(Reuters) — One year after the launch of a social media effort to allay consumers’ concerns about the safety of foods made from genetically modified crops, U.S. companies that develop GMOs have further committed to a multimillion-dollar campaign to defeat attempts to add GMO labels to such foods.
“We are not going to sit down for that (labelling),” Cathleen Enright, spokesperson for the effort, said in an interview.
“We want people to know how their food is grown … we support a right to know. It is the mechanism that we can’t abide.”
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Monsanto Co., Dow Chemical and other GM crop backers last summer kicked off a website, called GMO Answers, as the centrepiece of an effort to win over consumers. The group has committed to spending millions more annually for several more years on this campaign, En-right said.
The money spent on the marketing campaign comes alongside more than $80 million US spent since 2012 by the biotech and food industries to defeat mandatory labelling at state and federal levels, according to a report issued by the Environmental Working Group.
The companies disclosed $9.3 million in lobbying expenditures in 2013 that made reference to GMO labelling and $9 million lobbying Congress in the first quarter of 2014, the report said.
Consumers and lawmakers who fear the crops are unsafe and/or environmentally harmful are seeking mandatory labelling of GM foods in many states and at the federallevel.
Oregon has placed GMO labelling on its November ballot and Colorado citizens are gathering signatures for a similar ballot initiative.
One point the companies are pushing is what they say is a consensus in the scientific community on the safety of their products. Many international scientists dispute that such a consensus exists, but the industry says studies showing concerns are not valid.
Scott Faber, executive director of Just Label It, which supports mandatory GMO food labelling, said the industry efforts are falling short
“They are losing,” Faber said. “After this explosion of anti-GMO labelling lobbying … (they) have so little to show for their efforts.”
