This month, the Senate passed a bill for GMO Labelling, Congress passed a bill for GMO Labelling and President Obama signed the Compromise GMO Labelling Bill into Law. What you need to know!
In 2 years, GMO Labelling will become Mandatory across the country but that word Mandatory is very deceptive because companies have lots of leeway to determine how to do that. They can write the words GMO ingredients on the label, they can put barcodes on the packaging that you or I would have to scan, or provide a phone number to call the company to get more information on the exact nature of the ingredients in the food product.
This is a good example of our current democracy because there is much that we all need to know about GMO’s and how the 1 billion pounds of pesticides that are sprayed across this country each year are affecting your health and mine and our kids and what your Legislators are not talking about with this legislation …
We already had a stellar GMO Labelling Bill from Vermont that had been voted in by the people of that state after much negotiation and compromise and it was a model for the rest of the country. It allowed transparency about what was and was not in the food that we purchase and eat every day. It gave families the choice to decide whether they wanted to eat a product with GMO’s in it or not. It was not approved by some in other parts of the country for political, corporate and business interests. So our current democracy has been transformed into not quite the one Of the People, By the People and For the People that Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams and Abe Lincoln had worked so hard to create but one more Of the Corporations, By the Corporations and For the Corporations that is more common today.
It will be interesting to see where this all leads us to but remember, as individual citizens, one of the greatest gifts we give our democracy is your involvement and the Power of the Collective Voice of the Grass Roots efforts of people like you and me. As Tip O’Neill once said, “All Politics is Local”. GMO’s are an issue that have implications for the health of our children, our families, our communities and our nation. Always Keep the Faith..