The System Will Not Be Labeled: gm Food Marketing and American Secularism

Abstract

This article examines the lack of transparent labeling for Genetically Modified (gm) foods to show how the marketing of biotechnology obscures the relationship between the production and consumption of industrial agriculture. On the side of production, biotech corporations directly market gm seeds to farmers, to promote brand loyalty and protect proprietary claims. On the side of consumption, however, the biotech industry resists labeling gm ingredients of food products. The article argues that the producer/consumer split in gm food marketing is part of a broader American secularism that circulates a hidden religion of industrial biotechnology within cultural symbols of consumer freedom, personal choice, and moral goodness.