The battle over mandatory labeling of biotechnology-derived food has reached a boil.
“I’ve been asked to hit on a few points about farmers’ access to biotechnology,” said Andrew Walmsley, American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Congressional Affairs liaison, during a July 16 call to the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation’s (MFBF) annual Summer Soybean, Corn, Wheat, and Feed Grain Grower Policy Meeting held at the Monsanto Learning Center in Scott. “We term it ‘biotechnology’ while opponents label it ‘GMOs’ so I may use that language interchangeably.
“We’ve seen a challenge over the last seven or eight years about this across the country. When I do a presentation on this I always try to go in with hat in hand and say, ‘You know what? I admit we’ve done a pretty poor job … speaking up and defending this technology — not just from agriculture or the farmer side, but the tech companies to the grocery manufacturers and everyone in between.’
“Part of the problem is there are hard-working folks out there trying to produce something while there are people behind a keyboard trying to stir up trouble. They don’t do a whole lot else.”
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