It’s a decades-old topic that many in the ag industry would prefer to never hear again, but it’s gained new profile since a recent U.S. decision on the mandatory labelling of genetically modified organisms.
The Canadian Biotechnology Action Network (CBAN), which is opposed to GMOs as food, recently reported on a U.S. Federal Court of Appeals ruling in California that eliminates exemptions from mandatory labelling of GMOs in grocery stores.
According to the release, the U.S. Department of Agriculture had previously exempted “highly-refined” or “ultra-processed” GM food such as corn and soy oil from a mandatory disclosure rule for GM food, an action the court deemed unlawful.
The release also cited a recent poll by market research company Leger showing 83 per cent of Canadians want mandatory labelling of GMOs.
CBAN said the U.S. decision is likely to “bring more pressure to bear” on Canadian regulators to introduce mandatory GMO labelling, which currently does not exist in Canada.
However, a University of Saskatchewan professor with a research portfolio in ag biotechnology says there is little interest in mandatory GMO labelling among Canadian lawmakers. And despite the Leger results, it’s also the furthest thing from the minds of consumers.
Although polls often find Canadians in high support of mandatory GMO labelling, Stuart Smyth says many such polls, aside from a tendency to be Ontario-centric, ask leading questions to bend answers toward the anti-GMO labelling side.
Smyth identified peer pressure and questions designed to support a narrative as two possible factors in the high percentage of respondents opposed to GM food in such polls.
“If someone surveyed (was asked), ‘do you support genetically modified foods?’ (they’ll say) ‘oh no, I’ve heard all kinds of bad things.’
“That’s what people will say publicly or online when they’re doing a poll, but when they’re in the grocery store, they do completely the opposite to what they say. If 83 per cent of people supported labelling, there shouldn’t be any organic produce left on the grocery store shelves. The organic labelling should be through the roof and we’re not seeing that.”
To back his claim, Smyth referred to a poll conducted by the Canadian Centre for Food Integrity. It found respondents’ top five overall concerns focused on food cost, availability of health care, inflation, changing political climate and affordability of healthy food. GMOs were absent from the list.
If mandatory labelling was ever to become law in Canada, Smyth can see it go down a path of the “may contain X” disclaimer found on many food products today, a label many consumers find unhelpful.
“So, all the corn goes in together, right? There’s some GM and there’s some non-GM. So what may end up happening is that the label might say (something) like, ‘may contain peanuts,’ (but) it ‘may contain GM ingredients,’ and that then provides virtually no information to consumers.”
Meanwhile, the president and chief executive officer of the Canola Council of Canada said there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling will even stand.
“It is our understanding that it’s status quo for now until court proceedings are completed and the USDA’s response regarding exemption is known,” wrote Chris Davison in an email.
The U.S. decision to no longer exempt vegetable oil makes the United States a bit of an outlier among many — if not most — countries’ GMO regulations, said Smyth. This is partly due to the fact that food-derived oil does not contain protein, making it difficult to test the product as a GMO.
“Protein needs to be present in whatever food product is being tested for GM content, as that is how it is determined that a GM crop has been included in the making of the food item,” he said.
“Oil is filtered so that no impurities remain in the oil, which is what makes it so clear. The absence of proteins in the oil means there is no way to credibly test it to see whether it came from a GM crop or a conventional one.”
Regardless of the canola industry’s dependence on GM seed, Smyth said this would mean at least canola oil would be free from GM labelling, even if Canada pivoted in that direction.
“All of the canola oil that’s on the shelves today would not have to change their label in any way.”
So why does the U.S. have mandatory GMO labelling and Canada doesn’t?
Countries have reputations that are often painted in broad strokes. One example is the U.S.’s characterization as a state of limited regulatory imposition. Another is a common image of Canada as an overregulated nanny state.
Whatever the truth may be behind such claims, that narrative was flipped on Jan. 1, 2022, when the U.S.’s bioengineered food labelling law came into full effect. This was an instance of one state’s law creating a domino effect that ended in Washington, D.C., said Smyth.
“The State of Vermont passed mandatory GM labeling requirements for the state,” said Smyth.
“And then, if you’re a food processor in the States, how do you send something to Vermont that meets their labelling standards and then send stuff to the other 49 states?
“So what the food companies then had to do was — because Vermont is the only state that pushed this through — then all of the food processors had to put (labelling) on because it didn’t make any sense to just produce something for the small amount of sales in Vermont. So it became a national thing.”
This couldn’t happen in Canada because its food regulations are already national and not at the provincial/state level like they are in the U.S, Smyth said.
GMO labelling isn’t necessarily something that increases industry costs. It all depends on whether it’s government or industry doing the labelling and whether the message is a warning or a point about value.
Case in point is Canada’s soybean industry. Brian Innes, executive director of Soy Canada, says the sector has embraced labelling both GMO and non-GMO soybeans to help consumers make a choice.
“This isn’t an area where we see a benefit for government involvement in the market,” he said.
“The market is working in our view, as evidenced by the plethora of products that consumers have access to, including food produce, soy foods produced with non-GM soybeans and labelled as such.”
This approach has opened a wealth of choices for consumers wishing to personalize their dietary choices, said Innes.
“They can buy non-GM soybeans. They can buy products made with identity-preserved food varieties.… They can buy organic chicken fed with organic soybean meal crushed in Canada.
“Consumers have the ability to purchase products labelled as organic, non-GM and GM. Our focus at Soy Canada is around helping to bring technology to the fields of farmers and to help communicate the value of technology to farmers, to governments and other stakeholders.”
