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posted by n1 on Monday May 18 2015, @10:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the needs-more-bacon dept.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has developed a voluntary program for certifying and labeling food that doesn't contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs):

The certification is the first of its kind and would be voluntary — and companies would have to pay for it. If approved, the foods could carry a "USDA Process Verified" label along with a claim that they are free of GMOs.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack outlined the department's plan in a May 1 letter to employees, saying the certification was being done at the request of a "leading global company," which he did not identify. A copy of the letter was obtained by the Associated Press.

No government labels certify a food only as GMO-free. Many companies use a private label developed by a nonprofit group called the Non-GMO Project. The USDA organic label also certifies that foods are free of genetically modified ingredients, but many non-GMO foods aren't organic.

Vilsack said the USDA certification is being created through the department's Agriculture Marketing Service, which works with interested companies to certify the accuracy of the claims they are making on food packages, such as "humanely raised" or "no antibiotics ever."

"Recently, a leading global company asked AMS to help verify that the corn and soybeans it uses in its products are not genetically engineered so that the company could label the products as such," Vilsack wrote in the letter. "AMS worked with the company to develop testing and verification processes to verify the non-GE claim."

[The Associated Press has the letter. I don't think they have released it.]

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:01AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:01AM (#184941)

    "corn ... not genetically engineered"

    Is man made selective breading not genetic engineering?

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:40AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:40AM (#184949)

    selective breading would be feeding your animals different types of "bread".

    selective breEding is more like husbandry where as genetic engineering is more like aliens tinkering with your program

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @08:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @08:02AM (#184969)

      Typo aside, what's the difference? Aside from a generation or two shortcut? We are the "aliens" in both examples. "Fuck this way" or "splice this way", the end result is the same.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @12:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @12:34PM (#185041)

        The difference is in the available code.

        With selective breeding, all you can get into the crop is what already is in some crop, or is at least very close to it if it was produced by a new mutation. With genetic manipulation, you can completely change anything of the organism.

        For example, with genetic manipulation you can easily get peanut proteins into corn. Which is very bad for people with peanut allergy who might eat that corn.

        To make a computer analogy: Selective breeding is like taking several running Linux systems, and building a new one by selecting different programs from different running Linux systems. GMO is like writing new code for the system. It is obvious that you wouldn't be able to get systemd by the first method.

        Besides the problem with allergies, there's also the problem that we don't yet fully understand the genetic code; it should be obvious that changing programs which we don't sufficiently understand is dangerous, especially if the system in question isn't isolated, but exchanges code with other systems on a regular basis.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:30PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:30PM (#185119)

          Don't make shit up or misrepresent the real issues.
          There is plenty of data on food alergies and nobody is developing entirely new sequences.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Zinho on Tuesday May 19 2015, @05:19PM

            by Zinho (759) on Tuesday May 19 2015, @05:19PM (#185136)

            Are you asserting that every GMO producer labels the origins of their inserted sequences on the product? They're fighting to prevent being forced to disclose the modification at all, let alone divulging trade secrets like the origins of the code they used.

            Also, please do some research [lmgtfy.com] before accusing someone of fabricating evidence. Custom synthesis of gene sequences is not only possible, but becoming inexpensive; there's a large amount of competition in that market, and a lot of potential uses.

            Also (to cut short an obvious pedantic argument), no, the custom genes people order will not be 100% original; to some extent they will be derived from known and existing genes. On the other hand, the primary use for custom synthesis is to create a sequence that cannot be found anywhere in nature; the result will be novel despite its borrowings from existing sequences. To argue otherwise is equivalent to saying that watching Disney's "Little Mermaid" is the same as reading the original Hans Christian Andersen story.

            --
            "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @07:09PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @07:09PM (#185187)

              Where is the evidence that any GMO causes an allergic reaction? There is no problem with allergies and any current GMO food.
              There are no GMOs that contain novel proteins. This is not the same thing as custom synthesis of DNA oligos and the most common use for it is to make primers for sequencing or PCR.

              Assessment of the health impact of GM plant diets in long-term and multigenerational animal feeding trials:
              http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22155268 [nih.gov]

        • (Score: 2) by Tramii on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:41PM

          by Tramii (920) on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:41PM (#185124)

          Why is a random mutation in a plant considered "good" and a controlled change considered "bad"? Why do you assume that all off the "available code" configurations are "good", and all the "new code" configuration are "bad"?

          It simply doesn't make any sense. I assert that some of the random mutations are good and some are bad. I assert that some of the genetically modified changes are good and some are bad. Dividing things by natural mutation/genetically engineering is silly. Just because something is naturally occurring does NOT make it "good". Arsenic is 100% natural. It is also not something I want in my food. It literally does not matter if something came about by random natural mutation, selective breeding or direct genetic mutation. What matters is what the actual change is. In fact, I'd would be much more likely to trust a change that was born out of conscious decision rather than random chance.

  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday May 19 2015, @07:19AM

    by sjames (2882) on Tuesday May 19 2015, @07:19AM (#184959) Journal

    It is not.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:08PM (#185102)

      Yes it is.

  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday May 19 2015, @07:46PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Tuesday May 19 2015, @07:46PM (#185203) Homepage Journal

    Selective breading is choosing whether to use cornmeal or flour when you bread your meat.

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org