USDA Wants Your Opinion on its GMO Labeling Proposal

(geneticliteracyproject.org) – There’s nothing inherently unsafe about genetically engineering crops or agricultural animals. … But the public has been consistently uneasy about the technology, with polls showing that only slightly more than a third of the general public thinks eating GMO foods is safe.

This uneasiness has led to a steady flow of legislation that would have food producers label any of their products that contain GMOs.

But, to an extent, the debate ended with a 2016 law that started out as a vehicle to fund university research in coastal states and ended up specifying that GMO food would be labeled.

Two years and one request for public comment later, the USDA has an incomplete set of draft rules  and some things that it still wants the public’s input on.

There is one major issue about which the USDA hasn’t reached a decision and would like public comments. That’s what to do if an ingredient is used in a heavily processed form, one where there’s no detectable genetic material in it. For example, the sugar beets that are fully genetically modified are generally used to produce sugar materials with nothing resembling plant in them. Would these require labeling?