CA Voted No To GMO Food Labeling, Right-To-Know Supporters Regroup

California voters said “NO” to Proposition 37 (Prop 37) winning by 55 to 45 percent. Prop 37 is Right to Know Act about labeling Genetically Engineered Food which should require food manufacturers to put labels on all food items that contains genetically modified ingredients. The Proposition 37 also includes prohibition of using the word "Natural" in the food label with the exemption of certified organic foods.

Last election night, Proposition 37 which should made all manufacturers to put a label in their products if there are any GMO ingredients included, defeated securely. With all the ads and the celebrity promotion, the result is the last thing they expected. Consumers crave for more details about what they’re actually eating, according to the organic food industry. We should know what are the ingredients or contents of the food that we’re buying so that we’ll know when to or not to buy it.

The YES campaign funded by Organic Food companies like All-One-God-Faith Inc., Nature's Path Foods, Mark Squire, Organic Consumers Fund and more for about $8M. Much less compared to the Big food industry players like Kraft Foods, Coca Cola, Nestle, PepsiCo and other agri-business companies is said to have spent about $45M for the advertising of the "NO" campaign.

Charlotte Silver of the alhazeera.com said, "When I spoke last to Fairbanks in late September, Prop 37 was leading in the polls with 65 per cent in favor and 37 opposed. But the "No campaign" had yet to unleash the $44M arsenal they were amassing from multinational food and biotech companies bent on saving the most important market of GE foods in the world: the United States represents two-thirds of GE seed sales worldwide."

There is already news about the Proposition 37 supporters regrouping. Founder and Executive Director of Food Democracy Now and Co-Chairman to the Right To Know campaign, Dave Murphy said, "We won a moral victory, we exposed this issue nationally in a way that's never been done before." Yes to Prop 37 campaign held a conference call last Wednesday morning to celebrate their "moral victory" and they continue to outline the next steps to be done in the group’s continuous effort to push GMO labeling.