Late on Friday afternoon, May 18, 2020, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) announced a significant change in how it regulates genetically modified organisms and genetic engineering, even as dozens of new, unregulated, untested and unlabeled GMOs are entering the food supply. 

APHIS’s framework has always been a very narrow scope of regulation on GMOs. It focused on Agrobacterium, a plant pest that has been used to create GMOs. APHIS has decided this regulatory tool and the public review of GMOs that it provided is too burdensome for the biotech companies that want more genetically engineered ingredients to enter the food supply. Many consumers are surprised to learn that the US has never had a regulatory process to evaluate the human health and safety of GMOs; this 30-year-old rule was one of the only tools the public had to evaluate and regulate GE crops for negative impacts. 

Unfortunately this decision signals a clear, strategic shift even further away from transparency in the food system. Consumers overwhelmingly want to know what’s in their food and how it is made. What’s more, there is no mechanism today to evaluate, regulate or label hundreds of new GMOs that use new techniques. The Non-GMO Project is currently monitoring 375 startup biotech companies, a number that has increased 220 percent in the past three years. These companies are using new genetic engineering methods to create unnatural GMO products that are unregulated and unlabeled. Meanwhile, old GMOs are still a huge problem — still grown on 90 percent of arable farmland in the US.

USDA Organic Certified and Non-GMO Project Verified have been tremendous success stories, together amounting to more than $50 billion in sales in the US. This growth has happened precisely because consumers show a strong preference for agriculture done in a more responsible and sustainable way. The public comment period for this revision in policy resulted in more than 6,000 comments from the public and all but 25 were strongly against this deregulation. This regulatory change clearly does not honor public opinion. But thousands of farmers, food companies, and grocery stores do.

We know that consumers will continue to vote with their dollars for Non-GMO Project Verified groceries. People who want a better, more natural food system can still trust and depend on the Non-GMO Project. We continue to monitor these developments. We persist in testing products for GMOs, as we have done for the past 13 years, regularly updating our Standard to evaluate new ingredients, new products and new food companies, educating people and giving shoppers the option to avoid all GMOs — by simply looking for the Butterfly on their favorite products.

Going to Natural Products Expo East? Drop by Booth #1148 to say hello to our team! If you would like to plan a one-on-one meeting with a member of our staff, contact them soon since schedules are filling.

Whether or not you’ll be at Expo East, be sure to read our latest blog from Executive Director Megan Westgate, focused on keeping non-GMO standards high.

Below is a list of non-GMO events at Expo East that may be valuable to Non-GMO Project Verified participants:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18

• Non-GMO Series: How Retailers and Brands Can Build Trust Through Transparency
  • 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM, Room 301
  • As consumers increasingly become concerned about what is in their food, brands and retailers have the opportunity to deepen shopper engagement and trust through GMO transparency. This session will explore the risk and rewards of  transparency, give real examples of how brands and retailers have succeeded with their transparency initiatives, and explore how transparency can build a rapport with consumers that extends beyond store walls to the highly visible world of social media. Executive Director of the Non-GMO Project Megan Westgate will lead this discussion.

• Non-GMO Series: GMO Policy Roundup - A National and State Legislative Update
  • 12:45 PM- 2:00 PM, Room 301
  • Non-GMO policy and regulation changes are occurring at breakneck speed in the United States. 2015 has been filled with news of the DARK Act, new state labeling laws, biotech regulation overhauls and the introduction of federal non-GMO certification programs. Colin O’Neil (Center for Food Safety), Tara Cook-Littman (Citizens for GMO Labeling) and Scott Faber (Environmental Working Group) will use this session to provide an overview of everything you need to know as it relates to state and federal non-GMO policy in the United States. When you leave this session, you will have a better understanding of the latest and most pressing non-GMO regulatory issues that are important for the industry, consumers and for your company to act on.

• Non-GMO Series: The Real Reason We Need GMO Labeling
  
  • 2:30 PM- 3:45 PM, Room 301
  • Four years ago, Gary Hirshberg co-founded Just Label It with the goal of persuading the FDA to enact mandatory GMO labeling, as is commonplace in 64 nations around the world.  Today, between state and federal efforts, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent in what has become America's biggest food fight. Matters have recently escalated with the Grocery Manufacturers Association's and Chemical Companies' efforts to advance the dangerous and deceptively named "Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act", known more widely as the DARK Act (Denying Americans the Right to Know), which would not only pre-empt state and grassroots labeling efforts, but would effectively prevent any chance of the FDA enacting mandatory labeling.  In this speech, Hirshberg will update us on the latest developments with the DARK Act, as well as to discuss the rationale for mandatory labeling and why the next few months will be pivotal in determining both state and federal policy.

• Happy Hour, hosted by Where Food Comes From
  
  • 5:30 PM- 7 PM, Pratt Street Ale House
  • Highlighting Non-GMO Project Verified, Gluten Free, Global Animal Partnership, and USDA Organic

This page will be updated, as events are added and new information becomes available. Be sure to refer to the official Expo East website to confirm event details.

Prior to the start of the show, Non-GMO Project staff will deliver posters to booths of participating brands to showcase Verified status of the brands' products.