GMO labeling bill could allow organic farmers to sue for GMO “contamination”

Unless it’s drastically altered, the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015 will be used by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack as a back door, bypassing Congress, to institute European-style threshold limits on GMO content in organic food, which will result in legal mayhem across the American heartland.

Under pressure from ag-media, just before it was brought to a vote, verbiage was altered in the bill to give the ag secretary full discretion as to how exactly to implement Washington’s GMO labeling law, stipulating that he shall consult with “other parties” in so doing.

This is far worse than the original, because, it’s clear that after consulting with representatives of the anti-GMO organic industry, along with trading partners in anti-GMO Europe, the secretary will impose a “maximum permissible level” as outlined in the original version of this bill.

As to what the maximum permissible level will be, it’s pretty clear the European threshold of 0.9 percent will be adopted, a completely arbitrary number with no basis in science.

Currently GMOs do not have any threshold limit like pesticides do, as well they shouldn’t.

Pompeo’s bill will change that by providing a legal basis on which to claim that an organic crop can no longer be labeled as GMO-free, and hence cannot be certified or labeled organic.

Organic farmers will not wait to sue their GMO neighbors once such a threshold limit is established. And this will serve to severely discourage the use of GMO crops in America.

This explains why opposition to Pompeo’s bill from anti-GMO organic activists has been muted.