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The California Ballot Initiative to label genetically engineered food is] “a serious, long-term threat to the viability of agricultural biotechnology. Defeating the Initiative is GMA’s single highest priority this year.”  -- Pamela Bailey, President of Grocery Manufacturers Association, speech to the American Soybean Association, July 9, 2012

This November, Californians will vote for or against Prop 37 , the California Right to Know Genetically Engineered Food Act. The outcome of that vote will likely determine whether the U.S. will one day join the nearly 50 other countries that allow their citizens to choose between genetically engineered and non-genetically engineered food through the enactment of laws requiring mandatory labeling of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

The election is three months away, but the battle lines were drawn months ago. Lining up against the consumer’s right to know -- and throwing plenty of money into the fight -- is a long list of industry front groups, food conglomerates and biotech companies. Near the top of that list is the powerful Washington, DC-based Grocery Manufacturer’s Association (GMA), a multi-billion-dollar trade association. The GMA represents America’s $1.2 trillion “Big Food” industry, led by supermarket chains, Monsanto and other biotech companies, animal drug companies, multinational food manufacturers, and junk food restaurants -- all of whom rely on the use of dangerous chemicals, pesticides, animal drugs, and GMOs to produce cheap, contaminated food.

So far, the GMA has contributed a handsome $375,000 to the campaign to defeat Prop 37. Making the pot even sweeter are some hefty direct donations to the anti-labeling campaign from individual GMA members, including ConAgra Foods, J.M. Smucker, Hormel Foods, Kellogg Co., Coca-Cola North America and PepsiCo. and others.

The GMA’s list of dues-paying members tops 300. How many more thousands – or millions -- of dollars will members spend in a desperate attempt to keep Californians from knowing what’s in their food? And the bigger question: Why? Why spend millions of dollars to keep ingredients secret – ingredients food manufacturers claim are perfectly safe – instead of spending a fraction of that amount to just list those ingredients on the labels they already put on every food product?

According to its Web site , the GMA is looking out for consumers:

Making smart food choices for yourself and your family is critical to good health. GMA and its members are constantly working to provide consumers with helpful, easy-to-understand and essential information about grocery products and nutrition.

But they aren’t. National and California polls show overwhelming consumer support for GMO labeling. Yet in California, the GMA is clearly working to prevent consumers from being able to make “smart food choices.”

Not surprising, if you take a look at the GMA’s long history of being on the wrong side of consumer rights. Over the years the GMA has earned an anti-consumer reputation in Washington and state legislatures for opposing just about every food safety, fair trade, animal welfare, and consumer right-to-know legislation put forward by public interest groups. It has opposed food irradiation labels, nutrition labeling, country-of-origin labeling, the banning of hazardous chemicals such as BPA from food and food packaging, and of course, labels on genetically engineered food.

Here’s a short history of GMA’s anti-consumer positions:

• 1993-94: Opposed labels on dairy products derived from cows injected with Monsanto’s controversial Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH).
• 1998: Supported, along with Monsanto, the use of GMO seeds, food irradiation, and sewage sludge in organic agriculture, spawning a nationwide organic consumer backlash.
• 2001: Along with the chocolate industry, lobbied against legislation in the U.S. Congress that would have exposed slave-like child labor practices on cacao plantations

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