Current GMO News & Other Food News

Liberty, Maine Goes GMO Free
The concerned residents of Liberty, Maine are now celebrating their newfound status as a “GE-Free Zone,” making them the third town in Maine to pass local regulations banning GMO crops. Liberty community members felt strongly about the need to step up and take action at the local level due to the absence of state and federal regulations addressing their many concerns with this unregulated, unsafe, and unpredictable technology. It is said that other communities around the state will continue on the path of local action until Maine farmers are protected from genetic contamination.

India’s Supreme Court Slammed With Largest GMO Lawsuit on Record
A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) lawsuit is mounting in India, as more than 6.5 million farmers from every state are begging the Supreme Court to let them join the case already filed by the Association of the Rice Millers and Exporters in India against Monsanto and the biotech industry. The farming associations feel that, due to GMO contamination, GMO crops preclude or negate farmer rights to grow non-GMO crops, as well as indigenous people’s community rights. They are demanding that no GMO crops be grown in India, that field trial locations be published, and that deterrent and precautionary measures are put in place to protect farmers from contamination, and the devastating economic losses that result.


FDA Moves to Drop “Irradiated” Labeling Requirements
The Food and Drug Administration may approve a plan to led food producers drop the “irradiated” label from foods that have been treated with radiation, except when the treatment changes the product’s material characteristics, and others may be called “pasteurized,” a process completely different that radiation. Roughly 40 countries have approved food irradiation, which exposes food to a controlled amount of "ionizing radiation,” killing harmful bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella. The EPA recognizes that all forms of ionizing radiation are known carcinogens, and irradiation plant workers suffer the highest risk, but consumers are also in jeopardy. The Center for Food Safety has stated that the FDA ignored growing evidence that a new class of chemicals, formed when food is irradiated, causes genetic and cellular damage in human cells.

USDA Misleads Consumers With “Raw” Almond “Pasteurization”
A new federal regulation will require all almonds grown in California to be sterilized using various “pasteurization” techniques such as chemical and high-temperature treatments, the costs of which may force small-scale and organic farmers out of the business. The exception to the rule will be only for organic “raw” almonds that will not be fumigated, but will undergo the steam-heat treatment, and small-scale growers who can sell truly raw almonds but only direct to the public from their farm stands. This rule was not effectively announced to the public, and was, instead, quietly slipped under the radar by the USDA without adequate public scrutiny. The Cornucopia Institute has appealed to USDA Secretary Mike Johannes to postpone implementation of the new rule and reopen the almond docket to public comment.