Dive Brief:
- The Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act of 2015, or HR 1599, received approval from the House Committee on Agriculture. The bill would ban mandates on GMO labeling from the states and instead institute a voluntary labeling system.
- The bill has seen some changes since it was proposed in March via bipartisan discussions between the Agriculture Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee.
- It will now be sent to the full House, where many believe it wil easily pass, before going on to the more difficult Senate.
Dive Insight:
Some food companies and interest groups spoke out about the bill after the announcement from the House.
"A state-by-state patchwork of [GMO] labeling requirements would be confusing to consumers, create supply disruptions, and increase food prices. Cargill also supports the creation of a voluntary USDA-administrated certification and labeling program for non-GMO food products," Cargill, Inc. said.
The American Soybean Association (ASA) also commented on the bill's House committee approval and will itself take action to further support the legislation. This is unsurprising as soybeans are one of the top GMO crops in the country.
"We’ve seen that the effort to bring clarity to the G.M.O. labeling debate has significant support on both sides of the aisle," Wade Cowan, president of the ASA and a soybean farmer, said. "It’s clear that consumers want practical solutions that give them the confidence they want in their food, and this legislation does exactly that. In the coming weeks, we’ll meet with every lawmaker in soybean country to urge them to support this legislation. It’s a bill that moves us closer to a science-based dialogue on food and farm issues, and we will encourage every member of the House to get behind it," Food Business News reported.
In other GMO news, data from the Natural Marketing Institute showed that consumption of non-GMO products is increasing across nearly all age groups, particularly millennials. Non-GMO-labeled food consumption increased to 59% of U.S. consumers overall in 2014, up from 53% in 2013 and 37% in 2012. More specifically, non-GMO food consumption among millennials jumped to 72%, an increase over 61% in 2013 and 45% the year prior.