SoylentNews

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

U.S. senators have reached a deal [npr.org] that would require food companies to disclose which products contain genetically modified ingredients, although not necessarily directly. The plan would allow a variety of different ways to make the disclosure, including a text statement, QR code, phone number, or URL:

Just a week before a Vermont law kicks in requiring labels on food containing genetically modified ingredients, U.S. Senate agriculture leaders announced a deal Thursday that takes the power out of states' hands — and sets a mandatory national system for GM disclosures on food products.

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, unveiled the plan that had been negotiated for weeks with U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan. Senate Democrats from farm country called it a win for consumers and families, while Roberts said it would end "denigrating biotechnology and causing confusion in the marketplace" brought on by Vermont's state law.

But it was clearly an uneasy compromise, with critics of the plan making for strange bedfellows on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Both Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Democrat who supports his state's mandatory law, and the American Farm Bureau Federation, which wants a voluntary GMO labeling standard, announced their opposition to the Roberts-Stabenow deal.

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