Last week officials in Washington State announced that a law introducing mandatory labelling of genetically modified foodstuffs will be voted on in November at the latest.

The announcement was made after food campaigners secured the 250,000 signatures necessary to put the proposed labelling law on the state's 2013 election ballot. Their efforts follow attempts to introduce GM food labelling in California, a state seen as a litmus test for laws which are then rolled out in the wider United States.

California's Proposition 37 was narrowly defeated in the polls in October 2012. If passed, the law would have introduced labelling covering the majority of GM foods and ingredients. However, concerted lobbying from US 'big food' companies, which spent a cool $46 million on advertising aimed at derailing the measure, saw an initial groundswell of support for Prop 37 begin to wane.

Initiative 522 had the support of 350,000 signatories from Washington State when the proposition was submitted to the Secretary of State. On Friday 1st February, the Secretary's office reported that I-522 had been certified for inclusion in the November ballot, adding that, if passed, the measure "would require most raw agricultural commodities, processed foods, seeds and seed stocks, if produced using genetic engineering, to be labelled as genetically engineered when offered for retail sale."

Now the I-522 measure has been certified, it will go before state legislators, who could pass it into law directly, take no action (in which case the labelling proposal will still appear on the November ballot for a public vote), or arrange for a public vote earlier than November pitting the proposal against a legislative alternative.

Industry voices commenting on the labelling debate currently raging in the United States acknowledge that GM food suffers from a bad press and argue labelling laws would mislead customers into believing there are definite health risks associated with GM. Supporters of labelling point out that such labelling exists throughout much of the rest of the world and state the issue is about freedom of choice. They also maintain that there is currently a lack of transparency over GM testing results, and no scientific consensus on the safety or efficacy of the technology as a whole.