Why California Could Force National GMO Labeling

11 Jun, 2012

In November, California voters will decide on a ballot initiative that would require labeling of all foods containing ingredients from genetically modified crops. The initiative made it to the ballot after almost 1 million Californians signed a petition in favor of it—nearly double the 504,760 signatures needed under the state’s proposition rules. The campaign that organized the push to get the measure on the ballot focused on possible health effects of GMO foods.

This news will not likely be applauded by my friends over at Croplife America, the main trade group of the GM seed/agrichemical industry. The big GMO crops—corn, soy, sugar beets, and cotton—are processed into sweeteners, fats, and additives used widely by the food industry. Everything from high fructose corn syrup-sweetened Coke to soybean oil-containing Hellman’s mayo would have to bear a label reading something like “Contains GMO ingredients.”

That would send a shockwave through the food industry—one that could ultimately be felt on the industrial-scale US farms that have been devoting their land to GMO crops for years, and the companies that profit from selling them patented seeds and matching herbicides. The reason isn’t just that California represents an imposing chunk of the US food market. It’s also that a food-labeling law that starts in California is unlikely to stay in California.

To see why, look at the case of another practice beloved of US agribusiness: that of stuffing egg-laying hens into cages so tight that they can’t turn around.

Back in 2008, California voters mulled a ballot initiative to ban that production method by 2015. The egg industry fought the proposal bitterly—but Proposition Two (as it was known) won anyway, by a margin of nearly two-to-one. Two years later, the California legislature passed a law applying the new rules to all eggs sold in the state—foiling the industry’s threat to close shop in California and send in eggs from hens caged in other states.

But the initiative was never really just about California. Its main champion, the Humane Society of the United States, was clear about that from the start. As HSUS’s Paul Shapiro told Grist weeks before the 2008 vote, “Nobody can ignore the fact that California is the largest agricultural state in the country and it’s often a trend-setting state. We envision national reforms coming from passage of Prop. 2.”

Click here to read the rest of this article at MotherJones.com.