supermarket chickens
The European Parliament has voted to tighten rules on the labelling and traceability of genetically modified (GM) food and feed, paving the way for the EU to adopt the world's strictest GM labelling laws.
The vote is a big defeat for the UK Government, who have been pushing for far weaker legislation, and is sure to anger the US Government and biotechnology companies, who think that labelling GM foods will lose them $4bn in trade each year.
Greenpeace believes the rules will help to give consumers and farmers the right to avoid GM products. The vote will help people resist the onslaught of GM contamination in their food and the environment.
The Government's plan to push for weak labelling laws, supported by the USA and the biotech industry, has seriously backfired and they should now reconsider their position.
What the vote means:
- All foods and ingredients derived from GM products (such as sugar, oil and starch) must be labelled. About 30,000 food products contain derivatives of GM maize or soya, meaning that foods like bread, sweets and soft drinks could now be labelled GM.
- GM animal feed will now be labelled. At the moment, GM animal feed is sneaking into the UK without labels.
- All food containing more than 0.5% GM ingredients will have to be labelled. Greenpeace believes that this level is too high, with many food companies now able to detect much smaller traces of GM.
- There will be no 'GM-free' label. The biotech industry and the Food Standards Agency in the UK have been promoting a 'GM-Free' label instead of supporting the EU proposals. A GM-free label would actually leave people paying more for the GM-free food that they have always eaten, but MEPs voted against it.
Unfortunately, MEPs rejected proposal to label products from animals raised on GM feed, such as meat, milk and eggs. This is another way that GM is creeping into our foods and Greenpeace will continue to campaign for these products to be labelled.
