devonpena@GMAIL.COM
According to a new analysis commissioned by Consumers
Union <http://consumersunion.org/news/gmo-labeling-will-cost-consumers-less-than-a-aenny-a-day-new-report-says/>
(CU)
the median cost to consumers of state laws requiring
labeling of genetically engineered food is $2.30 per person annually. The
report is available online now here <https://consumersunion.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/GMO_labeling_cost_findings_Exe_Summ.pdf>.
The CU study – which includes a comprehensive annotated
bibliography of studies on the economics of labeling – presents a major
scientific rebuke to claims being made by the biotechnology industry…
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--
Devon G. Peña, Ph.D.
"Memory is a moral obligation, all the time."
-J. Derrida
GEO Watch | Labeling not Costly, Busting Another GMO Myth
http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7322220305190081041&postID=7781866332284370744&from=pencil
Too costly? Really!?
Consumers Union Study
GMO FOOD LABELING? RIGHT-TO-KNOW COST IS $2.43 PER PERSON
A YEAR
Devon G. Peña | Seattle, WA | October 4, 2014
According to a new analysis commissioned by Consumers
Union
(CU)
the median cost to consumers of state laws requiring
labeling of genetically engineered food is $2.30 per person annually. The
report is available online now here
The CU study – which includes a comprehensive annotated
bibliography of studies on the economics of labeling – presents a major
scientific rebuke to claims being made by the biotechnology industry.
The corporate opponents of GMO labeling, including major
chain grocers, have repeatedly misled the public by claiming labeling
requirements will significantly increase consumer costs by hundreds and perhaps
even thousands of dollars a year.
There is no reliable study proving these claims and the
research most often cited by the promoters of GMO foods is produced by the
agro-biotech and corporate food industry itself or industry-funded groups like
as the Washington Research Council – an organization that specializes in
defending corporate interests through politically-targeted research designed to
provide the appearance and veneer of scientific objectivity for capitalist
positions on public policy matters.
The CU study, released Oct. 1, deflates yet another major
GMO myth – that labeling is too costly – and comes at a point in time when
accurate information about the costs to consumers is being sought by voters for
the upcoming Oregon and Colorado votes on GMO labeling this November.
During last year’s campaign against I-522
Monsanto and its biotech allies including the Grocery
Manufacturers of America, Coca-Cola, Nestle, and Pepsi, spent more than $11
million dollars on political advertizing designed to buttress industry claims
that labeling GMO foods in Washington state would add hundreds of millions of
dollars in additional costs to farmers, grocers, and consumers.
The principal and actually quite suspect source of these
alarming biotech claims was a methodologically dubious study conducted by the
Washington Research Council
he WRC is really an ALEC-like (American Legislative Exchange Council) group
with a board that features a Who’s Who of Fortune 500 companies based in or
with major operations in Washington such as Alcoa Intalco Works, Amazon,
Boeing, BP Cherry Point Refinery, Chevron, Microsoft, Waste Management, Weyerhaeuser
Company, and many more.
These corporations have apparently found their social
conscience and, all of a sudden, feigning corporate welfare concern for
low-income households, are declaring a selfless commitment to help poor
consumers fight food costs and eat – what? – junk and processed foods. The opponents of I-520 were not the only
one’s using faulty data from the oft-cited WRC study
It estimated that “…for the 2015–19 period, the increase
in food costs that I-522 would impose for a household of four would be
between $200 and $520 per year.”
The CU report also clarifies that the cost impact
estimates in the WRC study included a blending of consumer food costs,
regulation and monitoring costs, the cost of lawsuits brought under the
proposed law, and impacts on research and development; the only quantitative
data was from Northbridge Environmental Management Consultants (2013) and that
source did not separately report labeling costs.
Our perspective is that the WRC estimate was literally
pulled out of thin air; is a misreading of the Northbridge findings; and
involves methodology that is a poorly
conceptualized and indeed inappropriate use of secondary social science data
filtered through faulty and biased assumptions. The WRC report that became a
mantra truth claim *was not* even a direct empirical survey of actual previous
labeling costs, etc. and it failed to ground the estimating cost algorithms on
factual archival data sources as one might surmise would be required for a
study to produce legitimate or at least plausible results.
The new CU study does not suffer from these methodological
flaws of the previous analysis by the WRC and should greatly dampen industry
claims about the consumer costs of labeling.
According to Jean Halloran, the Director of Food Policy
Initiatives at Consumers Union, the new study – which includes a meta-analysis
of previous research on the economic costs of labeling – offers a more
realistic estimate of less than a penny a day for the average consumer.
This cost, says Halloran, is “…a tiny fraction of the
cost estimates put out by industry and certainly a very small price to pay for
consumers’
right to know...” The study, in part, relies on
historical patterns for the costs of required labeling dating back to the
1990s. The results of the study supported the decision by Consumers Union to
endorse Oregon’s GMO labeling ballot initiative, Measure 92:
Given the minimal cost to consumers, the increased
herbicide use involved in growing almost all genetically engineered crops, as
well as the failure of government to require human safety assessments before genetically
engineered foods reach the marketplace, GMO labeling is well worth it.
Companies change their labeling all the time and with GMO
labeling costing so little, it is likely some producers won’t even bother to
pass the minimal increase on to consumers.
Not to be overlooked in any reasonable assessment of the
Consumers Union report is something that has been missing in the
industry-funded studies – a rigorous review of previous studies on the costs of
labeling. This includes studies involving other kinds of labeling requirements
since the 1990s that have nothing to do with GMO labeling and involve other
public health objectives. This makes the results of the CU study all the more
valuable and instructive.
Given the meta-analysis, it is my opinion that the
industry-funded studies rely on methods that purposefully overestimate the cost
of labeling and happened with the analysis of proposals in California,
Washington and New York. Like the WRC research, industry-funded research
ignored the lessons from the methods and materials used by previous studies.
The CU study disputes claims made in political ads
opposing Measure 92 that the industry is
buying to repeat the anti-I-522 mantra that labeling will force farmers and
food producers to spend “millions” and
increase food costs for consumers. Halloran summarizes the CU critique of this
unfounded assertion:
Industry cost estimates incorporate unrealistic
assumptions about how GMO labeling requirements will drive food producers to
switch to all organic ingredients, which would be much more expensive. However,
there is no factual basis for this assumption and we believe producers will
continue to sell GMO foods once they are labeled, and many consumers will
continue to buy them, with no discernible price impact. Measure 92 simply
requires foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients to be labeled so
that consumers can make an informed choice.
Further buttressing the findings of the report, Consumers
Union notes that labeling of GMO foods is already required in 64 countries,
including many where US agri-food system corporations sell their products.
Labeling *has not increased food prices in those countries*. Explaining the
significance of this fact, Halloran notes in the CU press release that:
Producers are required to label foods that are frozen,
from concentrate, homogenized, or irradiated, as well as a food’s country of
origin. Poll after poll has found that more than 90 percent of consumers want
foods that are genetically engineered to be labeled.
The CU study could prove pivotal to the outcome of the
Colorado and Oregon initiatives on GMO labeling. Vermont has already passed
legislation requiring GMO labeling, and legislatures in dozens of other states
are considering similar labeling bills.
For more information on the Consumer Union study of the
costs of GMO labeling…
Contact:
Naomi Starkman
917.539.3924 | cell
Tim Marvin
415.572.0040 | cell
Posted 6 hours ago by Devon G. Peña
Labels: Colorado
Consumer Reports
Consumers Union
GEO WATCH
GMO labeling
I-522
labeling
Measure 92
Oregon
transgenic foods
Washington
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