Published on Tuesday, August 7, 2012 by Civil EatsIn case you had any doubt that California’s Prop 37—which
would require labeling of food containing genetically modified
organisms (GMOs)—is a significant threat to industry, a top food lobby
has now made it perfectly clear.
In a recent speech
to the American Soybean Association (most soy grown in the U.S. is
genetically modified), Grocery Manufacturers Association President
Pamela Bailey said that defeating the initiative “is the single-highest
priority for GMA this year.”
You may not know the Grocery Manufacturers Association,
but its members represent the nation’s largest food makers—those with
the most at stake in the battle over GMO labeling; for example, soft
drink and snack giant PepsiCo, cereal makers Kellogg and General Mills,
and of course, biotech behemoth Monsanto.
According to state filing reports,
so far GMA has spent $375,000 on its efforts to oppose the labeling
measure, with its members adding additional out-of-state lobbying power
in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Never mind polling
demonstrating that a whopping 90 percent of voters think they deserve
the right to know what they are eating. GMA also won’t bother to mention
the more than 40 other nations (including the European Union, Brazil,
and China) that already require food makers to disclose GMOs.
Big Food Lobbying to Undermine Health
This is hardly the first time the nation’s most powerful trade
association of food manufacturers has marshaled its resources to oppose
common sense food and nutrition policy—at both the national and state
levels.
As I documented in my book, Appetite for Profit, for years
GMA flexed its lobbying muscle in state legislatures all over the
country fighting bills that were simply trying to remove junk food and
soda from school vending machines.
Big Food lobbyists have also banded together to vociferously fight
any attempt to restrict out of control junk food marketing to children
on TV and other media.
For example, in 2005, GMA was a founding member of the Alliance for American Advertising,
whose stated purpose was to defend the food industry’s alleged First
Amendment right to advertise to children and to promote voluntary
self-regulation as an alternative to government action.
More recently, GMA was among leading trade groups and corporations
opposing the federal government’s attempt to improve industry’s own
voluntary guidelines for food marketing to children. As this Reuters special report
from April explains, GMA’s chief lobbyist visited the White House last
July along with several top food industry representatives (including
from Nestlé, Kellogg, and General Mills) to scuttle an effort by four
federal agencies that would have protected children from predatory junk
food marketing.
But Food Makers Love Labels Don’t They?
It seems rather ironic that the same food makers taking advantage of
every inch of food packaging space to convince shoppers to purchase its
products would object so strongly to labeling for something they claim
is not harmful.
Indeed in recent years, the federal government, in recognizing that
food companies’ so-called “front of package” labeling is so out of
control that it commissioned not one but two Institute of Medicine reports to make recommendations to fix the problem and un-confuse consumers.
Unwilling to tolerate government intervention designed to help
Americans, the GMA has been aggressively promoting its own new nutrition
labeling scheme it calls “Facts Up Front.” But as Food Politics author
Marion Nestle has explained, this is an obvious end-run around the feds. Here is how the food industry describes its own voluntary program:
Facts Up Front is a nutrient-based labeling system that
summarizes important information from the Nutrition Facts Panel in a
simple and easy-to-use format on the front of food and beverage
packages.
Translation: We are repeating information already required on the
back of the package, now placing it in a format we like better on the
front.
See how that works? The food industry is always in charge. That’s why
the nation’s largest packaged food lobby and its members are shaking in
its boots over 90 percent of Californians wanting to see GMO labeling
on food.
And no wonder, because as GMA President Bailey correctly warned her audience: “If California wins, you need to be worried the campaign will come to your state.”
Very worried.
Originally published on Appetite for Profit
© 2012 Michele Simon
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