The US food movement, a diverse groups of nutritional and food safety organizations stretching from anti-hunger campaigns anti-genetically modified food groups, are hoping to use the upcoming election help coalesce their movement into a more or less coherent political advocacy group.

One of the difficulties in gathering a unified food coalition has been the wide diversity of political causes. It has been difficult to find issues that are able to unite advocates of urban agricultural with proponents of sustainable farming with critics of large-scale agribusinesses.

One issue in California, however, appears to have bridged this gap. A referendum on the November ballot would require would require labels be applied to genetically modified foods sold in grocery stores. While it may seem like a relatively trivial issue, it has the power to unite a disparate movement behind a unifying set of political ideals that include healthier food, better pay for farm workers, less pollution, and an agricultural industry that is less dominated by major corporations.

According to one of the founders of Food Policy Action, the group spearheading the referendum, “We’re coming to it about 40 years after the environmental movement did. There aren’t a lot of politically oriented organizations in the food movement. This is the first one.”

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Written by: Justin Ellison / Farm Plus Staff Writer