” said public health attorney Michele Simon. In reviewing internal documents obtained as a result of the Attorney General’s lawsuit, Simon reported that the mainstream food industry’s “ultimate game plan to stop the bleeding in the state-by-state onslaught of GMO labeling efforts is to lobby for a weak federal law that simultaneously preempts or trumps any state-level policy. Rather than a federal compromise, where industry would agree to a weak form of labeling in exchange for stripping state authority, what industry wants instead is to stop state laws to require labeling, while not giving up anything in return,” Simon wrote.

“In their own words, the game plan is to ‘pursue statutory federal preemption which does not include a labeling requirement.’ Let me repeat that,” Simons said: “The junk food lobby’s ‘federal solution’ is to make it illegal for states to pass laws requiring GMO labeling. Period. End of story.”

Some good news is that not all major food companies are on board with this plan, and at least 30 companies that contributed to defeat Prop. 37 in California stayed out of the I-522 fight in Washington State, reported RonnieCummins of the Organic Consumers Association. “Some major food companies, including Unilever and Mars, bruised by bad publicity and consumer boycotts, have broken ranks with the GMA and the biotech industry, arguing that GMO food labels are inevitable and must be accepted, just as they’ve had to accept them in Europe and dozens of other countries,” Cummins said. GMO foods are required to be labeled in 64 countries, but not in the United States. In fact, in a 180-degree shift, Unilever, via its Ben & Jerry’s brand, was demonstrably active in promoting the Yes on 522 campaign to label GMO foods.

What’s Next: Oregon in 2014? Washington in 2016? Mandatory Federal Labeling?

Yes on 522 campaign organizers, while disappointed in the narrow loss, vowed in a statement, “While it is unfortunate I-522 did not pass, it has set the stage for victory in 2016.” Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs for natural foods retailer PCC in Seattle a