Hurrah for Vermont!

Vermont legislators have voted into law a bill that will make

labeling of foods produced with GMOs mandatory in the state, starting in 2016. It is thus the first state in the US to enact such a law, as passage of such bills in California and Washington failed after major food producers poured millions of dollars into campaigns against them. The Green Mountain State is not resting on its laurels, however, as it expects to be sued by major food producers.

Worry about the safety of eating GMOs is understandable, given that studies done on their effect on our health are done mostly by the major producers of these organisms and may or may not be reported to federal regulatory agencies. In addition, no long-term studies have been done.

The issues of the health and safety of GMOs are only the tip of the iceberg in this historic situation. Many lawmakers have said they are concerned about transparency and the consumer’s right to know what is in the food they buy. While these two considerations are the most often mentioned, one feels that the fact that over three-quarters of Vermonters favored the bill, and a vast majority of Americans in general want labeling of the GMOs in their food, reveals other reasons for such widespread unease. One has only to look at the details of GMO production in the States to note a number of disquieting facts:

Very few GMOs are engineered for extra nutritional value or

even resistance to disease; the vast majority are engineered to be impervious to herbicides or insecticides made by the companies creating the GMOs. Such herbicides end up contaminating the crops themselves, leach into the soil or show up in run-off water. This situation can only get worse, as resistant weeds and insects develop over time, with the result that more herbicides or insecticides are sprayed.

Many experts worry about pollination – GMO pollen does not

respect the borders of fields, after all. The fact that nearly 90% of all the corn grown in the US are GMOs is partly due to cross pollination of GMO crops with non-GMO plants. Extrapolating, we can see that at this rate there will eventually be no GMO-free corn.

GMOs are expensive to produce and are thus engineered by vast

agribusinesses that also own the seed companies that sell the seeds. The seeds are patented and farmers are forbidden to plant seeds from the resulting crop the following year. This flies in the face of centuries-old farming practice.

One of the most common GMOs in the US is corn. As it is estimated that corn is found in 3 out of 4 supermarket products, and the corn is nearly all genetically modified, the number of products found in the supermarket that contain GMOs is huge.

Agribusinesses are some of the largest in the country, and can

call up huge sums for campaigns against labeling and, of course, for legal fees. If Vermont is sued, the case will become a landmark case in corporations vs the people litigation.

All this makes one realize that more is at stake in the passage of the Vermont law than meets the eye. Projecting into the future, one can ask a number of questions:

Once the law goes into effect, will Vermonters who do not want to eat GMOs change their diets or order food on the Internet? Will such ordering be legal? Or will there be an inpouring of GMO-free food on the market, so that GMO-averse residents of surrounding states will flock to Vermont shops? Will major food producers put out lines of GMO-free products? Or will they simply ignore Vermont, which has the lowest population of any state except Wyoming?

Such idle speculation lightens a serious situation that is sure to strike an enormous blow to one side or the other. Vermont is a beacon, and it is hoped that other states will shortly follow suit in requiring labeling of foods containing GMOs. In the meantime, let’s give a cheer for this courageous state!