Why Organic Connections and Natural Vitality Support GMO Labeling and Prop 37

Big Food and biotech com­pa­nies don’t see things this way. They’re not in the health food busi­ness, even if they have acquired some com­pa­nies for their brand port­fo­lios. They are in the busi­ness of food. It’s an impor­tant distinction. In the food busi­ness, nature is regarded as an anti­quated oper­at­ing sys­tem that pro­vides bio­log­i­cal mate­r­ial for lab improve­ments which can then be patented. 

I’m not mak­ing a judg­ment, just an obser­va­tion. There are dif­fer­ent val­ues and dif­fer­ent philo­soph­i­cal approaches. Nowhere is this dis­par­ity clearer than in the bat­tle over California’s Prop 37. 

It’s clear why Big Food and biotech oppose Prop 37. It strikes at their prof­its and patents. They are con­vinced that if their cre­ations are labeled then peo­ple won’t want them.

They’re prob­a­bly right. People in Europe don’t want them and even poor farm­ers in Haiti burned GMO seeds rather than plant them. 

Why every­one in the nat­ural prod­ucts indus­try would not oppose GMOs is less clear. 

The ideas of “improv­ing” on nat­ural design, patent­ing seeds and requir­ing toxic pes­ti­cide use as part of the process (not to men­tion the un-researched effects of genetic tam­per­ing on humans over time) are about as far away from nature as you can get.

These are the days of increas­ing trans­parency, shar­ing infor­ma­tion over the Internet and full dis­clo­sure. Like alter­na­tive health­care, our nat­ural indus­try was built on the premise of the right to choose. Doesn’t that also include the right to know? Who in our indus­try believes that the right to know should be reg­u­lated by eco­nomic inter­ests? That may be the posi­tion of Big Food and biotech, but it’s an old game. The barn door has been opened. Thanks to numer­ous doc­u­men­tar­i­ans, we’ve seen what goes on inside—and that door can’t be closed. 

While there may be legally trou­bling issues writ­ten into Prop 37, the basic premise of the right to know should be sup­ported by our indus­try loudly and clearly. The New York Times reports that 91 per­cent of U.S. vot­ers want foods that have been genet­i­cally engi­neered or that con­tain genet­i­cally engi­neered ingre­di­ents to be labeled as such. People have got­ten our mes­sage. They want to know what they’re eat­ing and where it comes from. 

Let’s not bar­gain with the ethics and integrity of our indus­try or con­fuse the pub­lic. We’re on their side, aren’t we?

Ken Whitman is the pres­i­dent of Natural Vitality and pub­lisher of Organic Connections.

Where do you stand on Prop 37? Share your thoughts in the com­ments below.