GM Food Labeling
On Day 2 (May 1st) of the Codex meeting, the Committee moved on to discuss one of its major topics, that of establishing guidelines for the labeling of those foods and food ingredients obtained through genetic-modification / genetic-engineering techniques. The Committee's consideration of this issue followed on the heels of its Working Group meeting in Oslo, Norway in early February 2007, to which the NHF had sent a two-person delegation to argue in favor of labeling GM foods so that consumers could knowingly choose whether to eat such foods or not.
The Ottawa meeting’s line-up of camps very predictably followed that at the Oslo meeting – the Western Hemispheric grain-exporting countries (with massive GM crops to sell to the rest of the World) against most of the rest of the World's desire to require the labeling of GM foods. In rapid succession, the representatives from Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Cameroon spoke up in support of the Committee's work and the right of the consumers to know whether they are consuming GM foods. The United States’ delegate, Dr. Barbara Schneeman then argued that because GM foods were already found safe, there would not be any need to label them as genetically modified. She further argued that because no consensus was reached, the Committee should drop the issue. New Zealand, Mexico, Argentina, Canada, and Australia supported the U.S. position by making the same weak arguments and also claiming that Codex had no mandate supporting the "right of the consumer to know." They all wanted Codex’s work on GM labeling to stop immediately – a "waste of time" they called it.
The other delegations didn't see it that way. And as the discussion continued on into Day 3 (May 2nd) of the meeting, the European Community, Brazil, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Barbados, Mauritania, Switzerland, Gambia, Indonesia, Japan, Nepal, Norway, Ecuador, Granada, Turkey, and each of the individual European countries all diplomatically lined up in support of GM food labeling.
When the National Health Federation’s turn to speak came, the gloves came off when its delegate said, "The NHF agrees with the eloquently expressed views of Barbados, Nigeria, Ghana, and Consumers International. The other delegations have been very diplomatic but the NHF will be blunt here. We sent a delegation to the Norway Working-Group meeting and what we noticed both there and at this meeting is that the Grain-Exporting countries have grouped together to protect their financial interests. They want to keep the consumer ignorant because they know that, if informed, consumers will preferentially choose non-GM foods over GM foods. We were also alarmed to see Monsanto company representatives working so closely with some of the Grain-Exporting countries, and even more alarmed when one country’s representative announced that ‘consumers are too ignorant to understand a GM label."
The NHF continued, "Some have argued that ‘the right to know' is not a part of the Codex mandate. Whose mandate is it to inform the public? Health Canada, for example, does not even permit non-GM labeling and has acted affirmatively to remove products with such labeling from the shelves. This is not right. As France pointed out, the consumer's right to know is a fair-trade issue.