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A bill that would require labeling of genetically engineered foodwas given further life in the Legislature even though the HouseAgriculture Committee missed Friday s crossover day deadline.Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell OK'd the bill forconsideration later in the session, and the House panel plans tocontinue work on the bill next week. The bill (H. 722) amends the definition of misbranded food inVermont law to include food that is produced with geneticengineering but not labeled as such. Some food is excepted, such as meat, milk and eggs from animals fedgenetically engineered feed or treated with genetically engineereddrugs, such as bovine growth hormone. If the animal itself has beencreated through genetic engineering, however, its meat or otherproducts would be required to be labeled as genetically engineered. The bill defines genetic engineering to include a number ofbreeding techniques that breach barriers between species, and itapplies to both raw agricultural commodities, like vegetables, andprocessed foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients. Itwould also prohibit any labeling of genetically engineered food as natural. The agricultural use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) hasballooned in the U.S. since it began in the early 1990s. Accordingto testimony before the committee, more than 80 percent of thecorn, soybeans and canola grown in the U.S. is geneticallyengineered, and more than 70 percent of all processed foods containsome GMO ingredients. Witnesses, even those opposed to labeling food as geneticallyengineered, told the committee last week that 80 percent to 90percent of consumers want to know whether the food they buycontains GMOs. Some, like Margaret Laggis, lobbyist for the Biotechnology IndustryOrganization, and Tim Buskey, with the Vermont Farm Bureau,dismissed consumers concerns as stemming from ignorance. Consumers know nothing about agriculture, Laggis told thecommittee. She formerly lived on a Hardwick dairy farm, and shecalled visitors retarded who would come by and ask questionslike, What s the ratio of boys to girls that you milk here? Michael Hansen of Consumers Union, the publisher of ConsumersReports, told the committee a different story. He said the FDAdoesn t require safety testing and too few safety studies havebeen done. There are studies in the literature that suggest allsorts of adverse outcomes. Those studies should be followed up on. The way I would look on it is to say that the safety (sic)isn t there to show that the crops on the market are safe. Proponents of labeling also cite GMOs' environmental effects.Gary Hirshberg, chairman of organic yogurt producer StonyfieldFarms, said that crops with a gene for resistance to a widely usedherbicide, glyphosate (sold under the trade name Roundup), haveresulted in herbicide-resistant superweeds on over 13 millionacres of farmland in 26 states. This leads, he said, to greater useof stronger defoliants like 2,4-D. Hirshberg promoted labeling so consumers can to choose not tosupport practices that lead to these environmental effects. Thisgives a voice to the consumer-driven food economy that wants thetransparency that only labeling can bring, he said. Committee member and organic farmer Will Stevens, I-Shoreham, wasinterested in the marketing opportunity for farmers. Stevens'questions led witnesses opposed to the bill to acknowledge thatlabeling could, indeed, change the market. It might not change the market in a way that benefits smallproducers and manufacturers who now avoid GMOs, according toLaggis. Before Vermont s rBST-labeling law, she said, BoothBrothers was the only milk labeled rBST-free. What ended up happening is, now almost all milk is labeled asBST-free, and that probably would not have happened if Vermont hadnot focused so much consumer attention on it," Laggis said."Booth Brothers might have actually captured a larger, moresignificant share. According to Hansen at Consumers Union, more than 50 countriescontaining a third of the world s population require some sort oflabeling of food containing GMOs. Hirshberg said that countriesrequiring labeling include all of the European Union, Australia,New Zealand, Japan, Korea and Russia. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not require labelingand, Agriculture Committee Chair Carolyn Partridge, D-Windham,said, no state does, either. Hirshberg said that 21 states areworking on similar bills. The committee is clearly hesitant to make Vermont the first statein the nation to pass a law opposed by biotechnology giants likeMonsanto, a company with a track record of aggressive litigation toprotect their products. The committee asked Ryan Kriger of thestate Attorney General s Office about various grounds forchallenging the bill s constitutionality. They also asked him about the cost to the state of defending a 1994law requiring milk containing genetically engineered bovine growthhormone (rBST) to be labeled, a law that was ultimately struck downby the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. (Kriger said that the costwas impossible to calculate for a case that long ago.) Others warned the committee to steer clear of repeating thestate s experience with the 1994 law. Jim Harrison, president of the Vermont Grocers Association, said, The labeling bill before you is, from my perspective, all tooreminiscent of the rBST law, which he said led to a year fromhell for him and his members as they tried to comply with it. A number of the witnesses against the bill said they would be lessopposed to a labeling requirement developed at the federal level,that would be uniform in all states. Stonyfield Farm s Hirshbergsaid he spent Thursday at the White House as part of an effort topersuade the FDA to require labeling of genetically engineeredfood. He said he also supported the state-level efforts. Laggis said a Vermont-only labeling requirement could harm smallVermont producers. She pointed to Bove s, a producer of tomatosauce that sells in both Vermont and New York state. She said thatsince producing two labels is expensive, Bove's would use itsVermont label in New York state, too. But New York-based tomatosauce producers that don t sell in Vermont would not be requiredto label their produce as genetically engineered, and Bove s wouldlose sales. The witnesses who opposed the bill all said they did not object tovoluntary labeling of food that does not contain GMOs. While FDAguidelines discourage the use of GMO-free, they allowstatements like, Our tomato growers do not plant seeds developedusing biotechnology. Partridge, the committee chair, said that the committee will useits reprieve from the crossover deadline to hear next week from thelawmakers attorneys, Legislative Council, about what legaloptions they have and what the effects might be of variousprovisions. In addition to passing the bill as written, lawmakershave discussed making the bill take effect when a certain number ofother states pass similar bills or amending the bill to encouragevoluntary labeling of food that is not genetically engineered. 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