Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
collaborated to collect petitions, including mainstream consumer co-ops—with an
access to their millions of members—that were not opposed to GM food per se. More
and more local assemblies officially demanded labeling of GM food, and voluntary
“GM-free” labels by food manufacturers became common among the ubiquitous soy
products. When the MAFF solicited public comments on the choice between manda-
tory and voluntary labeling in September, the majority of the 10,000-plus respondents—
an atypically large number of comments—supported mandatory labeling (Wada 2000).
While playing a key role in this mobilization around labeling, the No! GMO
Campaign also coordinated and led various types of actions to address other aspects
of food safety and consumer choice. For instance, it urged consumers to boycott prod-
ucts of Kirin Brewery, which developed GM tomatoes—the first and then only approved
domestic GM crop—in cooperation with the American firm Calgene. The campaign
also started having food and feed products tested for traces of GMOs. In July 1999 it
announced that three of six major domestic corn snack products tested positive for
unapproved varieties of GM corn (Amagasa 2001).
The movement achieved a significant success in 2000, when the Ministry of
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) and the Ministry of Health and Welfare
(MHW) decided to revise two laws: the agriculture ministry revised one to introduce
mandatory labeling, while the health ministry announced that voluntary safety assess-
ments of GM food would become mandatory, effective April 2001. Despite their suc-
cess in politicizing the issue of labeling, the campaign and consumer groups fell short
in dictating the criteria for labeling requirements. While they explicitly demanded that
labeling be required for any products that used GM or unsegregated crops, the gov-
ernment introduced more limited requirements: labeling was required only for food
products in which “main ingredients” contained GMOs and modified DNAs or new
protein were detectible.8 This left many processed products with no traces (e.g., soy
sauce, corn oil) exempt, even when they were made with American GM crops. The cri-
teria allowed consumers to avoid food with novel, unfamiliar materials, such as traces
of genetic modification, but it did not give them information on processes used in food
production.
In October 2000 the No! GMO Campaign announced the discovery of traces of
unapproved GMO in food, stirring public anxiety and further boosting the legitimacy
of the opposition movement. The DNAs of StarLink corn, a type of Bt corn that had
already been found in food products in the United States, were detected in a domestic
cake mix. The corn was not approved either as feed or human food in Japan, although
it was approved as animal feed in the United States. In this context, more and more
food manufacturers began to actively exclude GM ingredients, label their products
“non-GMO,” and terminate their projects to develop biotech crops. Kagome Co., Ltd,
a major food and beverage manufacturer, abandoned its GM tomatoes. Kirin Brewery
gave up on commercializing their approved biotech tomatoes and declared that it would
avoid starch from GM corn in its beer. Other beer makers, including Sapporo and Asahi,
followed suit. Even food manufacturers that had not used GM material before started
labeling their products “non-GMO.”
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