Initiative 522

Initiative 522

Initiative 522. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture.

You are hearing a lot of political bantering about Initiative 522 the labeling of genetically engineered foods initiative. Dana Bieber, spokesperson for the No on I-522 campaign says there is a lot of misleading information being given.

BIEBER: Initiative 522 is a terribly flawed initiative and it doesn't give consumers any useful information. And that's because it gives them information that's inconsistent, incomplete and inaccurate and then that's misleading to consumers. And let me explain to you what I mean by that. Under Initiative 522 there are thousands of food products; anything such as corn oil or canola oil or sugar or products such as that that actually contain no GE content in them whatsoever, zero GE but they would have to be labeled saying that there is GE. And likewise there are thousands of products that either contain or were made with GE and yet they would get a special exemption.

Bieber gives us a capsule of the downside of voting for I-522.

BIEBER: Consumers will then get incomplete, inaccurate and inconsistent information on the food products that we buy in the grocery store. It's also going to increase the cost of our groceries by at least $450 a year for the average family and you know it's really going to hurt our farmers as well. It puts them at a competitive disadvantage because they have to live under a regulatory climate that no other farmer in the entire country would have to comply with.

That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.

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