GUILFORD — A lot of the genetically modified organism (GMO) push comes from other private interests. Agriculture isn't the easiest business, given profit margins, weather, and other factors. Companies want to differentiate their product however they can, and that can mean vilifying their competition.
It's similar to saying “Honey Nut Toasted Grain Circles, 100% uranium free!” It's true, but meaningless. Statements like this can give the impression a product is somehow different from, or better than, the others. This actually happens: “Antibiotic-free eggs/chicken!” All poultry farms in the USA are banned from selling product with antibiotic residue, so it's a moot statement.
“Antibiotic-free milk!” - same thing.
If any farmer puts antibiotic-laced milk into the tank when the milk is picked up, the entire truckload of milk has to be dumped. The farmer then has to pay market price for the lost milk to all the other farmers who have contributed to the tank. They are very, very careful not to do this. Cage-free is a misnomer, too; they rarely use cages anymore.
GMO products are the same as any other modern farming method, once the seeds are in the ground.
What we eat now is so far removed from what grew wild in the pre-agriculture days. It's similar to dog pedigrees: the wolf became the chihuahua through selective breeding. The wild plant with a small seed pod with yellow seeds became what we now call corn with massive cobs.
Genetically engineered (GE) crops accomplish the same task of selective breeding, only much faster and more controlled.
One of the conventional major methods for creating new breeds is called “mutagenesis”: exposing crops to radiation, ethyl methanesulfonate, dimethyl sulfate, or anything else that will cause mutations in the plant's DNA (basically, carcinogens).
When these mutations prove useful, agribusiness breeds that strain and sells the seeds. Plant strains created via mutagenesis can be planted in an organic farm and be sold as organic produce - all certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
So, in the end, the goal is the same: you can't derive the process to create the strain from the final product. Even with a DNA test, you wouldn't know if the plant was derived from GE, mutagens, or ancient breeding. All three of those plants have DNA mutations from the original strain.
Plants don't carry any signs or chemicals over from the process that created them. But all three methods have the same problem of creating a plant that can sacrifice nutritional value - for hardiness or some other trait. It's the battle we've been waging for thousands of years.
By cutting off one method of producing viable strains, we are likely to just drive up the cost of food - for nothing more than a label.