DENVER – One of the more expensive food fights on the ballot this election season is a question that would require the labeling of genetically modified foods.
Proponents paint Proposition 105 as providing consumers with choice.
“Don’t we have a right to know what’s in our food?” asked Larry Cooper, a proponent of the Right to Know Colorado initiative. “Can’t we make an informed decision about what we’re buying, what we’re feeding our families?”
Cooper isn’t the typical “crunchy granola” environmental type you might expect pushing such an initiative. Sitting in an inexpensive campaign office in Wheat Ridge, his gray hair is perfectly groomed and his polo shirt neatly tucked in.
Cooper joined the GMO-labeling movement for his grandchildren. After reading the ingredients in his 1-year-old grandson’s formula, he started wondering.
“I started reading it and I couldn’t read half the words that were on the can,” Cooper recalled. “I was a little puzzled by it. Do you throw it away? Do you feed it to him? Here we are feeding this 1-year-old baby genetically engineered food, and we don’t know if it’s safe or not. That kind of alarmed me.”
But farmers and producers, including big names like the Colorado Farm Bureau and Monsanto, point out that there is no definitive science indicating that GMOs are bad.
“There have been a lot of studies, and from everyone that I have heard from, the studies that show that there may be some problem, none of those have been completely accepted by peer-reviewed scientists in the field, and that troubles me,” said Don Shawcroft, president of the Colorado Farm Bureau and a fourth-generation rancher from Conejos County.
Opponents are raising large amounts of cash to fight the initiative, more than $9.7 million so far. It is a David and Goliath fight, as proponents have only raised about $320,696.
Farmers and producers point to concerns around cost, suggesting that the initiative would raise the price of food on consumers, a factor noted in the state ballot analysts as well.
“It isn’t just about the cost of the label, it’s the cost of compliance with that label,” Shawcroft said. “That will cost more.”
He also points to issues around competition, suggesting that the mandate would put farmers and producers at a disadvantage compared to other states and nations.
“This would put us at a competitive disadvantage to be saddled with this type of regulation,” Shawcroft said.
He suggested that a better approach would be a voluntary program at the federal level, rather than a patchwork of state laws. Measures have been introduced in Congress.
Some question whether Proposition 105 would have teeth, pointing to exemptions for chewing gum, alcoholic beverages, foods prepared for immediate consumption, restaurant food, and foods derived entirely from an animal, such as milk and meat.
The initiative also would prohibit lawsuits for failing to comply.
But Cooper said it’s a step in the right direction after the state Legislature failed to act this year.
Sixty-four countries have banned or required labeling of GMO products, including China and Russia. Thirty-seven states are working together through coalitions to develop similar language on labeling mandates.
“This is about just giving us information. (GMOs) may be safe, and they may not. I really don’t know,” Cooper said. “I want to know as a grandfather, as an informed consumer – or in this case, uninformed consumer – and I find it very disingenuous that they’re telling me I don’t have a right to know what’s in my food.”