The federal government needs to help educate the public about the reality of GM crops.Ottawa—The Canadian Food Inspection Agency needs to crack down on false and misleading labels about GM foods, says Robert Saik, an agrifood entrepreneur and commentator.CFIA should order grocery stores and food companies to remove false labels about GM products because they create uncertainty and doubt among consumers, he told the Commons agriculture committee.“When you go to the grocery store you will see a non-GMO butterfly sticker that appears on things like maple syrup, non-GMO maple syrup,” he said. “Well there aren't any genetically engineered maple trees. Non-GMO Catelli pasta; there isn't any genetically engineered durum wheat. Non-GMO Hunts tomato sauce; there aren't any genetically engineered tomatoes.”Other examples he cited included non-GMO Himalayan rock salt, non-GMO tea, non-GMO seaweed extract, non-GMO coconuts, non-GMO spinach, non-GMO lettuce, non-GMO bacon for which there are no genetically-modified sources.Saik said the labels cash in on a fear-based agenda being pushed by activists to create “uncertainty and doubt in the consumers. It's estimated that between $2.5 billion and $3 billion is circulated annually through activist organizations bent on spinning fear, uncertainty and doubt.”The groups wants to create uncertainty in the marketplace, he said. “They do this because they have an agenda and part of that agenda is to drive food costs up based on labels.”He urged the committee and the government “to help the public to understand that GMO genetic engineering is not an ingredient. It's a very poor moniker for a description of modern breeding processes.”The government also needs to defend the food safety system, he said. “Health Canada's recent ruling on glyphosate would be an example but we also need to recognize that the novel trait registration system that we have in this country is a strong one.” It's under novel traits that the existing GM crops are registered.He said that grapefruit used to be white-fleshed until scientists and plant breeders used mutagenesis to turn it red-fleshed. The fruit was exposed “to nuclear radiation, specifically gamma radiation that scrambled the chromosomal complex of the grapefruit turning it from white-fleshed to red-fleshed. That's why you have red-fleshed grapefruit today. This is called mutagenesis. It's a breeding process.”Researchers in the Okanagan “figured out how to flick off three to four enzymes inside of an apple to prevent the apple from growing brown.“Which one is GMO? Well, in fact, it's the apple that's GMO,” he said. The grapefruit could “be labelled organic, non-GMO even though the chromosomal complex was scrambled with nuclear radiation.“In Canada we have all kinds of examples of people benefitting from GMO technology,” he said. “If you know of anybody who is being kept alive through insulin injections those are GMO medicines. Haemophiliacs are being kept alive through GMO medicines and most of the hard cheese that we eat in North America is GMO because the coagulant is a GMO or genetically engineered coagulant called chymosin.“In Canada we register our products based on novel traits. I would encourage the standing policy committee to fight for that and to retain that in Canada because it's a level-headed approach to how we look and study the breeding processes and the crops and livestock that are being brought forward.”Alex Binkley is a freelance journalist and writes for domestic and international publications about agriculture, food and transportation issues. He's also the author of two science fiction novels with more in the works.