FSANZ proposal on GM foods - Bait & Switch. Have your Say.

New proposed changes to the definition of genetically modified foods by the Food Standards Australia are inbound. Only novel DNA would need to be labelled as GMO, and plants that have been gene edited but not contain new DNA would be exempt from labeling. This threatens the integrity of the organic certification and removes the consumers right to know what is in their food. These changes are good for industry, big industrial agricultural producers, the biotechnology firms and have nothing to do with optimal human health. They are a direct assault on consumer choice.

Paola Crofts, regenerative organic farmer and owner of Tall Poppy Farm in Mt Macedon, Victoria and I discussed this in the recent Fire Pit Chat (recording below).

What you can do

INFORM YOURSELF - read this summary by the organic cooperative and register on the blog link above to be kept up to date. Watch the video recording below. Read the Webinar details from the FSANZ (tiles below).
COMPLETE THE SURVEY - available here and on the above link.
MAKE A SUBMISSION To FSANZ - via this website or via email submissions@foodstandards.gov.au emphasising your concern about new proposals.
CONTACT YOUR LOCAL MEMBER - start with your state food minister expressing your concerns about this decision.
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL REGENERATIVE FARMER - spend your money with people who are raising chemical free, GMO free food and not with the centralized, industrialized food system. Check the farmers directory on the thread to find one near you.

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You can copy paste this letter template in a email submission:

Re: Second Call for submission: P1055 Definitions for gene technology and new breeding techniques

Email to: submissions@foodstandards.gov.au I object to the FSANZ proposal P1055 to exempt gene edited and GM food processes and ingredients from notification, assessment, regulation, and labelling.

I therefore strongly insist on –

Rigorous Regulation of all food ingredients derived from NBTs (New Breeding Techniques) and other biotechnologies (GM and gene edited), entering the human food supply.

My right to be fully informed and to choose what my family eats – for cultural and personal reasons – through the full labelling of all Gene Edited and GM foods, whole foods, food ingredients, processing aids, additives, flavours, colours, etc;

Notification, case-by-case assessment of all Gene Edited foods, ingredients, and production processes used in NBTs, without the exemptions that P1055 proposes. with the claims that refining and ultra-processing remove all foreign DNA and proteins;

Rigorous and precautionary assessment of all materials and processes used in food fermentations to produce artificial meat, simulated milk and all other synthetic food-like substances that industry may in future propose;

Post market assessment and ongoing monitoring of all NBT-derived food stuffs that may enter the food supply. Unregulated, exempted NBT developed foods do not have a history of healthy dietary safety that conventional foods do;

Putting the public interest, the right to know, ahead of trade and industry issues, when the costs and benefits of biotech food manufacturing methods and products are assessed;

Requiring the food industry to submit published, peer reviewed, and independent scientific evidence that all NBTs used to produce food stuffs are, in the short and long term, efficacious for the safety, health, and wellbeing of the all consumers;

All food produce, products and supplies regulated and protected from the unlabelled and unwelcome intrusion of whole and ultra-processed foods, made using NBTs and other new food production methods that may in future be developed.

Yours sincerely,

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