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Chico Farmer Gets Landmark Measure on Ballot

Pam Larry, director of LabelGMOs.org, talking about the iniative at Niles Community Park in Fremont.
This coming November, a ballot headed by Pam Larry’s year and a half long effort, California’s Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act will add to the many measures for Californians to vote upon.
A former organic Chico Farmer and midwife, Larry is Northern California’s director of LabelGMOs.org. The grandmother started organizing from a “small grassroots” campaign that began with no funding and little volunteers.
Larry and her volunteers started in Los Angeles, moving their way up to Northern California, ultimately receiving 971,126 signatures, 75 percent more than necessary to be placed on the ballot. The unnamed initiative is now endorsed by California farm supporters like, Lundberg Family Farms, Straus Family Creamery and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, along with multiple big and small business owners.
Genetically modified organisms are produced when a virus is inserted into extracted DNA or RNA of an agricultural food source to kill insects upon eating the produce, explained Larry. Therefore, “they need to be labeled as pesticides,” said Larry.
Yet, there are claims according to Stop the Costly Food Labeling Proposition, that California’s Right to Know Act may contain some flaws regarding confusion between what products are considered “natural” along with leaving small family farmers vulnerable to being sued.
However the director of media for California’s Right to Know, Stacy Malkan, eliminated those false accusations stating the group was “absolutely not credible.”
“What they are saying about confusion of the language isn’t true, the ballot initiative is straight forward; it’s pretty simple,” stated Malkan. “It requires that any foods that are genetically engineered (GE) or contain genetically engineered ingredients would have to be labeled as such and could not be marketed as natural.”
However, there are several exemptions within the initiative, including one of particular importance.
It essentially states products made from or derived from animals that have been fed genetically engineered food, or treated with genetic engineering drugs, would not have to be labeled as GE. In response to the enabling of lawsuits between small family farms, Malkan terminated the idea by plaining that it would be an “easy adjustment”.
“We have no reason to believe that anybody would inaccurately label their products,” explained Malkan. “They routinely label for calories, fat content and nutrition. They would have to add to that whether or not their products contained GE ingredients.”
Furthermore Malkan alluded to the fact that the initiative would raise food prices by only “a few cents for Californians.”
She also pointed out there is a lack of studies done to understand how GE foods might affect people’s health.
“The important thing to understand about genetically engineered food is there is no safety testing required what so ever. So companies do not have to study the health effects, there is a lot we don’t know about the health affects,” stated Malkan. “However there is evidence that GE modified foods can create certain types of toxins and are linked to an increase of allergies, and the only way to track these health affects would be too know where genetically engineered foods are located in the market.”
The bill has many supporters with multiple polls showing 90 percent of the United States and Californians are interested in knowing what foods contain GE ingredients. With a large proportion of countries already participating in the labeling process, California would be the first state in the country to have an initiative regarding the labeling of genetically modified foods, if it is passed.
“This kind of labeling is standard procedure in most of the rest of the world, more than 40 other countries already require labeling of GE foods and the United States is one of the only industrialized countries that doesn’t require this type of labeling,” explained Malkan. “So we are out of touch with the rest world, people want to know this information and so we’re going to make it happen in California by taking the question directly to the voters.”
In November 2002 Oregon made an unsuccessful attempted to pass a similar bill, Measure 27, by which they called for genetically modified food labels. Ten years later, they are replicating California’s Right to Know Label, starting their campaign in May of 2012.
Measure 27 was said to not pass due to the wording of the initiative, the cost affects, questions left open about the labeling process, along with the impact on farmers according to Journal of Consumer Affairs, Winter 2004.

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California State University East Bay
Chico Farmer Gets Landmark Measure on Ballot