TWIN FALLS, Idaho—In the case of beet sugar, Vic Jaro believes any mandate to label foods containing a genetically engineered ingredient would more mislead than inform the public.
Though nearly all of the sugarbeets planted in the U.S. are now engineered to resist glyphosate herbicide, Jaro, president and CEO of Twin Falls-based Amalgamated Sugar Co., emphasized any proteins containing traces of the trait are removed in processing.
Jaro said the finished, crystalline product—C12H22011—is the same whether it’s derived from GMO or conventional sugarbeets, or even conventional sugar cane.
To drive home the point that sucrose is sucrose in the face of state ballot initiatives to mandate GMO labeling, including initiatives on the November election ballot in Colorado and Oregon, the nation’s beet sugar factories recently completed a demonstration. Sugar samples from each U.S. beet factory were collected and tested by a third party, and all were confirmed to be identical, with no traces of any GMO material.
The results confirmed findings of a 2006 demonstration, when GMO and conventional beets raised in Twin Falls were tested and compared against sugar from throughout the world. All sugar samples were identical.
“To label something as GMO, you’re saying this product is somehow different or somehow been altered,” Jaro said. “In the case of sugar, that is not the case.”
Jaro is a member of the Sugar Industry Biotech Council, formed to help the industry implement glyphosate-resistant beets. The council, now charged with responding to GMO opposition, is now mulling a program to share its recent demonstration results.
Prior to the introduction of GMO beets in 2006, Vale, Ore., sugarbeet grower Doug Maag had crews hand weed fields. He estimates he’d spend up to 30 percent more to raise a conventional crop, and he believes many growers would leave the industry before giving up GMO seed.
Given that roughly 70 percent of processed foods contain sugar, Maag believes labeling would be too broad. He believes existing GMO-free and organic labels already give consumers choice.
“A lot of people are uneducated on what GMO is, and (opponents) are trying to use that avenue to scare them away from it,” Maag said.
In polling, the majority of Americans support GMO labeling, according to George Kimbrell, staff attorney with the Center for Food Safety and author of the Oregon ballot initiative. He considers it insignificant that GMO materials are removed from sugar in processing.
“It doesn’t matter how refined (GMO sugar) is. All of that is pseudoscience,” Kimbrell said. “The bottom line is they’re produced through genetic engineering.”
The American Sugarbeet Growers Association opposes labeling and is among the members of the No on 92 campaign to fight the Oregon initiative, said Luther Markwart, the organization’s executive vice president. Markwart said the association endorses a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would create a single national policy of voluntary GMO labeling.
“A label implies there is a difference. You are misleading the consumer,” Markwart said.
Both sides agree that bill, introduced by Rep Mike Pompeo, is dead but may still be reintroduced in another Congress.
Source: www.capitalpress.com