Aug 16, 2016

By: Jennifer Hatcher, Senior Vice President, Government and Public Affairs, Food Marketing Institute
USDA Building

FMI recently held its State Issues Retreat in Middleburg, Virginia, hosting grocery state associations and representatives from several FMI member companies. Among the speakers at the meeting, participants heard from Doug McKalip, Senior Advisor to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who has responsibility within USDA for the GMO disclosure issue. He provided an overview of the agency’s potential framework for implementation of the recently passed bioengineered food disclosure legislation (P.L. 114-216).
 
USDA sent a letter to all 50 states and territories, indicating that preemption contained in the law became effective immediately after President Obama signed the legislation on July 29, 2016. McKalip indicated that the agency determined that USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) will have the lead in implementing the law and that USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) will assist, particularly as it relates to the ingredient listing. He also mentioned that USDA wants this process to be open and transparent; a website, phone line and email address, GMOlabeling@ams.usda.gov, have already been created. USDA intends to publish responses to questions that they receive on this site. The agency also has plans to have listening sessions and anticipates publishing an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) this fall to raise some of these questions directly to the public.

Thank you to those of you who have already put in the many hours of work over the past several months on the legislative side, but we still need your expertise as the regulatory process is only just beginning. FMI expects to play an active role in the law’s implementation, working closely with USDA as the rulemaking begins, and we will reach out for feedback and information from FMI members in several key areas to further enhance our efforts. We appreciate all of the hard work that has gotten us to this point in the policy rulemaking process, and we will provide additional updates as they develop.

Photo Credit: Diego Delso [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons