U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is now urging
members of Congress to institute mandatory GMO labeling, calling on legislators
to put the interests of consumers before those of big food.
"We have thought about this and debated it and had good conversations
about it, but it is time to move on to action, to give consumers a process by
which they get information and get it in a way which is most acceptable to
them, and in a way that provides us enough time to educate consumers about
precisely where to look, when to look, and what to look at," Vilsack said
during the recent Organic Trade Association's Policy Conference in Washington,
D.C.
In the last year, more than 4,000 chefs signed a petition from celebrity chef
and Food Policy Action cofounder Tom Colicchio asking members of the Senate to
reject the DARK Act, an anti-GMO labeling bill which would allow individual
states to reject labeling laws.
The bill was subsequently rejected. Shortly thereafter, in the absence of a federal
mandate, a number of leading American food companies, such as General Mills,
Campbell's, Kellogg, and Mars, voluntarily chose to introduce GMO labeling
nationwide, citing the need to adhere to the long-awaited GMO labeling bill
passed by Vermont.
A key factor in the decision to go national, the companies said, was the fact
that it would be simpler to produce a single, unified label for the entire
country than to produce one label for Vermont, and whichever states might
follow, and another for the rest of the country.