Patty Lovera, Assistant Director of Food and Water Watch, said this is legislation “cooked up by the biggest players in the food industry.”

She said the Grocery Manufacturers Association represents “Big Ag” and they don’t like the fact that more state legislatures are passing bills requiring genetically modified foods to be labeled.

According to Lovera, “They decided their real power comes at the federal level. They spend an enormous amount of time and money lobbying Congress and they convinced some members of Congress to introduce this bill that would prevent states from requiring this labeling and say it’s the federal government’s job, but then really limit the labeling there too.”

She said the bill would actually prevent states from requiring labels on GMO foods, and would also allow the FDA to step back from examining the safety of GMO products.

Lovera said it would also allow “natural” labels to be placed on foods containing GMO’s which is “the opposite of what a rational consumer would expect.”

When asked if GMO’s could have any positive impact like curbing hunger in third world countries, Lovera said those issues are more “political.”

She said there is a lot of “hype” around GMO’s and that the industry likes to prop themselves up as the “magic solution to every problem” and “we haven’t seen more yields from GMO’s” in the US.

“It’s a very expensive model, they’re very expensive seeds packaged with lots of chemicals that you have to buy. That’s not a model to help poor farmers in developing countries. That’s a model for the chemical companies and the equipment companies that want everyone to farm like American Farmers.”

Lovera pointed out, “most of the rest of the world, over 60 countries require these foods to be labeled. A lot of countries don’t use them, but some do. But they at least give people the information about where they are. America is really backwards in this regard, that we don’t give people this really basic piece of information. And it’s really interesting to see how hard these companies are willing to fight to prevent that.”

Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/us/2014_04_23/Bill-Would-Allow-Natural-Labeling-on-GMO-Products-1417/