FROM THE FARM REPORT: THE FALLOUT OF GMO LABELING LAWS

GMOs have always been a controversial topic. While they have had widespread use on North American dairy farms for decades, a significant portion of the general population has been uneasy about them throughout that time period.

For that reason, starting in the spring of 2016 Vermont decided to lead the nation by mandating that foods be labeled if they contained bioengineered ingredients. I remember this causing quite a stir at the time with many in the ag sector lobbying against the new regulations. The general sentiment was that labeling would scare consumers away from GMOs. It was often argued that labeling was unnecessary because the bioengineered ingredients were not proven to be nutritionally different from their non-GMO counterparts and that labeling “implies” that GMOs are dangerous.

While those arguments may have had some merit at the time, the labeling went into effect, anyway. And food manufacturers suddenly had to start printing special Vermont-approved labels on the majority of food products entering the state. The result was a slight drop in the sales of certain GMO-containing food products and a slight bump in the organic food sector. But this difference in demand was short lived, with most consumers returning to their normal purchasing behavior.

Oddly enough, a 2018 study conducted by the University of Vermont found that consumer opposition to GMOs actually declined in Vermont by 19% while increasing in the rest of the country during that same time period. There are several possible reasons for this. It may be that including labels helped consumers to trust the biotech sector since they perceived the sector as being more transparent by labeling bioengineered foods. It also may be that consumers were surprised to learn how much GMO food they were already consuming… without major health impacts.

While new GMOs continue to be developed and approved, crop breeders are now using new techniques to create gene edited plants rather than GMOs. This reduces the development costs because these products, which do not contain DNA from a separate species, are not subject to the standard GMO approval process. Certain high-oleic soybeans have been developed using this technique.

My prediction is that we will see more and more of this technology in the ag sector in the future. Whether it’s reducing the lignin content of forage crops, or improving the germination of birdsfoot trefoil, if we maintain an attitude of transparency with consumers, there’s no telling what benefits the forages of the future might bring.

— Allen Wilder

wilder@whminer.com