In late August 1998, MAFF released a proposal for comment that included several labeling scenarios. Participants in the drafting process said that their sole goal was to give consumers more information so that they could be knowledgeable shoppers. Clinton administration trade officials, U.S. grain and soybean exporters and food processors in Japan all objected to the MAFF initiative, arguing that labeling, whether voluntary or mandatory, would lead consumers to believe that, in fact, some health or safety risk was associated with gene-altered foods. They also pointed out that labeling would raise food prices since so many processed products would have to be tested to determine if they contained GMOs. Enormous logistical problems also could develop in the United States.
American farmers supply the bulk of the huge volume of corn and soybeans that Japan buys every year.
Although some 70 percent of the corn imported goes into livestock and poultry feed, a significant amount is used in food products. The complication is that roughly one-third of the corn grown here is genetically engineered, as is an estimated half of the soybean crop. However, it is an expensive undertaking given the long distribution chain from the farm in the Midwest to the food processing factory in Japan. These arguments did not carry the day, but they did help to make the list of processed foods that must be labeled far shorter than consumer groups advocated. Products exempt from labeling include soybean oil, soy sauce, corn flakes, corn oil, cottonseed oil, mashed potatoes, potato starch, potato flakes and frozen or canned potato products.