Why GMO Foods Should be Labeled

The agri-business multi­na­tional let it be known that it will fight the pro­posed bill known as H-722 (the “VT Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act”) because it dis­crim­i­nates against genet­i­cally mod­i­fied food. The bill still in the ini­tial stages of for­mu­la­tion would require food pro­duc­ers to label their food prod­ucts, a move that would com­pel Monsanto to slap the GMO label on all its food products.

The prob­lem for me is two fold. On the one hand, Monsanto which has cor­nered the mar­ket on genet­i­cally pro­duced food seem to be say­ing, “Look here, GMO foods are safe, nutri­tious and whole­some and you should eat them.”

On this basis alone, one would expect the agri-business giant to embrace food labelling in order to effec­tively mar­ket its food prod­uct. If, as Monsanto argues, genet­i­cally mod­i­fied food is the way of the future, the sal­va­tion for humankind, then it makes sense that it should be called by its name so that eager con­sumers will line up for it.

On the other hand, even as it pro­claims from the rooftop the safety aspects of GMO foods, Monsanto is slyly shy­ing away from the spot­light, indeed, aggres­sively ensur­ing that GMO foods are never labelled.

This con­tra­dic­tory action has two impli­ca­tions, one being that con­sumers must trust Monsanto when it says that genet­i­cally made food is safe, nutri­tious and healthy. Secondly, Monsanto is also say­ing that con­sumers should never be trusted to make choices based on trans­par­ent infor­ma­tion. The aver­age per­son, in Monsanto’s warped think­ing, is prob­a­bly an idiot who, given the free­dom of choice through food labelling, will always make the wrong choice.

Now I have main­tained in many of my pre­vi­ous writ­ings that it is unthink­able that just one or two multi­na­tional com­pa­nies could soon con­trol food pro­duc­tion. But is pre­cisely what Monsanto is aim­ing to do—control food pro­duc­tion and cor­ner the mar­ket. It goes with­out say­ing that who­ever con­trols food pro­duc­tion will con­trol human behav­iour for eter­nity, dic­tat­ing who will sur­vive and who will die, who will repro­duce chil­dren and who will not because food, after all, is life.

But scratch­ing deeper, the threat to sue a whole state plan­ning to cre­ate a law to pro­tect con­sumers has more imme­di­ate impli­ca­tion for Monsanto which is keenly aware that its genet­i­cally pro­duced food is con­t­a­m­i­nat­ing nat­ural food supplies.

There are organic farm­ers who have begun to sue Monsanto for these con­t­a­m­i­na­tions, but by not labelling foods, Monsanto believes there will be a time when all the nat­ural food sup­plies will be so con­t­a­m­i­nated that such law­suits will become mean­ing­less any­way. In the mean­time, it is Monsanto that is suing, mostly suc­cess­fully, farm­ers whose fields are con­t­a­m­i­nated by genet­i­cally mod­i­fied vari­eties, claim­ing that the farm­ers in effect stole the GMO patent.

The case is still fresh of the Canadian farmer whose crops was con­t­a­m­i­nated by Monsanto’s genet­i­cally mod­i­fied crops and, to add salt to injury, was sued by Monsanto for patent infringe­ment. The Supreme Court of Canada agreed with Monsanto that the farmer indeed infringed on Monsanto’s patent rights.

It is like the cow rancher who cries foul when one of his bulls jumps the fence, mate with one of your thor­ough­bred cows, impreg­nates it and pro­duces a mixed breed calf of inde­ter­mi­nate qual­ity. Even though you are the vic­tim, the rancher neigh­bour yam­mers loudly for com­pen­sa­tion and, worse, the court agrees with him.

For me, genet­i­cally mod­i­fied food remains an unde­ter­mined food with many long term ill con­se­quences for consumers.

And although pro­po­nents of GMO like to point out that these prod­ucts are now con­sumed widely, my rejoin­der is sim­ply that GMO is very young when con­sid­ered in the con­text of human food pro­duc­tion. Fifty years from now, what will be dis­cov­ered in GMO foods that we are cur­rently blind to?

The his­tory of sci­ence, after all, is filled with thou­sands of vic­tims who suf­fered seri­ous health con­se­quences after being reas­sured that cer­tain drugs were safe. We still all remem­ber Thalidomide, the won­der drug that was intro­duced by a German drug maker in 1957 as a treat­ment for morn­ing sick­ness in preg­nant women. By the time it was with­drawn from the mar­ket, over 10,000 deformed chil­dren were born, many with­out limbs.

By threat­en­ing to sue the State of Vermont, Monsanto essen­tially wants to have its cake and eat it too. If it is ped­dling genet­i­cally mod­i­fied food as good, safe and healthy prod­ucts then it must also allow them to be labelled as such.

I, as a con­sumer, must know what I am buy­ing from the gro­cery store. There is no way I can sur­ren­der my rights to know what goes in my stom­ach just so that a cor­po­rate giant can have its profits.

No way.