I want to take a minute and share with my readers the latest issue campaign by American Farm Bureau. It’s called “Get A Move On.” If you click on the link, you can see that it is a website dedicated to encouraging members to get in touch with their elected leaders and tell them that a voluntary and national labeling standard for genetically engineered foods needs to be a priority.
As the website says:
Over 90 percent of U.S. corn, cotton and soybeans is produced using biotechnology. If there are increasing requirements that biotech foods carry what amounts to a warning label, farmers will lose access to a beneficial technology that makes up $64 billion worth of corn, $38 billion worth of soybeans and nearly $8 billion worth of cotton.
But whether you produce these row crops, or livestock, potatoes, apples, papayas or other agricultural products, access to current biotech traits that resist pests, disease and drought is helping you grow more food using less land, water, fuel and pesticides. And there are more beneficial traits in the pipeline—if we don’t pull the rug out from under the market for biotech products.
The website has a simple form that you can fill out to send a letter to your Congressman to support passage of the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act.
One of my favorite parts of the website is that it is designed with local and regional information to show just how important genetically engineered crops are to farmers in different regions of the country, including state-specific facts about GMO crops. The numbers make quite an impact and definitely make excellent talking points for farmers and pro-GMO folks to use when explaining why this technology is significant and important for agriculture.
I certainly encourage you to check out the website, spend some time getting relevant information for your own state, and (most importantly!) using some of the interactive features to support biotechnology!
Click here for the website!
My rep is Sponsoring the bill. Good to go.
I am so glad that American Farm Bureau is pushing farmers to make the contact with the legislators. I sent my letter as soon as I got the email about the program. Everyone needs to contact their legislators and become a source for trustworthy information for them.