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With Obama’s Signature On Controversial GMO Labeling Law, What’s A Consumer To Do?

By Dawn Papple
Published on: 08:44 PST, Aug 1, 2016

Now that President Obama signed a controversial measure into law establishing a Big Ag and industry-approved federal standard for labeling GMOs, consumers are coming together stronger than ever to take back their food system.

Controversial language changes signed into law last week by President Obama were found in Senate Amendment 4935, the procedural action of substituting text in S. 764 with the text agreed upon by Sens. Roberts and Stabenow, both with strong financial ties to concerned industries. It creates the National Bioengineered Food Disclosure Standard by altering the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946. The law trumps Vermont’s strong GMO labeling law that was praised by Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont consumers, and hundreds of GMO-labeling or consumer advocacy groups.

Vermont’s congressional delegation strongly opposed the passing of the federal GMO labeling standard legislation that Obama signed. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Patrick Leahy and Rep. Peter Welch spoke out against the law that now overrules the efforts of their constituents in what was perhaps the most expensive, time consuming, complex, dedicated grassroots effort to bring consumers the right to know what they are eating.

That victory was short lasting, though, because just as the Vermont law went into effect, Congress swooped in to save the corporations from the people. Of course, Katie Hill, a White House spokeswoman, told ABC News that the new measure “will provide new opportunities to have access to information about their food.”

Consumers aren’t falling for it, though. Consumers are rightfully outraged.

President Obama had promised Americans a federal labeling law, but this is not the law they were after. This law poses as a positive step towards food freedom, but it will actually leave millions of Americans in the dark.

The president signed the legislation despite a petition that swiftly exceeded the 100,000-signature goal set by We the People, despite 287 consumer groups signing an open letter to the POTUS in the Philadelphia Inquirer during the Democratic National Convention, despite citizens’ assertions that the law infringes on the 14th Amendment’s “equal protection for all” guarantee by discriminating against senior citizens, minorities, and the poor, and despite a report from the Food and Drug Administration stating that the lawmakers’ word choices would exempt oil made from GE soybeans, starches, and purified proteins made from GMOs from requiring a GMO label.

Consumers are fed up and exchanging ideas on how to gain their own food freedom for themselves by sharing apps like Buycott on social media and helping inform other consumers of the massive web of corporate ties that exist even among formerly trusted brands.

Some consumers are investigating farming co-ops in order to buy locally and avoid supporting the industry as much as possible.

They’re spreading the word that many “Certified Organic” foods, like products owned by major brands, may even be contributing to the problem, because they often leave small farmers who farm even more sustainably (but can’t afford the organic certification through the government) out of the loop. Word is spreading that products labeled “Certified Naturally Grown” come from farms that often offer more ecologically-friendly, more humane, and more desirable products than many of the federally certified farms.

More than nine out of 10 Americans believe that the government should require labels on foods saying whether or not the product contains genetically modified ingredients, according to ABC News as it reported that “such near-unanimity in public opinion is rare.”

As consumers network and educate each other to gain their own food freedom, a lawsuit is in the works by FoodDemocracyNow! claiming that the new GMO labeling law signed by President Obama violates the 14th Amendment, which grants equal protection under the law.

Learn more about why the new law is being called discriminatory in this earlier Inquisitr article.

[Image via Pixabay]

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