A summary of California’s Proposition 37 [1]:
“Requires labeling on raw or processed food offered for sale to consumers if made from plants or animals with genetic material changed in specified ways. Prohibits labeling or advertising such food as “natural.” Exempts foods that are: certified organic; unintentionally produced with genetically engineered material; made from animals fed or injected with genetically engineered material but not genetically engineered themselves; processed with or containing only small amounts of genetically engineered ingredients; administered for treatment of medical conditions; sold for immediate consumption such as in a restaurant; or alcoholic beverages.”
Essentially, it requires a label on foods that are genetically modified. That’s it. A label indicating whether or not the food one is considering buying has been tampered with at the genetic level. It doesn’t ban or tax such products, it just offers you, the consumer, the chance to know what is in the food you are purchasing.
Here is a list of the companies opposed to this Proposition, and the amount they have spent [2] just this week to defeat it:
- E.I. DUPONT DE NEMOURS & CO.: $1,273,600.00
- MONSANTO COMPANY: $4,208,000.00
- DOW AGROSCIENCES LLC : $1,184,800.00
- BAYER CROPSCIENCE: $554,400.00
- SYNGENTA CORPORATION: $260,000.00
- BASF PLANT SCIENCE: $519,200.00
- RICH PRODUCTS CORPORATION: $160,123.18
- PEPSICO, INC.: $1,126,079.94
- OCEAN SPRAY CRANBERRIES, INC.: $199,506.32
- NESTLE USA, INC.: $607,928.61
- KELLOGG COMPANY: $516,952.06
- HERSHEY COMPANY: $283,753.06
- CONAGRA FOODS: $520,101.54
- COCA-COLA NORTH AMERICA: $603,191.45
- CARGILL, INC.: $143,575.49
These corporations spent millions of dollars this week to ensure that Californians will not know if their foods are GM or not. I wonder if that amounts to a tacit admission that consumers wouldn’t buy the products if they knew?
Contrast the corporate spending with the receipts of the three groups that have formed to support the measure:
- Yes on 37- Lake County: $0 [3]
- Organic Consumer Association’s Committee for the Right to Know about GMOs [4]: $1,000.00
- Yes on 37 for Your Right to Know if Your Food has Been Genetically Engineered [5]: $13,000.00
- GM food banned in Monsanto staff cafeteria [6]
- Southern African governments must choose between famine and GMOs: they choose famine, reject US food aid due to GMOs. [7]
- Related: Wikileaks leak shows State Departments wants intel on African acceptance of GMO crops [8]
- Wikileaks: U.S. targets EU over GM crops [9]. Advises starting a trade-war against any EU country opposed to GMOs.
- Banned throughout Europe, Monsanto’s GM corn found growing in Ireland [10]
- GM Crops escape into the U.S. wild [11]
- Bacterial toxin from GMOs found in human blood [12]
- Meta-analysis confirms liver and kidney toxicity in mice and rats fed GMO grains [13]
- FDA won’t allow food to be labeled free of genetic modification [14]
The companies supporting GMOs say that it expands customer choice [15]. But how can it be a customer choice without the information to make such a choice?
Print this post [16]
[17]