​Farm Bill, Including Legalization of Industrial Hemp, Passes the Senate

It’s come to our attention that both Vitamin Retailer and The Washington Post are reporting that the Farm Bill of 2018 has passed the Senate in an 87-13 vote and is making its way to the House of Representatives, where it is also expected to pass as early as this week.The bill includes the legalization of industrial hemp and means a bright and shining future to the burgeoning hemp and CBD industry, which we know many of you, our members, are a part of.

On September 25, the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF) filed a citizen’s petition to the FDA against the NON-GMO Project asking to prohibit the use of the butterfly logo and packaging language stating it “deliberately deceives and misleads consumers” by misbranding. ITIF “request that the Commissioner of Food and Drugs issue regulation to prohibit the use of the term “Non-GMO” on consumer foods and goods, and to require distributors of foods and goods to revise their labeling to omit any “Non-GMO” term or claims.”

ITIF goes on to claim the definition of Non-GMO, by the Non-GMO Project, “is not scientifically defensible”. “It seeks to draw a distinction between something done deliberately by humans and something that occurs spontaneously in “nature” “, while ITIF stance is that “techniques used to bioengineer crops and livestock to produce foods were discovered as natural phenomena”.

The Non-GMO Project, Bellingham, Wash., issued a statement in response: “The petition to the F.D.A., filed by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a biotech-backed think tank, is based on errors and misrepresentations. While it’s not surprising that this organization opposed the public’s right to know whether or not their food contains G.M.O.’s, the petition is factually inaccurate and fundamentally biased. We do not expect the petition to gain traction with the F.D.A.”