The biggest worry weighing on the nation’s food industry may not be drought in the West, farmworker shortages or turbulent international trade negotiations, but a change in the regulatory code in Vermont.
Under a law signed this month, the tiny New England state, population 626,000, will soon require that food companies tell consumers which products on grocers’ shelves have genetically modified ingredients. In doing so, Vermont could force food growers, processors and retailers to upend how they serve hundreds of millions of customers nationwide.
But although the industry has won several major battles on the issue — including ballot initiative campaigns in California in 2012 and in Washington state last year — the national push for GMO labeling
has proved a resilient grass-roots effort, given added push by a broad swath of celebrity chefs, food writers and actors.
“There is this tribal mentality,” said Pamela Ronald, a professor of plant pathology at UC Davis and author of the book “Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics, and the Future of Food.”
“It has just become this progressive cause, and people are not spending time finding out the facts for themselves,” Ronald said, pointing to prestigious scientific reports that have said foods made with genetically modified crops are no riskier than non-GMO foods.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-gmo-labeling-vermont-20140607-story.html#page=1