Obama signs GMO label bill into law

Aug 02, 2016

USDA has two years to write specific rules

By Diego Flammini
Assistant Editor, North American Content
Farms.com

President Obama signed into law that GMO ingredients must be labeled.

Under the law, items containing GMOs must have “text, (a) symbol or electronic or digital link” that lets customers know a product is made with genetically modified ingredients.

Companies may also include a 1-800 number for customers to call.

According to the Associated Press, the USDA will have two years to write the law’s rules.

The decision for a national GMO law comes about a month after Vermont passed its own version the law.

Vermont’s legislation required clear labeling of GMOs and some feel the national law undermines the state law.

Campbell's has been a vocal supporter of national GMO labeling.

According to the Burlington Free Press, Sen. David Zuckerman described the national law as a “true setback for true transparency in our food.”

Sen. Patrick Leahy told the Burlington Free Press that the national GMO labeling measures is a “very bad deal for customers.”

Others, however, are pleased to see a national GMO bill.

“The American Soybean Association (ASA) congratulates and thanks President Obama for today signing into law the bipartisan GMO compromise bill,” ASA president Richard Wilkins said in a release. “This law will provide stability in the marketplace for both producers and consumers, while avoiding a messy patchwork of state laws. We are happy to put this fight behind us, and continue to provide safe, affordable food for the American people, just as we have for generations.”

National Corn Growers Association president Chip Bowling said the law brings “consistency to the marketplace and prevents the negative ramifications of conflicting state and national food labeling standards.”

Video: Why Your Food Future Could be Trapped in a Seed Morgue

In a world of PowerPoint overload, Rex Bernardo stands out. No bullet points. No charts. No jargon. Just stories and photographs. At this year’s National Association for Plant Breeding conference on the Big Island of Hawaii, he stood before a room of peers — all experts in the science of seeds — and did something radical: he showed them images. He told them stories. And he asked them to remember not what they saw, but how they felt.

Bernardo, recipient of the 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award, has spent his career searching for the genetic treasures tucked inside what plant breeders call exotic germplasm — ancient, often wild genetic lines that hold secrets to resilience, taste, and traits we've forgotten to value.

But Bernardo didn’t always think this way.

“I worked in private industry for nearly a decade,” he recalls. “I remember one breeder saying, ‘We’re making new hybrids, but they’re basically the same genetics.’ That stuck with me. Where is the new diversity going to come from?”

For Bernardo, part of the answer lies in the world’s gene banks — vast vaults of seed samples collected from every corner of the globe. Yet, he says, many of these vaults have quietly become “seed morgues.” “Something goes in, but it never comes out,” he explains. “We need to start treating these collections like living investments, not museums of dead potential.”

That potential — and the barriers to unlocking it — are deeply personal for Bernardo. He’s wrestled with international policies that prevent access to valuable lines (like North Korean corn) and with the slow, painstaking science of transferring useful traits from wild relatives into elite lines that farmers can actually grow. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. But he’s convinced that success starts not in the lab, but in the way we communicate.

“The fact sheet model isn’t cutting it anymore,” he says. “We hand out a paper about a new variety and think that’s enough. But stories? Plants you can see and touch? That’s what stays with people.”

Bernardo practices what he preaches. At the University of Minnesota, he helped launch a student-led breeding program that’s working to adapt leafy African vegetables for the Twin Cities’ African diaspora. The goal? Culturally relevant crops that mature in Minnesota’s shorter growing season — and can be regrown year after year.

“That’s real impact,” he says. “Helping people grow food that’s meaningful to them, not just what's commercially viable.”

He’s also brewed plant breeding into something more relatable — literally. Coffee and beer have become unexpected tools in his mission to make science accessible. His undergraduate course on coffee, for instance, connects the dots between genetics, geography, and culture. “Everyone drinks coffee,” he says. “It’s a conversation starter. It’s a gateway into plant science.”