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Tiny Vermont Brings Food Industry To Its Knees On GMO Labels (ap.org)
schwit1 writes: General Mills' announcement on Friday that it will start labeling products that contain genetically modified ingredients to comply with a Vermont law shows food companies might be throwing in the towel, even as they hold out hope Congress will find a national solution. Tiny Vermont is the first state to require such labeling, effective July 1. Its fellow New England states of Maine and Connecticut have passed laws that require such labeling if other nearby states put one into effect. The U.S. Senate voted 48-49 Wednesday against a bill that would have blocked such state laws. The food industry is holding out hope that Congress will prevent states from requiring such labeling. Some companies say they plan to follow Vermont's law, while others are considering pulling their products from the small state.
If they're happy with it, if it has advantages they can sell the consumers, then they should sell it to consumers on its advantages.
Why would you try to conceal GMO products from the consumer? It's confirmation that the makers of GMO products have something to hide!
while a free market economy is much better at allocating scarce resources than any other method(especially government controlled or regulated economy), for a truly free market to work , there should be full information and perfect competition, impossible conditions.
it doesn't help that in real world people who are most vocal for free capitalism tend to be the same who are against full information disclosure. i am willing to bet that those who voted against this labeling were such 'supporters' of 'free market capitalism'.
As A Vermonter I love to see these stories. VT is increasingly a playground for the rich and those subsumed with WLG* to support the cause du jour.
Hate fracking? Vermont BANNED it in a very public legislative effort. (Even though Vermont will never have fracking due to geologic conditions in the state.) But of course the Illuminati who run the state strongly support a new, natural gas pipeline that will transport fracked NG to the most "sustainable" of towns.
Hate litter? We are all becoming professional garbage managers due to legislatively micro-managed trash laws. (Meanwhile, Keurig/Green Mountain Coffee STILL dumps millions of plastic, unrecyclable single-use K-cups into the environment.
The local "food co-op" broadcasts BUY LOCAL then sells grossly overpriced Yuppie-chow imported from California.
I can go on but you get the point. Do as I say - not as I do.
*White Liberal Guilt
Vermont resident here. Best argument I heard against the labelling requirement was that it's TMI. Similar to the arguments about packaging being "recycled content" or "recyclable", or "made in USA", the opponents make the case that every additional disclosure requirement obfuscates ingredient and nutrition information, or dolphin-safe etc. If Vermont required companies put the number of women employed as a percentage of labor, or minority representation on company board of directors, or employee-owned stock, etc. etc., SOMEONE will always be in favor of "disclosing" it on the label. But there's a legitimate concern that the net effect is "noise". Consumers engage in a form of "moral licensing", giving more weight to "recyclable" than "carbs". T
here is a social cost to obfuscation and "Too Much Information" on labels.
Many in Vermont have a legitimate purpose in branding the state as more natural and organic because it's basically impossible to operate factory farming here. But while legitimate, it's also legitimate to argue Vermont's concerns are basically protectionism against milk and cheese made more cheaply in Ohio. My concerns over GMO has to do with monoculture and unintended consequences of reduced genetic diversity, and eventual loss of rights to plant your own seeds. And I feel strongly about it. But trying to make other people who are less educated, who think GMO is a health concern, share my agenda is a "poster child" technique which will produce fewer returns the more information is packed onto a label. If we put every "true" thing on a label, people will be deluged and stop reading labels. And THAT is the tactic I hope food labels don't embrace - EULA Agreement scale labels that provide so much "information" that the consumers are lost in politics, packaging, nutrition, ingredients, weight, volume, etc.
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