GMO: It’s Time to Move On.
The House & Senate have approved GMO labeling legislation and the President will soon sign it into law. While a few legislators were unhappy, this compromise is in the best interest for the country. Republicans and lawmakers from rural states overwhelmingly supported the legislation. Agriculture groups have backed it, hoping it will bring more certainty to farmers who grow genetically modified crops. According to the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, U.S. farmers have adopted genetically engineered (GE) crops widely since their commercial introduction in 1996.
About the GMO Legislation
USDA will have two years to write the rules of the new legislation, which will cover foods created with conventional recombinant DNA techniques. It will not extend to plants or other food products created with CRISPR, a new and more precise gene-editing technology. Foods that consist primarily of beef, poultry, pork or eggs will not be required to carry a GMO label, even if they ate feed containing GM corn or soybeans.
As The Hill noted, the initiative would force food companies to “create QR codes that consumers scan with a smartphone to find out if a product contains GMOs.” The aforementioned states require labels to identify goods “produced with genetic engineering.”…
